Look at me!

Few years ago I took part in a multidisciplinary, multicultural project in an early childhood and care institution (ECEC) close to a refugee centre. Half of the children group did not speak Norwegian. The project aimed to collaboration and integration of children and their parents in the new community. We wanted to do something that did not rely on verbal language, some kind of activities both children and their parents could participate in and exchange cultural knowledge and experiences. As teacher of visual arts I suggested that some kind of material, common in all parts of the world, could be good foundation to build content and curricula (since materials can structure curricula (Fredriksen 2010)). With some inspiration from the children and corn field landscapes in the ECEC’s surroundings, the choice fell on material: flour. This was no usual art material, but can you imagine how many different tasty things could be made of it? We invited parents to show their baking / cooking skills from different cultures ... but that's another story. The story to be told here is about little Adi, who turned three on the first project day. Wearing his special birthday suit, together with his mother he stood speechless in the doorway and watched the kids playing on the floor with toy tractors full of flour, and flour-dusty clothes.

  

Adi was a quiet boy, so quiet we thought he could not speak a word. He did not even make any sounds. Ones he hit his forehead on the edge of a table, he held his hand on the painful spot, but did not cry or make ​​any sound.

When we, a week later, visited a farm with old-fashioned mill and stone own, Adi made a loaf of bread and marked it with special sign. When the bread came out of the own, he recognized it and pointed with smile, but still no sound. On our way back home, he fell asleep sitting in the back seat in heart-warming embrace with his bread.

I will never forget what happened the morning after. When Adi arrived to the ECEC with his mother, she hugged and kissed everyone she came over. With joyful tears and broken English she managed to convey that Adi had told her everything! He explained the whole process that started with crushing of grains between the millstones and ended with golden bread on his chest. Her joy was overwhelming, but our surprize that Adi could speak was even larger! We realized that Adi understood so much more than we had imagined: He had even understood that there was no point in communicating in the only language he knew! He had to be creative in exploring other ways of communication. 

Images from the project were printed and exhibited on the ECEC wall. When Adi few days later saw a picture of himself with his bread, his alternately pointed on the image and on his chest. He was tapping on the picture and looking around to get attention. He hoped that everyone could hear his silent shouting: LOOK AT ME!

Children need to be seen, heard and acknowledged, however silent they are! This requires attentive and caring adults -  kind of adults that are so engaged that they can see the invisible and hear the soundless. 

Fredriksen, B. C. (2010). Meaning making, democratic participation and art in early childhood education: Can inspiring objects structure dynamic curricula? International Journal of Education through Art, 6(3), 383-397.

Largest in the World

My niece Ana is now a big girl: almost three years old! She grows with every small task she does the way adults do. She feels important when someone needs her help. And she gladly shows what she can do: “Look at me I can stand on one foot!” She can also ride a donkey!

The donkey is not so tall, but sitting in the saddle was still risky enough and Ana had to grasp the horn of the saddle. She gradually learned to be attentive to the rhythm of the donkey’s movements from side to side. The balance had to be negotiated through her upper body, especially since her feet could not reach the stirrups. She could feel the challenges of riding up- and downhill, and it was only on the flat ground that she let go of the saddle horn in order to fix the helmet (with a serious expression on her face).

The first few minutes of riding were a bit scary and her father had to support her back; Ten minutes later she told her dad to stay away; After half an hour Ana was ready to ride "the largest horse in the world” – as she expressed with enormous confidence. Mastering the donkey riding gave her courage to face greater challenges.

Small portions of mastery give courage and self-confidence to cope with larger challenges. Motivation comes from the mastery, but also from the struggle with the challenge – as Eisner (2002) wrote: “No challenge no growth; No mastery no growth.” It is my opinion that humans embody urge to explore and pursue the unknown, mystical and puzzling issues. If this urge is, in early age, support by significant adults, it will become powerful motivation to solve any kind of challenges – it becomes the driving force behind creativity. Charles Darwin wrote about his own desire to explore anomalies and strange issues none else found worth exploring (Smith, 2005). It was exactly the fact that he had enough motivation and self-confidence to pursue the odd that contributed to the great discoveries. Louis Smith (2005) reminds us of the relations between desire for anomalies and exceptions, and creativity.

Some of us strive to let our children face challenges. We are afraid they would hurt themselves. The challenges we expose the children to must, of course, be appropriate, but since it is the adults who have the power to decide what is appropriate, we should be aware of that lack of our own courage can actually prevent the children from experiencing mastery, becoming more self-confident and creative.   

Eisner, E. W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Smith, L. M. (2005). Anomalies, Exceptions and Creativity: A Perspective from Darwin's Natural History. Perspectives in Education, 21(2), 69-86.

Viking Inspired Clothes Design

I spent much of this summer on sawing. I do not complain: I am indeed happy that I accepted the invitation from Ethonopeia to take a part on an international fashion show on Zlatibor in Serbia. I’ve been designing clothes and sawing them much of my life, but seldom took time to create something which is truly my own design, without considering a costumer’s wishes. This was a wonderful experience.  

Me in the middle 

 

The garments are inspired by simple Viking clothes in natural materials and details from Oseberg boat … not necessarily noticeable, but transformed through my personal experiences with construction of replica of this famous Viking boat from Vestfold area. See the article at pages of Norwegian embassy in Belgrade.

Next show is in Belgrade September 25^th.  I still have some more to create  and am planning to write more about the design process.   

