All Children Are Creative
This is the third in a series of blog posts focused on the value of art in our lives, and the role art can play in resisting the test and punish model of education. See the intro and links to other posts in the series here.
By Clyde Gaw.
Eight year-old Frank helps five of his classmates select materials for a large floor sculpture. “Dude! We added new designs to it. Look we got things like new support beams!” Second grade classmate John watches the action, “How are you making this thing? Can I help you?” Frank replies, “You could. You could put something down here on it.” Working with wooden blocks, chairs and benches, Frank and six of his classmates are constructing a 20 square-foot version of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I had been observing the team from a distance working out their engineering problem and moved closer to ask them a question. “Aren’t you concerned about the safety of your bridge?” The boys respond, “It’s safe! It’s safe! It’s not that bad, you’ll only fall two thousand feet!” Eight-year old Ken offers new information to the story, “The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed when it was 4 months old. It sadly collapsed while a poor dog was trapped inside a car. He later fell at the bridge. He did not make it out alive.”
Fascinated by their collaborative spirit I asked the boys another question. “What a tragedy! What inspired you to build this bridge?” Ken explained, “This is the ‘new’ Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The old Tacoma Narrows bridge video is on the Internet. So we watched the video and we got inspired by it so we built this one.” The energetic builders continue stacking and weaving new parts into their structure. They fabricate trusses and columns out of chairs, wooden blocks and strips of recycled plastic. I congratulate the boys for initiating such a physically large project then document their progress with photographs. “You guys are something else!” I scan the room to observe the rest of the class.
Moving about freely, the children have set up their own workspaces and engage in self-directed art projects. They communicate easily with each other, working with a variety of materials, tools and art making techniques. Best friends Kelli and Susan are drawing pictures of their neighborhoods from memory. Janine is painting images of people on a sheet of cardboard. Kaylee, who wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, is drawing a giraffe. James, who is in competition with his brother to draw the most ferocious monster ever, renders a dragon with oil pastels. Emilee who is interested in fashion, knots yarn to create a bracelet while her best friend Korra is working on what appears to be an abstract All Children Are Creative - Living in Dialogue: