The k/1 class has begun a wonderful practice of “writer’s workshop” during the school day. The kids take time every day to create their own stories. While for some of the kids this may look like traditional writing (with letters and words) other kids express their ideas visually through drawing. As we know, drawing is one of the very first literacy skills our kiddos master. It was a lovely practice to observe and most of the kids were super excited to share their drawings with me. However, some of them were a bit more reluctant. Initially I sat down with three boys to observe their writing practice. Though they were each working on their own drawings, they were collaborating: “we’re working on a book.” They narrated their story as they drew, and sometimes added elements to each other’s drawings, collaborating even further.
Their story was about good guys and bad guys, dragon warriors and ninjas, battles and bombs. There was a lot of action, narrated by the writers as they drew. It was amazing to watch these three kids create a story together, each element of their own drawing being inspired by the ideas of their friends. As I was taking notes and pictures of their work, the boys decided that they didn’t want me to photograph their work or write down their words, and that they “didn’t want me to put them online.” I was so bummed when they said this! Their words and drawings were so fantastic and I love the opportunity to highlight the work of our students in this space. But I didn't feel okay publishing their ideas without their permission. In my other life at the UofA as a PhD candidate, I engage in research with young children a lot and help to teach art education students what it means to teach and work with young people. I feel strongly that it is our job to engage in respectful and ethical practices with children, and publishing children’s stories against their explicit request not to do so not jive with this approach. When I asked the boys why they didn't want me to publish their work, they said, “grownups don’t like killing and these are about killing.” Children understand what we (as adults, parents, teachers) are comfortable with and what we are not, and they will censor their own work to meet our expectations, whatever they may be. How can we create a classroom culture where our students feel comfortable to share their drawings “about killing” and not feel the need to censor themselves? Perhaps it starts with listening to their requests about how and where their work is shared.
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Since the kiddos have been spending even more time outdoors and at the wash lately, we’ve started to do some scheduled wash clean up times. Last Friday, after a pretty amazing dance party, the kids went out to the wash to clean it up. The little kiddos stayed behind in their room to decompress a bit after all that dancing and talk about why we should clean up the wash at all: “because there’s people that have been putting trash in the wash and it’s dirty.”
Adrienne asked if it bothered the kids that the wash was dirty. They had different ideas: “Not really, because the trash is in a place where I don’t play.” “[It bothers me] because I can see it. There’s trash all over the place!” It looks like to me that no one is picking up the trash and I don't want the animals to get hurt.” “Or they [the animals] might die if they swallow glass.” “To me it looks like a junkyard.” “Junkyards are awesome because you can use all the stuff.” I was struck by this last comment and it got me thinking about the kinds of spaces that children play and what is so special about our wash. There are many contemporary play scholars and researchers who have been writing for a while about the benefits of children’s free play in spaces like adventure playgrounds. These playgrounds have lots of loose parts that the children can manipulate and often no structured play equipment. Rather, they look kind of like junkyards as the kids described above. In these spaces, the kids are not so much playing with garbage, but things they can engage with in a variety of ways, and use in pretend and exploratory play. Our wash is full of these kinds of objects: rocks, leaves, sticks, and perhaps some non-natural unexpected finds too. These are the kinds of spaces where children’s play can flourish. And kids understand this. As they said, junkyards are awesome! We know that it’s not really the “junk” that entices them, but the freedom and openness of space and materials. And our wash provides such a wonderful example of this space. It’s great to see the kids value their space enough to take care of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_playground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwork |
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