Engagement in Teaching and Learning

For the last 10 years or so, I’ve been presenting my research on conferences in USA, France, Canada, England, Spain, Lithuania etc. but never in my birth country, Serbia. In Fall 2012 I got an e-mail from an teacher educator who occasionally found my articles on internet and realized that we had common research interests. At that point she only knew my second name (which is Norwegian) but when she found this blog she saw my first name and got excited – the name uncovered that I was Serbian. Her e-mail reached me while I was visiting my parents in Belgrade and we had a chance to connect. Nevena Hadzi Jovancic is an art professor at Teacher Education Faculty at Belgrade University. She invited me to give a talk at her faculty, which I finally did in spring 2014, more exactly April 15th.

I have to admit that I was curious how many people would show up the afternoon before Easter holiday, especially because the lecture was not required for the students, but I was positively surprised. The auditorium was fool of people, mostly students but also faculty members: teachers in mathematics, music, pedagogy and visual art. Next astonishment: No phones, no computers, nor hiding behind the screens - the student showed full attention. I could feel how this act of respect and trust that I was given strengthened my self-confidence. The expectations reflected in the faces of the audience made me even more engaged.

I told them how important eye contact end body language is for children and students of all ages - in the same time as my body verified my words. The communication was immediate and the positive energy was flowing back and forward: the audience was motivating me, so that I could motivate them back. So, when the applause broke loose, I must say that it was the audience that deserved at the least the half of the cheering. The applause sounded suspiciously similar to what you hear on rock concerts - a kind of applause a teacher only can dream of. Nevena later commented that she was afraid the students were about to light their lighters and phones to glow in the dark. And I felt like I was supposed to go back on stage and repeat one of my songs – though I did not sing that afternoon at all…

No wonder, after this experience meeting my students back in Norway was a bit disappointing. I don’t like to say this in public (though I am quite sure that these specific students will never bother to read my blog, even though I did ask them to do so). I have to make explicit that I am not saying that students in Belgrade are more engaged than students in Vestfold, but I am saying that some groups are more engaged than others; Some student groups develop to be more engaged and positive than others, and some groups unfortunately bring the worst in each other.
 
Something obviously happened during the hour “on the stage” on Belgrade university. On the other hand, some of my own students never gave me a chance to share with them my research, but with anger and disrespect stopped me before I started. After a few attempts I actually gave up. When their virtually asked “Why do we have to be here, when we would rather do something more fun? Why are you bothering us – listening and reflecting is so hard!”, I felt like drawing under a heavy wave of discouragement and disengagement. Why should I bother when they don’t? I know, I know… because I am responsible for the teaching. But I don’t believe that anyone can be thought if she/he does not want to be thought! What do you think?
  
One thing I am sure of is that teaching and learning are much more meaningful, fun and long-lasting if each student and teacher invests own share of positivity and respect, and responsibly contribute with whatever they can bring to the context. A friendly smile is a big contribution.

Limited Experiences Delimit Imagination

There is a saying in Norwegian: “Possibilities are delimited only by your imagination”(«Det er bare fantasien som setter grenser») which keeps puzzling me; How can imagination be delimiting? I thought it was deliberating!? But on my second thought, our imagination is of course delimited to what we are able and willing to imagine… The more diverse experiences we’ve had, the more we can imagine. And opposite: some things are impossible to imagine if we possess a narrow spectre of experiences.

From: Valli, M., & Dessany, M. (2011).
Microworlds. London: Laurence King.

While waiting for a bus one of the really cold but sunny days in Illinois this winter (about 20 C degrees below zero), I met a girl who told me about her experience. She told me how she, back at home in Kenya, watched American movies and could not understand why people in the movies wore warm clothes when it was sunny. In her experience, if it was sunny, it had to be hot – she had never experience anything else and could not imagine that it could be both cold and sunny in the same time.

Another example that comes to my mind is when my son and I travelled from Norway to Serbia the summer he was seven. He wanted to play football in the middle of a sunny day. I told him to stay indoors and wait a few hours because it was too hot. He replied: “How can you suggest I should stay indoors – you are always saying: The sun is shining, go out and play. Why can’t I go out and play now?” I realized he was right, but what he did not understand was that temperature on a sunny day in Norway is about 20 C degrees lower than a sunny day in Serbia.
 

From: Valli, M., & Dessany, M. (2011). Microworlds. London: Laurence King.

What we are able to imagine, depends on out past experiences. When we are playful or deal with arts, our imagination “has license to fly”, said Elliot Eisner (Eisner, 2002). Still, our imagination has to be fed by diverse experiences in order fly; Imagination is a force that connects our experiences, finds relations, makes is possible to imagine something different than it is. Imagine a puzzle with 100 parts; If a few parts are missing, your imagination would be able put the puzzle together and complement the puzzle with imaginary pieces. But if only have a few puzzle pieces, the imagination will probably not be able to fill the empty spaces. Though, young children are, and have to be, skilful “pilots” of imagination particularly because they own only a few puzzle pieces (few experiences than adults) and in order to make their world hang together they have to have elastic imagination that stretches far; Young children’s imagination connects things that adults would seldom think as related.
 

From: Valli, M., & Dessany, M. (2011). Microworlds. London: Laurence King.

Here comes the question that has been bothering me: Can true mutual understanding ever be accomplished between people who lack similar experiences, and don’t trust their imagination? I’ve been struggling with this issue when I am trying to explain why and how arts are important for personal development. In the ears of people who have never dealt with arts, or have no positive experience with the arts, my words probably resonate something else than what I am trying to express. I frequently meet students whose experiences and imagination haven’t been acknowledged earlier in their lives. Being a teacher-educator for 15 years, I’ve figured out that my students first need to get some experiences with materials, with play and their own imagination before I can talk about these things in the way that they would understand. And when I ask them to play, some of them seem suspicious: Can they trust me? Do I really want them to be playful and not punish them for that later (if their products are not good enough)? We need to establish a trusting relationship in order to play and be imaginative, but we also need to acquire as many diverse experiences as possible.

