Use the comment area on this post to have a discussion that helps each other understand how children ages 2-6 seem to develop new understandings about line and shape (Kathy), designing (Hannah), and symbolizing (Yao) using paint. You don't need to post in one huge comment; start by telling each other what seemed to be the most important points in your section, begin to ask each other questions about what the main points in each others' sections seem to be, and see if you can find places where the information seems to overlap.
These questions may be useful as you think about how to help each other understand what kinds of things are going on for 2-6 year olds according to Smith when they are exploring with paint:
What kinds of things are children learning about?
What kinds of things are children learning to do?
What can teachers do to support these learnings?
What kinds of new understandings seem to be happening?
How do they show up?
What problems or ideas do children seem to be working with?
How do children seem to be responding to materials and surfaces?
In the reading I did about Design (for ages 4,5,6) one of the most important aspects of design for young children is awareness of the paper and essentially the space for them to play. They are aware that there is a defined area and boundary in which they must stay in. With this limitation they start to consider how they will go about filling the page and organizing their symbols and marks to look unified.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher: The book talked about experimenting with different size paper (square, long and narrow, etc) so that children can learn how to orientate their designs. I think this is really important for teachers to do. Not only does it allow them learn about how to compose their paintings , students will also be excited to see a change in materials. Something as simple as giving students a much larger piece of paper to work on can inspire them!
Was the design/handling of the painting surface addressed in the other sections?
Well, for my part, around this age kids start trying to enhance the levels of representation in their work by seeing images that they can relate to in the more or less tactile mess that they initially place on the paper.
ReplyDeleteThe reading mentions the kindergarten equivalent of seeing shapes in the clouds, but on a much simpler scale. A child will see a mark or shape and see something in it and then consciously adjust the image accordingly.
What caught a large part of my attention was the section at the end, about how certain kids will need validation of their work from an adult because they are uncertain of their abilities and have no logic... I was totally one of those kids.
This is the point where children will have something in mind that they want to draw, and in a fashion that does not simply extend to personal indicators. Apparently, early attempts at representation will create a personal symbology that is more or less limited to visual notations on various visual concepts. i.e. diffrentiating between sparks and hooks on machinery could be merely a difference of color or form in markmaking.
At the later stage I mentioned, everything falls more in line with our general conception of "representation." I was very interested in how the book told teachers to deal with such a situation. As a child (about 5 i guess), I would try to force my mom to draw a dinosaur for me to copy, and that's how I learned....to draw alligators.
"Mom! Draw me a dinosaur! A Tyrannosaurus Rex!"
[Mom has no idea what that looks like, draws something anyways]
"That doesn't look like a T-rex! That looks more like an...an alligator!"
"Well I guess you'll just have to make do with that, then."
The book's evaluation of the reasoning behind such behavior, for me, was more or less spot on. I'm curious if anyone else in this group remembers such experiences, and cares to share them.
In response to Hannah, my section handled the design aspect briefly in that children entering the representational phase will begin by simply feeling the paint, as chapters 1 and 2 discussed. It really only mentions design in terms of how children will notice something they relate to reality in the middle of designing upon the paper, and begin representing from there.
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't mind me jumping in here... one of the things I think is really interesting that impinges on both of these things is the way kids learn that the paper IS the place to paint/draw on, and so it becomes THE place for symbolic activity to occur. So, this idea of relating to things in reality as they appear in the design on paper and going from there, but in a lot of ways based on/constrained by what the teacher gives them (size and shape of paper) really drives the point home for me that we (teachers) and parents (witness your alligator story) do so much shaping of children's understandings of the world... which isn't a bad thing - its how we learn right? (shades of Vygotsky here...) but there is a big responsibility there...
ReplyDeleteI do remember asking other people to draw things for me so I could understand how to make them myself.
ReplyDelete"certain kids will need validation of their work from an adult because they are uncertain of their abilities and have no logic." -- I think this is really interesting because I used to just think that children asked for validation to prove that they are capable of doing something (and i think that is still a large part) but it also makes a lot of sense that they need someone else to help them understand what they just did. Children might do something that they might not have been conscious of and when a teacher brings it up they learn from their own actions and decision.
Going off of the "seeing shapes in the clouds" idea, once they recognize such images they see they want to create the image over again. In the design section they started to touch briefly on symbolizing through the children's understanding of geometric shapes, variation and repetition. Shapes and lines begin to come together to create images and symbols (for example: a house made up of a square and triangle). These geometric shapes could start off as abstract images that they begin to explore and realize. I see a connection between these two ideas, I just dont quite know how to articulate their connections!
"they need someone else to help them understand what they just did." This is such an important insight. I think this isn't just true of young children; I see myself doing this all the time, when I ask people for their input, or what they think about something I've been thinking about...It's not that I want to hear that I'm right, but I do want to put my ideas into a context that includes other people's perspectives on what I've done. It's a huge way of learning....
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