What the world needs now

"This is the place of love", one of my boys said as he walked past the art table where the children were making Valentine's Day cards.

This was what I was hoping to create in our kindergarten last week in honour of Valentine's Day. This year we've had more snatching, grabbing and hitting then I'm used to seeing. Gorgeous individual personalities, but many children who have been the only one for three or four years and who are finding sharing and compromising a bit challenging. I'm hoping they can start considering others a little more, and I know they will with guidance because I'm seeing it happening beautifully with last year's children. I see last year's children standing patiently in the line to scrape their bowls, saying nothing, while the younger children push in front of them to be the first in line.

Some of them seem to have arrived with a kind of 'famine' mentality, like they have to grab as much of everything as they can in case there is not enough to go around. I've always reminded the children that we have plenty of everything, so it would be nice if they would offer the tongs to someone else so that they can get their fruit first. Sometimes they do this, and I give them lots of positive acknowledgement for it. When they hurt each other I ask them to check to see if the other person is alright. I don't ask them to say sorry. I want them to stop and acknowledge that someone is hurt whether it was unintended or happened out of frustration.

As well as writing cards to their parents telling them that they loved them, we had some talks about how we can make other people happy. I kept saying that this week it's 'all about love' for Valentine's Day. We had a wonderful, romantic candlelit lunch on Friday. The children picked and arranged the flowers and set the tables. They made sure everybody understood how important it was to be safe around the candles. They were not perfect, there was still competition about the fruit, but they tried. On Friday afternoon, as she walked out with her Dad, I heard one of the girls say, "everybody loves". Well, I'm glad to know that they understood me in theory, if not yet in practice.

It's not just about art

Children's art is about more than just their opportunity to be artists.

Last year I went to see an exhibition of children's art at Gowrie Victoria. Gowrie has the name, the philosophy and the resources. Because of this I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the artworks that were exhibited were refreshingly normal. Paintings, drawings and collages made by the children using normal paints, brushes and pencils. Although it's lovely for the children to be able to immerse themselves into a wonderland of sensory experiences while making art, the thought processes, the messages that are conveyed, and the creativity that emerge are of equal importance.

Art is not just about children's opportunity to be artists. Art is one of the languages with which children communicate with the world. Art doesn't just display their knowledge, understanding and self-expression, it also enables children to work through the concepts that they're not yet completely understanding. Art should be allowed to be a solitary, uninterrupted experience in which children are able to fully engage with whichever tools they choose to use. Art is about thoughts, feelings and physical experiences. It's about technique, textures, colours, shapes, shadows and perspectives.

I found it fascinating that Gowrie had brought in an artist to work with the children. This was the foundation of the Reggio Emilia centres. Atelieristas (visual artists who were not teacher trained) were employed to work with the children in the Reggio ateliers. We bring in trained musicians for music and movement experiences to supplement educators' limited knowledge of music. The artistic knowledge of most early childhood educators is also limited, so think of the rich experiences for learning that would result from bringing in real artists.

I believe art materials should be available for children every day, but I don't think we need to push art on children. Painting and drawing are two of the languages that children use. Remember the 'hundred languages of children'. Children have so many languages that they use and not all children are drawn to visual art. If communication and meaning-making are the objectives then we need to allow children to choose the languages that fit their temperaments and interests. If art is available and children are drawn to it, they will engage in it. Let's also embrace the scientist, the mathematician, the storyteller, the musician and the athlete. Children will surprise us with their enthusiasm if we allow them to use their preferred languages, and how much fun is that to see?

Sensory involvement

All else could be an illusion.

Recently I heard the term 'sensual involvement' and was re-introduced to the concept that being involved with the world with our senses is essential to our day-to-day happiness. In early childhood we would call this 'sensory engagement'. As humans who are probably only tapping into our spiritual side ten percent of the time most of our life is physical and therefore is all about our senses. Children are spiritually open and so potentially even more spiritually connected than we are. Their mentality, however, is not yet fully developed in that way so they are even more sensuality involved than we are. Personally I have the potential to be far removed from my physical body, with thoughts concerned with future worries or dreams, or uncomfortable realities, and a propensity to forget to be grounded in the present. And of course the present is life. All else is an illusion I suppose.