The images are from: Valli, M., & Dessany, M. (2011). Microworlds. London: Laurence King. Eisner, E. W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

Hiding Just Enough

We sometimes hide, but want to be found. My niece Ana demonstrates how one can hide just enough. She does not want to vanish – so she does not cover all of her body with the duvet. She does not want to risk not being found. The two year old is begging to understand the game of hiding and the privilege of deciding where and how much one wants (and needs) to hide.

My game is different - actually it is not a game but serious business of research – but my imagination finds some similarities between Ana’s and my activities. While preparing for conducting qualitative interviews, I have been thinking about how to present myself. I fully respect my interviewees, I do not plan to be dishonest and would never do anything to harm them, but they do not have to know everything about me and my research. A trusting relationship is important. Interviewees needs to feel comfortable in order to uncover their believes, feeling, thoughts and ideas, but if the relationship become friend-like wouldn’t that make my interviewees tell me what they assume I want to hear? I think that there is nothing wrong with being friendly, curious, attentive and caring, but I should not tell them about my hopes and expectations.



I am not worried about my misinterpretations during the data analysis - I am more worried about that I can come to say and do during our “momentary meetings”(Aspelin, 2010). A facial expression that only takes a millisecond can decide further development of our conversations. I know myself: if I experience that someone is uncomfortable I can start bubbling in a supportive way in order to restore their confidence. My most important homework is to prepare to constrain my talking and I find this difficult particularly because I care about my interviewees and I feel responsible for their wellbeing, especially because I had invited them. (The one who invites is responsible for paying the bill, I suppose.)

 

Redrawing from talking is not a question of honesty, is it? What if I just hide a toe or my left shoulder as long as the rest of my body (including the heart) is fully present? Ana’s examples function as helpful instructions. Thanks Ana! - Your playful ways of approaching the world trigger my reflections about things you probably never thought about.

Aspelin, J. (2010). What really matters is 'between'. Understanding the focal point of education from an inter-human perpective. Education Inquiry, 1(2), 127-136.

Masters of Inclusion

My Norwegian friends ask me what I am doing in Urbana, Illinois, so far away from home? I have to admit that I’ve had a moment or two when I also wondered: What is the point of being a visiting scholar?

 

Prof. Stake's double office is always “open for business”.

Here comes a quick answer: I learn and experience so much, and do it in different ways than I can do at my home institution (Vestfold University College). The concentration of competence and knowledge gathered around the University of Illinois is overwhelming, and it is even more overwhelming when holders of such knowledge, prominent professors, want to share their wisdom with me. In a sophisticated way I learn about myself through their eyes. I feel included and it might be exactly this feeling that is the most important experience I will be bringing with me; Inclusion and curiosity about my research provide me with motivation, confidence and endurance needed to peruse research challenges I am dealing with.

Hug of inclusion: Comfortable between Prof. Liora Bresler and Prof. Michael Parsons on Liora's party December 7th.

Among the wise professor with long-life-research-carriers I feel like someone who has just learned how to walk and with stumbling steps tries to catch up. Still they invite me to accompany them for meetings with their old friends, for lunches, trips, and Halloween- and Thanksgiving dinners with their families; They trust me to present on their courses, to write research proposals with them, to borrow their books and offices, and give advice to their PhD-students. They share theatre and other experiences with me, and even organize parties for me, as Prof. Liora Bresler has been doing; Liora is a true master of inclusion! As well are Prof. Robert Stake and Prof. Walter Feinberg. I suppose their inclusive attitude, curiosity and care for others are subtle components of their wisdom.

 Prof. Robert Stake, Robert Louisell, Charles Secolsky, Klaus Witz and I drove to St. Louis to visit Prof. Louis Smith and his friend David Goodwin on December 3rd. 

 

Bodies Communicate Attitudes

I am in Urbana again, a guest of University of Illionis and a Fulbright scholar. In 2010 I spent seven weeks here and really enjoyed the possibility to be a part of the large community of researchers where is always possible to find someone who shares my ideas about the arts, teaching and qualitative research. However, on my way to Urbana I found someone with similar interests even before I had sat my foot on the American ground. On the plane from Stockholm to Chicago I found myself sitting beside one of such people I had so much in common with! Strange coincidence, isn’t it?  We did not know about each other and before we could start our five-hours-long conversation a few other coincidences had to take place: that I placed a book I hoped to read in the pocket in from of me, that this was a book Walter Gershon (that’s my new friend’s name) recognized the book (Nachmanovitch, 1990: “Free play. Improvisation in Life and Art”), and that he did not hesitate to ask: Why are you reading that book? That is how the most interesting conversation started.

We spoke about learning in arts, we found out that we knew some of the same people and that we used much of the same literature. Somehow we begun to discuss body-language – possibly I started to talk about my horse, or Walter started to talk about his classroom interactions with teacher students. It really does not matter what we started to talk about first, in my body-mind all of my experiences, professional and private, suddenly merged; I suddenly realized how my recent interest in communication between humans and horses was relevant in understanding of communication between human.

Pay attention to how the horse trainer’s leg movement is copied by the horse. (The photography is owned by Heidi Lysdahl - the horse trainer).

