Perspectives on languages
The language of drawing Kath Kummerow shares the results of an artistic experiment
Every child comes to school being able to make a mark, whether this is simply a mark, a naïve drawing, a detailed picture, the ability to write their name, maybe some letters, maybe more. It doesn’t matter what their learning needs or abilities are. It doesn’t matter what language they speak. It doesn’t matter what their social skills are like or what level of confidence they come with. They can all make a mark. Children constantly show us the different ways in which they can communicate. Loris Malaguzzi (founder of the Reggio Emilia approach to education) described the ‘hundred languages’ through which a child can think, play, speak – communicate in some way. Many a time we are confronted in our classrooms with children who are hesitant to put pen to paper for any form of written activity, yet when it comes to drawing there is often little hesitation, lack of confidence or drop in selfesteem. A nd often the pictures they produce are devoid of any written words but tell us a lot. Such children are able to communicate through their marks, through their drawings. I have always been interested in the way children can communicate through drawing. I love their naïve drawings, sometimes their explicit detailed explorations or the way in which they draw. Wright (2007) argues artistic communication is the literacy par excellence of the early years of child development. Steele (1998) believes drawing is an innate language. In his work studying the language of drawing in children (2008, 2011), Steele consistently puts forward the need for children to have the language of drawing nurtured within them, with the role of the adult to be the nurturer, the encourager, the supporter. I believe it’s the development of this language that often has little time spent nurturing it in the pursuit of children’s written language: a pursuit which I think may often come about for reasons of accountability and pressure, whether that be from school or family. Yet if we understood the role that the nurturing of each child’s Spring
Autumm |
| 2017
drawing skills can play in their learning, it may receive a greater focus. In working with a grade one class, I decided to focus further on the ways in which young children are able to develop their voice through drawing – their already possessed skill of mark making. Could we develop their communication through the very act of drawing? Would it empower them in their learning? Would they be able to show us more about their own knowledge and understanding of the world around them through drawing while learning the coding of written language? I was keen to see the inf luence of explicitly teaching the children some drawing skills and techniques. In this context communicating through drawing was not about being an artist or the best drawer, but rather about what the child is then able to show. I set aside 30 minutes every day in my classroom for drawing. We held the sessions at the start of the day after our usual morning routine. It was always a very calming and happy way to start the day. A n adult or child led the drawing time. This way we could all share our skills in some way. I planned that each week I would choose a focus for the drawing type and technique. The drawing types we were going to work on were sketching and illustrations. The techniques were smudging, hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, rendering and suggestion-drawing. Sometimes it was simply free drawing with no boundaries. The children enjoyed the opportunity to teach their peers, and of course there is always one child who is brilliant at showing detail when drawing a whale or whatever their particular interest is. We used either HB lead pencils or fine black permanent marker pens. Limiting the tools allowed us to focus on the actual drawing. We also used good quality paper, ‘not scraps of paper – scrap implies cheap, slapdash’ (Durant cited in Sedgwick, 2002 p15). In our first drawing session, I asked each child to draw a person. I stored these drawings away
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