The great thing about my job is that it forces me to be sensually involved. All of a sudden I'm joining the children in smelling something or tasting something or looking at something. I mean, I would never stop and observe the patterns on the skin of a wiggly worm if they weren't doing it. In my personal life I would never find myself with my hands full of silky, melting corn flour goop, or experience the sensual pleasure of watching white and blue paint meld together beneath my hands into a pot of marbled, sky blue goodness. For sure I would forget to notice a bird tweeting on the fence, or a bee buzzing on the lavender bush. But, no, "Penny, Penny, we saw a spider, come and look!" is exactly what I need to remind me of the incredible reality of the natural world, and which is, by the way, the world that it was naturally conceived that I should live in.

One of the great joys of spending time with children is that they have such enthusiasm for experiencing the world with their senses, so we can take every opportunity to provide sensory experiences for them to enjoy. The delight on their faces when they are sensuality involved blows me away every time. I don't remember feeling that kind of happiness. On one hand you feel like you've done so little, but the children are getting so much out of it. Seeing it makes me happy. So it's win-win. So let's get them outside, get them tasting, smelling, seeing and feeling. Let's expose them to beautiful images, objects and artworks. Let's play music and dance, and dress-up in costumes made of beautiful fabrics. Let's do cooking and experiments. Let's put our feet in the water and our hands in the mud. Let's go out and run in the rain. Sensory involvement is important for children and it's so great for us too.

Autonomy versus group consciousness

I think we need to value both when providing a learning environment for young children.

This is tricky though and it's one of the dilemmas that we face as educators. I would lean slightly towards promoting autonomy, but that's my bias. My goals tend to be more individualized and personal. Our aim in fostering group consciousness is to create people who are connected. Connection to the world and to other people leads to the individual feeling empathy, developing an understanding of the commonalities that exist between people, and beginning to feel that he or she wants to join others in working towards goals and projects that are for the good of the greater community. The idea of seeing ourselves as global citizens is a very important one to me.

We want people to see the similarities between themselves and others if we are to see a world without war and racism. The difficulty is how we go about promoting this in the classroom without impacting on children's views of themselves as individuals. It's not enough to feel a sense of connection to others and a group consciousness if you are still wondering how you fit into the group and what your contribution can be. A group that is working towards common goals can be stronger if the individuals within that group are able to contribute using their strengths and gifts.

So to me the answer is to provide an environment in which children can discover their own abilities and interests. Supporting children's involvement in group experiences enables them to become more aware of themselves in relation to others. It's not so much about encouraging competitiveness as it is about enabling children to find out what makes them special. We can build confidence by drawing children's attention to their strengths. We just have to make sure that we don't preconceive them based on what we are hoping they will be. Children are strong and resilient, but at the same time they are honest, accepting and open. One small influence could change a child's perception of himself/herself in an instant.

We don't want to create children who will walk in lines, we want to create children who will rock the world. If we can encourage autonomy we can create strong, independent creators. If we can create strong, independent creators who are connected, we can build a world where anything is possible. That is the world that I want to live in.

It's up to us

We are complicated creatures, aren't we?

Am I wrong to wish we weren't so complicated? I think some of us have a tendency to over-analyse and over-complicate, especially when we delve into the complexities of our past. I think we should remember when we're looking through children's eyes that possibly their thinking is a lot less complicated. Love, confidence and fun are three elements that contribute to happy children. Children are not born with the uneasy feeling that they don't have the right to take too much of any of these.

So if we know this we should take advantage of it and try to extend this feeling of freedom and embodiment of love, confidence and fun for as many years as possible. Maybe with an environment that supports these elements children can grow up to be adults who are still living this way. Adults like this do exist. This is the way to live. Life could be easy most of the time if we don't go looking for limits or disaster.