Walter was talking about his experience how the inner attitude, respect and determination to lead a group of students easily gets perceived by the students; I was thinking about the course in horse-human communication that my horse and I recently attended, and how the teacher at the course (slightly intimidated by my horse’s inner strength and teenager attitude) stood still before she entered the space where the horse was running freely - She said she was working on her inner strength; Horses are extremely capable of detecting such inner strength and would adjust their attitudes accordingly. When we relate this to teacher training, a teacher student might think that it would be easy just to learn how to stand and by that control a class of young students – however this is not simple at all, particularly because it is not possible to fake. You really have to mean, end fell and know who you are and what you stand for. If you want to influence your student’s attitudes, you will first have to get to know yourself and work on your own attitudes.

Today (November 18th) I am giving a lecture that touches upon a similar issue: To be good teachers we have to know our attitudes about teaching and learning. To be good teachers of young children we need to know how they learn - And this is something we can learn from them. The title for my talk is “What Can Young Children Teach Us About Learning?”



The image of me and the horse is from Meg's Riding Academy in Homer, where I've been learning western riding style.    

Researchers' Voices in Politics of Early Childhood Education

The 23rd EECERA (European Early Childhood Education and Care) conference was hosted by University of Tallinn in August 2013. I had never been in Estonia before and joined a sightseeing tour where I learned about Estonian’s passion for singing: They sing when they are happy; They sing when something is wrong – They even sing in revolt: it way through “Singing revolution” that when they won independence from Soviet occupation!

My imagination connects the experience from Tallinn sightseeing to my experiences from the conference; What I have on mind are the two keynote presentation which were as contrasting as the words “singing” and “revolution”; Encouraged by the historical fact that gathered voices can change a nation’s future, I was (and am) hoping that voices of qualitative researchers can influence political decisions in education. The voice of Kathy Sylva from University of Oxford discouraged and scared me. The voice of Nandita Chaudhary, from University of Delhi, gave me hope.
 
The two professors, both brilliant presenters, had quite difficult approaches to reality. Professor Sylva’s presentation “Quality in Early Childhood Education: Can it Be International?” introduced large scale quantitative studies she meant could give us general answers about the quality of early childhood worldwide. Though she did not explain what she means by “quality”, attentive listeners could sense that her quality definition was related to economy; She explained how she, long time ago, presented her research (conducted among children in one city) to UK government and was not convincing enough. So she decided to give the politicians what they wanted: she gathered with other researchers to conduct large international research project that would measure The quality in early childhood education. She now has powerful influence on the political decisions and has managed to convince governments of number of countries that early childhood education is important for a country’s future economy. She managed to influence politicians to invest more money in early childhood education, which is a good thing – but did not challenge politicians to consider that quality of a child’s life might not be possible to calculate as simple mathematical equation of what comes in and what comes out.

Professor Kathy Sylva believes that quality can be measured disregarding the local contexts. She earned policy makers trust by giving them what they wanted: large scale quantitative research results. But how can we be sure that what policy makers want is what children in future societies will need!? (Wants and needs are two different things, says  Noddings (2003)). Should understanding of quality in early childhood be restricted by politicians’ delimited imagination and will to consider that many truths can exist simultaneously?

 

Quantitative results are simpler to grasp, but reality is much more complex. When definition of quality is, by those in power, restricted to economy-related understanding, the definition itself supports their ignorance and superiority upon underprivileged, those whose voices are not strong or loud enough to promote other definitions of early childhood quality. 

Indian professor Nandita Chaudhary presented her views on early childhood quality from completely different angle than Professor Sylva. Reminding the conference participants that she comes from one of most populated countries of the world, in a gentle manner she made us (European early childhood representatives) feel ashamed of our preconceived superiority. She said something like this: “How can early childhood quality ever be universal when cultures, values and family relations are such diverse around the world?!” If we believe that the Western world possesses “the true measurement of quality” and we wish to expose the rest of the world to the same measurement, then we are taking part in yet another colonization. Professor Chaundhary’s voice was lonely and emotional, but in such powerful way expressed the necessity of considering local context in research.

Quantitative correlations can give us simple answers, but reality is not simple. To calculate what one can get for specific amount of money does not necessarily answers the question of what one needs or how the purchase will influence one’s future. Qualitative research teaches us that there are many answers to the same question and that understanding is contextual and dependent on many variables, for instance: who wants to understand. To be able to understand something better demands personal efforts, takes time and courage. Are politicians willing to do that? Are we willing… do we dare to understand more if things get more complicated when we suddenly understand how little we understood before?

Noddings, N. (2003). Happiness and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Both images are from Tallinn, Estonia.

A comment on the «donkey problem»

Few days ago I had a chance to meet early childhood practitioners in Drammen municipality and tell them about the donkey. Unfortunately they did not have a chance to meet the donkey “in person”, but I showed them images of the horse and the donkey and explained the horse’s anxious attempts to communicate by whinnied that was never responded by the donkey. And when the participants were asked similar question as the freshmen students the other day (how to help the donkey to communicate), quite different answers were given and some new questions emerged: Whose problem is it that the donkey could not boast? What if the donkey is just fine and enjoys being mute? Maybe it is the horse that needs help; the young horse needs to learn how to be more independent and self-confident! Some of the participants suggested that the horse needed a few sessions with a horse-whisperer.

 

Even though this discussion can seem a bit absurd, in it’s deeper and metaphoric meanings it raised important questions about power definition. How easy is it for us, superior adults, to take quick decisions and even with best intentions ignore children’s contributions? For early childhood practitioners reflections about own power should be on the daily menu. If nothing else from my three-hour teaching session in Dramman gets remembered, remembering the issues about the “donkey problem” might be enough. Thanks for reminding me! 

What Can a Donkey Teach Teacher Students?

A new study year has started at Vestfold University College. I was responsible to facilitate activities for app. 100 new students in the beginning of their early childhood teacher education on Tuesday August 27th. Wishing to give them a memorable start I planned an assignment which would challenge them to solve a real problem: design an aid that can enable a dumb donkey to communicate by sound. The problem solving activity demanded collaboration with people they had just met and establishing a good learning atmosphere was one of the aims of the group work. The assignment was also meant to function as an introduction to what it can mean to be a student and invitation to use all senses, imagination and the whole body in their learning and teaching.

The main goals were:
- To become aware of that each student’s attitude, humor, imagination, curiosity, emotions, knowledge and skills count as valuable sources in a collaborative learning processes
- To experience creativity in practice and how imagination contributes to learning
- To experience that learning is an challenging process that demands attention, persistence and investment of personal efforts; that some things can only be understood thorough engagement in an activity; that emotional attachment and genuine will to solve a problem (in this case motivated by empathy for the donkey) matters in learning;

The assignment had two main parts: First the students were asked to discuss a design of an aid for the donkey and had possibility to measure or test it. One group for instance tested the donkey’s ability to band it’s neck by putting apple pieces on the it’s back. The students were to make a drawing of the aid and explain on a poster how the aid would be used.

The second part of the assignment was to make a pedagogical plan that could be used to teach the donkey to use the aid. Such plan could be based on observation of the donkey, information about donkeys on internet, students own experiences from animal training or similar. The donkey was present during the three hours the students were working on the assignment, thus some of the students were much faster in finished the assignment - they still don’t know that assignment like this could last for days or months, depending on the level of going in-depth. One of my hopes was indeed to motivate the students to engage with assignments that their teachers plan in order to facilitate their learning. If they are eager to learn, refusing an assignment only because it seems silly is not an option. However silly (or call it creative or imaginative) it can lead to insights and experiences that could not be imagined in advance. If learning leads to new insights, how can we ever know in advance what we will come to understand? But being enriched with new experiences can last forever…

The event was covered by journalists from NRK (Norwegian national TV- channel) with a radio report, internet news and regional TV program Østafjells on august 27th (please rewind to 13 minutes and 30 seconds in the show). Though they focused mostly on the funny and cute sides of the event, the publicity was good for the new preschool teacher education, for me, and of course for donkeys.

Photo: Jan Gulliksen NRK

Imitating own Experiences

We can easily observe how young children imitate their parents and other adults. That is a natural way of learning, sometimes done intuitively, sometimes in admiration of adults’ actions (pretending to be adults), or simply because children’s experiences with close adults are the only experiences they have about people’s behaviour; In the beginning of their lives, children’s experiences from close surroundings are their only way to know the world.    

My niece Ana, now 21 months old, has a proud expression on her face when she finds a piece of paper on the floor (or something else she defines as trash) and self-initiatively throws it in the garbage can. I can imagine that she had observed similar garbage-throwing-actions done by her family members. And I know that she had also been assigned similar tasks by her father who realized her urge to pretend-play to be an adult. He would ask her to help him to through something and then applaud her. I am sure that his support motivated her initiative to gradually take action in her own hands and throw things without being asked (though she sometimes throws things that are not supposed to be thrown). Her enjoyment of mastering the garbage-throwing-skills is related to her father’s accept and support – and as a human being she strives for being accepter and loved and therefor tries to “do things right”.

I observed Ana putting bear puppets to sleep. She cuddled them carefully over their heads and said something that sounded like “sleep”. I imagined that this was how her parents treated her when she would go to sleep, and her mother later approved that they do; Ana’s own experience of being patted over her head made her believe that this is how everyone falls asleep - she does not know any other way. When she and I placed the bear puppets on the pillow, she was applying her passive experiences of being cuddled, but in this contextshe was the caretaker and the bears those who need her care.

The same gentle movement of her right hand is to be observed in the way she touches her cats and dogs. I was touched by the same tenderness of her little hand when she was cuddling a horse. The gentleness was not adjusted to the size of the horse, but was the only way of striking she knew, even though it could by the horse be perceived rather as tickling than supportive clapping.

The sum of Ana’s past experiences is the basis for her choices of actions in new situations. By time she will learn to adjust her hand movements and other actions according to the specificity of the animals, puppets, people and contexts. By time she will learn that contexts are never the same and that each specific context demands attention to itsuniqueness, and range of choices in order to meet the moment.

Pedagogical Improvisation

This spring I constantly got reminded how important ability to improvise is in teaching and life. Here, to improvise does not mean to uncritically do whatever comes to your mind (though sometimes it feels like that), but refers to the ability to attune to emerging challenges of constantly changing reality. Professional improvisation, like in teaching, is about activity that engages all knowledge, experiences and competences stored in one’s body; It is exactly because the knowledge is embodied and tacit that we can respond immediately and appropriately without having time to think… as if body acts by itself.
 
From April 18th to 27th my colleague Anne-Lise, a drama teacher and I conducted a project about pedagogical improvisation with our early childhood teacher students and a colleague from Spin, visiting professor of social psychology, Fatima Cruz. In the project pedagogical improvisation was present on two main levels: On one level the students were to prepare an improvisational theatre with 1-2 year old children; On the other level, Anne-Lise and I were improvising in our teaching and Fatima was observing us in action. In short, Anne-Lisa and I (drama and visual art teachers) gave student groups (3-4 students) some strange materials to explore. The quality “strange” means that the materials did not give the students any hints what could be done with them, but would challenge the students to wonder, discuss and explore the materials they had never seen before or had usually taken for granted. We wanted them to acquire a broad repertoire of experiences with the materials and of activities that could be done with the materials. We assumed that such repertoire would make it possible for them to respond immediately when children spontaneously entered the scene in the middle of students play. This assumption was probably made on the basis of our own experiences that two teachers from two disciplines had larger repertoire of ideas and responses.



