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.

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.

 

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.

Meeting the Audience

Who are you and why would you want to read my blog?

I can only imagine what could hold you attention on these lines, and can only try to satisfy your expectations. Thus, you are not one single person with unified needs… and I also have my wishes, agendas and power to choose which words to serve you. We, a writer and a reader, find ourselves in apparently simple relationship where you can click me away whenever you find the blog boring, annoying or uninteresting. On the other hand, this dialog is complex because I really need to connect with you (in my imagination) in order to write at all.

I attended InSEA’s 33rd world congress in Budapest June 27th to 30th. Listening to many presenters made me wonder how they imagined their audience when they prepared their talks: Who were the people at the conference? What could they find worth listening? Preparing my own (18 minutes’) talk I was concerned with how to be short enough, but still say enough that the audience would understand.

The presentation I found the most engaging, perfectly planned and carried out, was made by Sara Calcagnini from Leonardo DaVinci - National Museum of Science and Technology, in Milano. She spoke about symbiotic relationship between art and science.

Sara’s presentation started with relevant (and short enough) introduction including a self-ironic comment about her Italian English: she said this in a funny way, but saying that she was willing to humiliate herself for the sake of the message she wanted to share also had an strong, serious effect. With her honest and friendly appearance she quickly established contact with her audience and treated us with prudence and respect (at least this is what I experienced).

Sara was completely engaged in her talk, believing with her whole body that she had something important to say. The images can give impression of her rapid movements addressing the audience and how her body language undeniably expressed her wish to motive us. Constantly providing with new insights, her talk had escalating dramaturgy, finally culminating with a call for help. And her call touched me. I felt connected. I was her audience - she moved me and motivated me.

While I was thinking: “what a fantastic talk; what I fantastic person”, the first comment she received from the audience shocked me! The comment's irrelevance spoke of ignorance toward the important issues Sara addressed in her talk; She spoke about holistic understanding of our world and responsibility of global citizens. Don’t audience also have responsibility to contribute in constructive ways? Or remain silent…

I feel responsible that I did not stand up and give her my support. I am trying to convince myself that the majority of the audience felt like I did – but I don’t know. Was it possible that many of us did not grasp her powerfull message?!

I keep thinking about how important response from my audience is for me, both after a talk is over, but also before, and most of all while I am moving in front of them, trying to catch their eyes and looking for signs of acknowledgement, respect and interest.

We should not forget our audience, but they should also know how much they mean…

Tikalalala and other first words

In order to share something verbally, we need to share understanding of what words refer to. When children learn words, they first have to realize that a specific composition of sounds can represent something that can be experienced, and then they need to connect these two together.

Sometimes a child invents more complex connection – like when my little neighbour pointed at me and said “wuff-wuff” when I was passing his window the other day, and he couldn’t even see my dog. What he probably meant was: There is the woman who always walks with a dog. And he was right – he had probably never seen me without the dog!
Many years ago, when my son was eight months old, he was looking at my face intensively and then smashed his open hand into my cheek simultaneously saying “mama”. And I knew he had just discovered the connection…

The word “mama”, consisting of two easy-pronounced sounds seems to be quite similar in many languages, while some other words are pretty unique and have short lifetime. Tikalalala is one such word, invented by a little boy and known only to him. It was probably functional to some extent, but when the boy couldn’t find his Tikalalala, cried and cried, whole family was engaged in searching for the Tikalalala. I was myself one of the cousins that happened to be in the house. The search was not an easy task, because no one except for the boy knew what Tikalalala was, and he was young (I guess about three) and not able to explain.

Children sometimes invent words they need for some specific purpose or in order to express their experiences. In the case of Tikalalala, the word’s rhythmical repetition of sounds might actually remind of the rhythmical movement of the object it refers to, and the sound it makes – while it’s original word does not have. However, the “proper word” was difficult to pronounce in this specific language “kljucevi”; No wonder the boy had to invent a unique word that also could connect him to his dear experiences with cars and car driving.

Caballo

Our mobile bodies move through the world collecting experiences from numberless variation of unique contexts. In the beginning, before we have had time to collect so many, maybe we have only four from meeting different cats, and many experiences from meeting the same horse. Here is how a six year old girl presents a horse – probably the Fjording she knows from her farm-preschool (Fjordings are strong and a bit round, and wear their mane strait up).

But what can one do when he desires to share an experience, but cannot draw nor have the right words to tell?

If a child’s learning of verbal language springs from her or his own experience – weather the experience is actual or imaginative, as Dewey suggested (Flanagan, 2006), then each of us have personal understanding of concepts – words are loaded with our feelings from the specific contexts where the concept was first conceived (Høigård, 2006). Here is how a two year old Spanish boy was constructing a new concept:
His “word” for a horse was not a set of sounds, but rather a short story that described his experience from meeting with a horse: He stretched his arm with open palm and said “pan, pan”. Then he made a “prprprprprpr…” sound by blowing between his lips, and simultaneously and quickly shaked his head.

To be able to understand his concept-under-construction one has to know that “pan” means bread, and to be able to imagine a little hand holding a piece of bread while bravely trying to stretch his tiny arm in order to keep his body as far as possible from the large horse mouth. The boy’s story described how he feed the horse and the sound and the head-shaking described what the horse did.
What a creative construction he initiated all by himself! And while he was telling people about the horse they often responded: “Sí! Caballo!” That is probably how he will learn to compress his embodied experiences in a few letters…

Flanagan, F. M. (2006). The greatest educators ever. London: Continuum.
Høigård, A. (2006). Barns språkutvikling: muntlig og skriftlig. Oslo: Universitetsforl.

Experience Lost in Words - ?

On Friday the 3-rd of April, I had a day-long meeting with my colleague Ann-Hege Lorvik Waterhouse from Oslo University College, Faculty of Education. In our projects we both deal with young children (0-5 years old) and argue for the importance of children’s experience with the three dimensional world around them: I focus on children’s play with materials, and Ann-Hege on their experience with sculptures. Beside discussing different challenges in choice of research methods, genres of writing etc., our conversation touched on something I kept thinking about: What characterizes a child’s pre-linguistic experience? Are there significant differences in human experience before we are able to verbalize the experience, and after?

Kieran Egan speaks of humans as “creatures whose understanding of the world is profoundly shaped by our particular kind of bodies and senses” (Egan 2001). In the same article “The Cognitive Tools of Children’s Imagination” he writes that: ”…literacy has psychological costs as well as the more obvious benefits” (Egan 2001). I suggest that one such cost is that we, during the process of naming objects and qualities around us, somehow stop giving attention to our senses. Can our “mature” ability to name objects and categorize them in taxonomies hinder us in exploring details and qualities the way small children do when they experience an object for the first time? (See for example “Sharing a nacho”, published 14.02 on this blog page.)

Egan explains that young children first learn words that are opposites, and later fill the gap between the opposites. “Once they have formed an opposition, they can learn other terms along the continuum between such opposites.” I believe that learning the other terms is possible only if the environment offers a spectre of qualities, and if the people (pedagogues) in the child’s environment acknowledge the importance of such learning. As Elliot Eisner wrote ”… the ability to experience qualities requires more than their presence. Experience is a form of human achievement, and as such it depends upon an act of mind; qualitative experience depends on qualitative forms of inquiry” (Eisner, 1991)

Ann-Hege and I watched a video from the pedagogical context where two children explored different types of clay to value the best for their sculpturing. They had never played with any type of clay before. The materials in front of them had different (and surprising) visual and tactical qualities (some of the clay had been dried, some put in water, some shaped in geometric forms etc.) To begin with, the girl and the boy had problems with explaining their experiences, but they commonly used metaphors, songs and imaginative stories to describe the clays’ qualities. After the hour of exploring, the simple word “clay” they knew before the activity, would never again be enough to capture the diversity of qualities they had experienced.

Unfortunately, there are probably people who would turn up their nose at a lump of clay, call it “dirty clay” and leave it untouched…. if they one day found it on their office table…

References:
Egan, Kieran (2001): The Cognitive Tools of Children’s Imagination, paper presented at the Annual European Conference on Quality in Early Childhood Education, Netherlands
Eisner, Elliot (1991): The Enlightened Eye, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company