So what if we never told children that love has conditions? What if we didn't erode their confidence by comparing them, by holding them to unrealistic expectations, by misunderstanding their thought processes and relatively uncomplicated feelings? What if we didn't tell them that life is hard and fun is a luxury?

If we believed love had no conditions we would be giving and receiving it freely. If we had confidence we would believe we could do anything. We wouldn't stop before jumping, we would just jump. We would be secure in knowing and trusting our strengths and feelings. If we believed we were allowed to have fun we would let ourselves enjoy the moment.

We don't want children to be plagued by our limits or neuroses do we? We could make a little difference in their lives just by being more aware of what we're modelling, what we're saying and what we're thinking. Everything we do and say is contributing to who they will become. It's a huge responsibility, but it's a huge honour.

'Let me entertain you'

What exciting activities do you have planned for today?

I need to learn to be more patient when responding to this question because it immediately puts me offside and I have to struggle to be polite. It presupposes that my role as a teacher is to entertain children when in fact I'm trying to shift the culture in my room to one of listening to children.

How many times have we said  that our aim is to create life-long learners? Learning is a self-motivated and internally driven process based on curiosity, enthusiasm and desire for the accumulation of knowledge and the building of understanding. Children who need to be entertained are not internally driven and if they grow used to a social environment in which they are constantly entertained they will likely remain unmotivated and looking to others to push and prod them so that they can endure the process of learning.

If your aim is to engage in education as a means to a successful future, endurance is not the best path to take. Endurance isn't the best path to anything. Life shouldn't be about preparing to be happy in the future. I know I'm just as guilty of this as the next person, but life (and if it includes learning) should be fun now. Learning should be something we enjoy doing and something we want to do. If we make it into a chore for children they may not see the fun in it.

If we provide an environment conducive to learning children will be itching to respond to it. It's only when we step back a bit that children will feel that they have the space to exercise their sense of agency. When we give them permission to have agency in their learning they will flourish. I've seen it. They come to life before your eyes. If we start listening we will uncover what they're interested in, what they want to learn, what they love, what they're driven by, possibly even what they were born to do.

If we tell them what they need to learn we won't see them light up from inside. We won't see them tackle a task with a level of determination and persistence that we didn't know they were capable of. We won't see them extend their attention span far past the point that we thought was possible. People who achieve great things in life don't worry about how many hours they work, how much they get paid or how challenging the obstacles are. They have a passion that surpasses these tedious elements of endurance. Passion provides energy and enables us to exceed our own expectations. This is what I would wish for any child.

Are we listening?

Are we even aware of whether we're actually really listening to children?

I can't help feeling disappointed when I see someone come and land themselves right in the middle of children's play, imposing their own agenda in place of child-centred learning. Aren't we supposed to be listening to children? No, listening means really listening. When you were thinking about how impressed your boss would be if you implemented some spectacular experience and told everyone in the centre to come and witness it, you didn't notice that a child was telling another how much they love The Wizard of Oz, did you?

Precious moments and opportunities for learning are happening every minute if we are only listening. Children's voices are being lost beneath all our own motivations and chatter about educational priorities. There's so much we don't know about the children we teach because we're too busy trying to manoeuvre them into aligning with our plans, which are often about providing an educational program that is visible to others (others being peers, colleagues, parents and VIPs of the early childhood world).

This is the problem I have with long-term project work, because often you find yourself trying to somehow extend an interest beyond the point of interest. The child has moved on. A passing comment is not necessarily an interest. Drawing a group of children into one child's world has some value, but many more pertinent moments are being missed in the process. You tell a parent that his/her child is interested in fish. "Oh, really?" he/she says. Someone was drawing a fish so the child decided to draw a fish too, and that's where it ends.

Come on please, our understanding of educational theory should be much deeper than this. A snapshot of children's learning that is integral to their interest in that time in that moment has value. It could be an end in itself or re-emerge at any time. It could hold potential for a long-term project or play interest. What I'm trying to say is whether it is one or the other is important and should be absolutely clear if we are sensitive, intuitive, present and listening (no, I mean really listening).