The process of meeting the materials seem to be frustrating for the students, mostly because we demanded more and more engagement from them. We wanted them to “go into the materials” – we pushed them into the unknown, and this was probably both scary and irritating, and appeared meaningless: What was the point?

I’ll try to explain in short what the point was, but we have not finished with analysing the data and are working on an article that can give more answers; Out teacher responsibilities were to challenge the students to engage, be attentive and reflect about their experiences. If they were to expand their horizons, they had to meet challenges and not avoid them, and in order to meet the challenges they needed to be confident that they were doing “the right things”. Possibilities for successful pedagogical improvisation emerged in the overlapping between challenging the students and supporting them. In order to make them engage we had to push them, but in the same time show them that we care about them, that we are not mean. To be able to find out what the students needed exactly at the point they were in their process, Anne-Lise, Fatima and I continually discussed contemporary developments among the students and prepared our lectures and activities accordingly. Thought the intensive teaching period lasted for only five days, we were exhausted… That’s by the way one of the significant immediate findings: continual attention, reflection and pedagogical improvisation are exhausting.

A few days after the project, Anne-Lise and I, accompanied by our colleague Willy Aagre, participated at a conference at University of Padova in North Italy. The conference was called “Education as Jazz” and “International Jazz Day” (depends on how you read the creative logo).
The conference was initiated by Professor Marina Santi who, together with the colleagues, managed to prepare interesting, engaging and entertaining repertoire of lectures and musical performances.  Prof. Santi reviewed the conference with the following words: Jazz is applied as a generative metaphor in the educational field and everyday life. Jazz dimensions underline the significance of creativity, innovation, transgression, risk, transformation, adaptability, dialogue, listening, collaboration, openness and intercultural influence.'

My colleagues from Vestfold University College and I presented on the following themes:
- Anne Lise Nordbø: “The improvisation of skills or the improvisation of being together? A discourse about the concepts framing, chance and the complexities of embodied action”
- Willy Aagre: “Society meets the interests of children – The conditions for pedagogic improvisation in a progressive Norwegian school in the 1930s”
- Biljana C. Fredriksen: “The core of improvisation and invention: childhood preconditions for creative, meaningful lives”

 

The photo shows Prof. Marina Santi in dialogue with Jimmy Weinstein.

The conference carried on the themes and the debate from similar event in 2008 “Improvisation: between Technique and Spontaneity”, also organized by University of Padova. The conference from 2008 resulted in 2010 in the book “Improvisation: between technique and spontaneity” edited by Marina Santi. Another book is being planned on the basis of the 2013 conference.

I wish time was my friend...

Only a short notice to apologize for low frequency of contributions to this blog: I have received positive response from the book referee and am busy (or at least should be) with rewriting it. However, this time of years is also busy with exams and other teacher-related responsibilities.
So, you'll just have to be patient with me. A blog about pedagogical improvisation is just around the corner! While you are waiting, please relax, look at the world around you and explore some flowers or other wonderful beauties of the nature. I will do that too - when I get some time...

We all have something to learn from young children’s curiosity, attentiveness and sense of time...

Grasping with Body

What a relief: Two days ago I finished writing a book and sent it off to a referee. Even though I know this is just a first phase and still much work left, it’s a wonderful feeling to have written all of the planned pages. The book has actually already been on sale for some time before it was written – it was a shock to discover that a few months ago, but it also stressed me up to hurry with writing. This is how the book is featured on the publisher’s web page: http://universitetsforlaget.no/nettbutikk/begripe-med-kroppen.html        
And this is what the text in Norwegian means, roughly: 

Book title: Grasping with Body: Children's Experiences as Basic for all Learning

The book provides a comprehensive view of young children's experiential learning, with focus on the body, emotions and imagination. It argues for holistic and interdisciplinary understanding of Learning and development. Practical examples form the author's play with 3-5 year old children show how the children’s past and present experiences during explorative play with materials contributed to their imaginative cognition. 

The book is based on the author’s doctoral research. The author highlights how a child's unique combination of personal experiences is connected to meaningfulness of the learning process. "Micro-discoveries", during which a child achieves the feeling of mastery in solving a small self-initiated problem, function as powerful motivation for creativity and learning, and enthusiasm to deal with new challenges.

The textbook is written for the new preschool teacher education program, starting in Norway from fall 2013, addressing specifically the two subject areas in the program: “Child development, play and learning” and “Art, culture and creativity”. The author hopes to motivate preschool teacher students’ critical reflection on their attitudes and teacher roles. The book is also useful for professionals in the early childhood education, primary school teachers, and others concerned with education and children.

Education Quality Equals Quality of Life?

In have earlier written about my concern for the direction of international trends in education (for instance in the blog from December 10th 2011). A few weeks ago I actually had a chance to express this concern to the Minster of Education and Research, Kristin Halvorsen, personally.

Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research invited arts teacher, arts professors and others to a seminar with purpose to discuss the future of the arts and culture education. The seminar took place on February 28th and lasted for three hours. A number of scholars were invited were invited to present short talks (10 minutes each) and the most areas and levels of education were covered: from pre-school to university education level, as well as some after-school programs. Among the invited speakers, Professor Anna-Lena Østern (the following image) and Professor Svein Sjøberg made the strongest impression on me.

The Minister was leading the conference herself and receiving critique with humble. One of the strongest comments was posed by Professor Sjøberg (the following image) who noted politicians’ major misunderstanding that international testing results can be a true evidence of educational quality; OECD, as they pronounce openly, is interested in general economic progress and not in evaluation of educational systems in relation their national, contextual purposes and quality values. Sjøberg’s words were especially powerful taking in consideration that the Minister’s opening words were that Norwegian students are getting better on international tests. During the seminar on of the speakers also noted that countries that had the highest test scores, also were the countries with the highest suicide rates. The Minister said that she was aware this correlation had already discussed the matter with some other countries.

At the end of the seminar some time was left for questions and comments. I managed to gather enough confidence, stand up and read the words I had written on the train earlier that day. This is what I said (here translated to English):

One of the headings in the invitation for this seminar was: Do we need en attitude change? I suggest that it is necessary to examine our attitudes towards position of arts and culture in education.
  
The international testing race builds on an idea that taking high education and getting a well-played job equals good life. But if that is the only quality we seek, our hunger for economic progress will prevent many from finding meaning in their lives. Education that gives priority to “objective knowledge” and neglects feelings, imagination and experiences, prevents possibilities for meaningful lives, because it is exactly emotions and engagement in own experiences that make life worth living.

The arts safeguard imagination (necessary for construction of personal meanings), provide possibilities for mastery, afford with context for contributing to the others with unique personal contributions, make true engagement possible and motivate imagination and explorative learning. I cannot understand how the value of arts can be neglected in education, though I can understand that it is frightening to question the direction international education is heading for. I believe that it is necessary to pose a question whether it is wise to follow the international trends even if we are aware that it is going in wrong direction.

Relevant links:
Invitation to the meeting (in Norwegian)     
Internet-TV with full coverage of the meeting (on the pages of Ministry of Education and Research)

Meaningful Lives for our Children?

My son was one year old when I started teaching early childhood teacher students. In the beginning of my carrier I was making efforts to develop a professional style of teaching according to curricula plans and other demands. As new in the business I thought that being professional depended on my “objectivity decisions, still, I experienced that my sense of motherhood was influencing my teacher choices; My mother-intuition made me pose the question: Would I like this student to be my son’s teacher? The intuition was some kind of continual evaluation of my students, not so much of their knowledge, but of their attitudes: Do they care about children, love them and want them to be happy? But they also have to be professional, for instance, in distinguishing between different kinds of children’s needs.
As parents, we wish best for our children - we want them to be happy and we often support them in what they want, believing that this will make them happy. But wants and needs are two different things (Noddings, 2003). Do we sometimes fulfil our children’s wants instead of their needs?

Relation between needs and wants is terribly confused in today’s word. This is a big issue which concerns schooling systems and many other sides of our societies, in short: We give our children too much of what they don’t need, and deprive them from what they do. We give them new cell phones, PC-games and other things which will satisfy their wants for a day or a week. We tell them that they are lucky for getting so much without any effort, and we feel kind, but getting much without obligations leaves them without possibility to engage and experience pride for some kind of achievement. However small, such pride could give them self-confidence and makes their life more meaningful. On the other hand, absence of commitment can demotivate their will to act and kill their initiative. How can we know what our children really need in order to have meaningful lives?

On January 31st I was invited by national “Parents’ association for preschool children” (FUB, Foreldreutvalget i barnehagen) and “Parents’ association for school children” (FUG, Foreldreutvalget i grunnskoleopplæringen) to give a lecture about my views on holistic learning. The parents’ associations have started a joined initiative they called “Whole child through education”. As I understand it, the initiative is a kind of disapproval to the present Norwegian education which, to larger extent than some years ago, focuses on measurable outcomes. If anyone can assume that quality of measurable results is equal to quality of life, parents can still sense when their children are not happy.
   
During the lecture I received a question from a concerned mother: What can parents do then their child has lost all initiative to act? I had to admit that the same question has been bothering me when I see how difficult it has become to motivate my son to do something else than sit close to a screen. To answer the question I gave an example of what I and my son did.

 

My study (se links to the right) has shown that diverse embodied activities and experiences with large varieties of physical environments, materials, things, animals etc. are essential for imaginative cognition (Efland, 2002) which connects intellectual, aesthetic, emotional and other sides of life in a holistic way. But children and youngsters do not know that they need diverse experiences. If they want to sit by a computer it is difficult to motivate them to do something else. If we try to press them to do something they don’t want, they would probably do it with hate, but not really engage, especially if what we want them to do has nothing to do with their interests.

I think that we have to be attentive in order to find the small sprouts of interest in our children. Then we should provide with further motivation, with something that can activate their body in diverse ways and engage their emotions. For instance, my son (15) for some reason likes donkeys, and I let him buy one for his own money. We didn’t have any place to keep it, but this challenge became another benefit: The donkey was bought in Serbia where my father could take care of it and this became an additional motivation for my son to visit his grandparents every holiday. Everyone is happy!

 

It also has to be mentioned that I bought a horse so that me and my son can experience all kinds of weather, landscapes, roads, cars and wild animals from our saddles. Owning a donkey constantly provides him with new challenges: how to clean the stable, how to make a Mexican style ribbon for the donkey’s forehead, how to teach the donkey to pull a cart and all other kinds of challenges which I believe he needs to engage, struggle with, master, feel needed and be happy.

Efland, A. D. (2002). Art and cognition: Integrating the visual arts in the curriculum. New York and London: Teachers College Press.

Noddings, N. (2003). Happiness and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sock Success

We are hardly aware of the muscles we engage and coordinate in conducting simple daily tasks. However when one is about a year old, there are so many movements and actions that need to be synchronized and adjusted one to another in order to carry out apparently easy tasks as putting a sock on one’s foot. The movements additionally have to be adjusted to the specific sock’s qualities: size, thickness, elasticity, and so on.

My niece, 14 months old, has shown remarkable interest for putting on shoes, hats and socks. Probably by observing what other people do, she has caught some moves and managed to orchestrate the basic muscles in her fingers, hands, feet, legs and wherever else she has planned to fit a cloth item. Some of her moves are practiced to perfection while she is repeating them over and over again in exactly the same manner. Sure of yet another success, she conducts the sock activity quickly and with confidence (you really need to concentrate when watching the video). She puts her thumbs carefully in to a sock’s open part. Then she lifts her right foot (always right!) with great attention. From here things happen very quickly and the sock suddenly disappears under the right knee. And when she is done, she waits for applause or other kinds of social reward. She believes she is an expert.

Believing that socks are her area of expertise, her interest in socks has become even greater. I have observed her smile while she is pointing at socks in a picture book. She even finds comfort in holding one sock in each hand when she goes to sleep.

 

In my doctoral thesis “Negotiated grasp”, I described how children negotiate new meanings between: 1. their bodies (senses, muscles, physical activities, present and past experiences), 2. materials’ and objects’ affordances and resistance, and 3. Inter-subjective social interaction. I believe that the example of my niece sock-activity is a good illustration of a meaning negotiation process: Her first-hand activities with socks demand her attention toward the socks’ qualities as well as towards possibilities and constrains of own muscles and whole body. And when she succeeds, her self-achieved joy of mastery is additionally supported by social response. From this double reward she can experience that it pays off to be attentive and struggle in order to succeed. I believe that such an insight can support her positive attitude toward many other challenges in life.  

A Cat’s Ecological Perception

One day I was sitting at my kitchen table, I discovered a pair of amber-colored eyes watching me from the other side of the kitchen window.An orange cat with tiger coat and white socks was lying in the bush. To protect itself from the cold it had curled its body in a ball shape with all fur sticking out as a hedgehog which made it look even larger, and I immediately wondered how it is possible for such a tubbyto balanceon the thin branches of the bush! And why did it do so? To get away from the cold snow on the ground… or was it just curious about what I was doing on the other side of the window.  

My next thought was about the absence of the birds which usually accompanied me for my breakfast, picking sunflowers from the bird-feeder hanging outside the same kitchen window. It took me a few seconds to realize that these two things were related: The cat was there exactly because of the birds, and the birds had hopefully realized that the cat was dangerously close and had to look for breakfast some other place.
 
In his theory of ecological perception, Gibson (1979) wrote how all organisms perceive affordances of their physical environments and act accordantly. Different substances and physical contexts afford us with different possibilities: the orange cat had definitely realized the affordances of the specific physical context that was frequently visited by tasty birds. It had realized that specific thin branches could hold its weight if it spread the weight across them. It was exactly the branches which I had cut a year earlier that made it possible to stay hidden and still have enough space to jump in the direction of the bird feeder.
How smart this cat is (!), I thought – I can imagine how even smarter it could be if it was hungry. Judging from its size it seemed like it performed bird catching only for fun… and I felt guilty: It was me who placed the bird feeder outside the window in order to watch the birds; It was me who changed the affordance of the bush and by doing so made it possible for the cat to catch birds form there. It was my responsibility if any of the birds got killed…

I started to think about all of the unexpected and yet unknown consequences of human interference with nature. Our rapid change of affordances of the Earth influences the life of organisms that we share our planet with. We have power and technology to interfere with nature in diverse ways. We have to be responsible...

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception.Boston, Houghton Mifflin.

Old Blog in New Gown

Last month or so the text number 100 was posted here. Today’s short post is a kind of celebration, also marking the blogs fourth birthday. I think it deserves a little attention – a kind of meta-reflection.
 
Even though I do not write here as frequently as I wish to, it is amazing how keeping a blog in itself motivates my attentiveness and in deepens my curiosity. Knowing that many things around me might qualify for a post, actually makes me look for possible themes, observations and reflections I could write about. It sharpens my attention.

Some time ago I got a pleasant request to translate and customize some the posts from this blog for a Norwegian magazine for early childhood teachers called Barnehagefolk. They were especially interested in short stories about children. I was flattered!  Even though all Norwegians understand English, I am happy to make my stories more available for Norwegian audience. Selected texts from this blog are converting to columns on pages 6 and 7 four times a year. http://www.barnehageforum.no/magazine.aspx?magazineid=1

Writing in English (my third language) has been challenging and instructive, and when I decided to publish something in Norwegian (my second language) I fell like that was going to be really easy. But it is not. Writing in another language also means that audience will be different and this requires considering more than translating the words. A part for the column writing I’ve been busy with writing a textbook on the basis of my dissertation. The dissertation was written in English and the textbook in Norwegian, and there are many other considerable differences between the two. I get a bit impatient when I spend too much time at the same page – especially when I realized that the book is already on sale! Look here: http://www.universitetsforlaget.no/boker/boker_som_kommer/katalog?productId=70380756  A translation of the title would sound like this: “Grasping with Body: Children’s experiences as basic for all learning”. So, you should know what I am up to if I don’t show up at this blog so often…