child’s play
researching the potential of creative learning / zaeem ahmed / 15004968
/ child /
/ play /
noun
noun
1. a young human being below the age of puberty or below the legal age of maturity.
1. activity engaged in for enjoyment and recreation, especially by children.
2. a son or daughter of any age.
2. a dramatic work for the stage or to be broadcast.
3. an immature or irresponsible person. 4. a person who has little or no experience in a particular area. 5. the descendants of a family or people. 6. a person regarded as the product of (a specified influence or environment).
child’s play:
researching the potential of creative learning
3. the space in or through which a mechanism can or does move. 4. light and constantly changing movement. verb
contents
1. engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.
1 envisioning an aesthetic education the dream of the dreamers
2. take part in (a sport).
2 the hidden curriculum? a systematic suppression of play
3. be co-operative. 4. perform in a film or theatrical production.
3 the degeneration effect the impact of the digital age on creativity
5. perform on (a musical instrument).
4 case study: the finnish and danish way a revolution in school reform
6. move lightly and quickly, so as to appear and disappear; flicker.
5 neets empowerment from the roots 6 master and apprentice imagination and wisdom unite 7 nurturing the inner child a means to the ultimate goal
critical transformations ar7044 2016/17 module leader: edwina attlee author: zaeem ahmed
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1 envisioning an aesthetic education the dream of the dreamers The idea of a child being encouraged to discover their unique qualities from the early stages is not a new one. Plato’s theory, stating art should be the basis of education, has been acknowledged by scholars as being one of beauty, completeness and logic. However, the manifestation of this theory had not truly been tested for it’s feasability. Herbert Read, in his work ‘Education through art’ aims to change that. He emphasizes that for centuries, there has been no understanding of what Plato meant by art, and in tandem with a claim of uncertainty about the purpose of education, there can be no wonder that the passionate ideal has had a slight false dawn. ‘Each individual is born with certain potentialities which have a positive value for that individual and that is his proper destiny. To develop these potentialities within the framework of a society, liberal enough to allow for an infinite variation of types’1
fig. 1 / soundpainting - aelita andre
According to Bernard Shaw, these characteristics can be nurtured through the medium of fine art as the teacher. Read’s hypothesis clarifies that the educator must begin with the mind of the newborn, with the education directed to encourage the growth of a specialised cell in a multiform body. The purpose of education can then only be to develop, at the same time as the uniqueness, the social conciousness or reciprocity of the individual. Hence, the individual would be inevitably unique and of value to the community.2 Whether this is a unique way of seeing, thinking, inventing or expressing mind or emotion, the potential benefit to universal harmony arises. What Read is proposing here is not merely ‘art education’, but more adequately termed ‘visual or plastic eduaction’: the theory embraces all modes of self-expression, literary and poetic no less musical or aural. This approach to reality of an aesthetic education leads to the unearthing of deeper levels of awareness such as imagery fig. 2 / the oracle of space - aelita andre 4
1 read. h (1944) education through art. p.2 2 read. h (1944) education through art. p.5
witnessed in the dream state, the subconcious or hypnosis. If these senses are brought into a harmonious and habitual relationship with the external world and ‘educated’ from a young age, these imaginative activities could help develop the childs inherent uniqueness. But through which methods of education? Read displays six key aspects: A.Visual B.Plastic C.Musical D.Kinetic E.Verbal F.Constructive
EYE TOUCH EAR MUSCLE SPEECH THOUGHT
Design Design Music Dance Poetry Craft
The treatment of these subjects may seem perceptive and related to consciousness, with Read acknowledging that they may seem superficial to scientists. However, this demonstrates the habit of establishing seperate territories in the current education sector, with the new ‘aesthetic education’ aiming to integrate processes of biological useful faculties to form the creation of artists - individuals efficient in the various modes of expression.1 A glimpse of this vision can be seen in the work of seven year old, Aelita Andre. An exploration which embodies her passions for all things related to the cosmos, Aelita’s ‘soundpaitings’ seem to merge the visual, musical and kinetic aspects of an aesthetic education. Encouraged to express her unique talent, her works are musical, evident through exuberant colours, harmonies of rhythym and the utilisation of various modes of artistic form. Observers claim her violins, scattered with flow, ‘sing in the most ethereal way’. She has been recognised around the world as a prolific artist and an authentic voice of abstract art - an astonishing acheivement for any artist.2 But made all the more incredible by the age of the artist - a child. An inspiration for an aesthetic education to be pursued in our schooling system?
1 read. h (1944) education through art. p.11 2 gallery151.com
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2 the hidden curriculum? a systematic suppression of play Social philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote that ‘The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill conviction but to destroy the capacity to form any’1. In the opinion of author Sir Ken Robinson, the current education system is one conceived and based on a model of industrialisation. Schools are organised as factory lines, seperate subjects are standardised, and there is a lack of collaborative learning in groups which inhibits the ‘growth of the child’. He explains how 98% of kindergarten children were at genius levels for divergent thinking (the possibility to see lots of answers to a question), however 5 years later this reduced radically. A symptom of an anaesthetised method of teaching?
‘Teaching is nothing like the art of painting, where, by the addition of material to a surface, an image is synthetically produced, but more like the art of sculpture, where, by the subtraction of material, an image already locked in the stone is enabled to emerge. It is a crucial distinction’.1
fig. 3 / an ineffective schooling system?
His response is rather familiar. The call to move from a model of manufacturing, based on linearity and conformity, to a model of agriculture which is organic could see the arts relate to an aesthetic experience, where senses are operating at their peak and the child is ‘fully alive’2. It is only after the correct circumstances have been created that the deep human resources and talents of children can be extracted from them. But are children really being educated out of creativity? To what extent do professionals in the field concur with this plot?
1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.xxxiv
John Taylor Gatto, an award winning teacher with over 30 years of public school experience, explosively criticizes the curicculum of compulsory schooling. In his now infamous work ‘Dumbing Us Down’, he questions various excercises used to suggest a diminishing of children’s power. The seven lessons of school teaching are as follows: confusion, class position, indifference, emotional and intellectual dependancy, conditional self-esteem, and surveillance. All of these are prime training for permanent underclasses, people deprived forever of finding the center of their own genius. He further states the increasing irrelevance of schools as ‘no one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science class... or poets in English class...the truth is that schools fig. 4 / christopher lloyd homeschooling his daughters 6
1 arendt. h (1968) totalitarianism p.168 2 robinson. k education paradigms talk
don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders’1. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell, abruptly cutting off his inherent creative momentum. Compulsory schooling, the 1850 invention of the state of Massachusetts, is targeted by Gatto as being an instrument for the scientific management of the mass population. He believes that schools are intended to produce, through the application of formulas, formulaic individuals whose behaviour can be predicted and controlled. Effectively, the system would seem to cut the child from the immense diversity of life, from the synergy of variety and it’s own past and future. The brand of children that these systems produce are described as having traits such as aimlessness, almost no curiosity, materialistic and are uneasy with intimacy. So what is the cure to this supposed suppression? Gatto encourages a system of education that focuses on self-knowledge. A place where, at every age, you will find arrangements that work to place the child alone in an unguided setting with a problem to solve. He states children need to master challenges sometimes fraught with great risk, they need to be trusted at a very early age with creative study and curiccula which gives each child an opportunity to develop private uniqueness and self-reliance. Even though not specifically tackling school reform, examples of this learning can be seen in the home schooling network. Christopher Lloyd removed his daughters from school due to their boredom with ‘mind-numbing repetitive work’. After realising his daughters keen interest in penguins, he tailored a new curicculum and began an educational adventure. They visited London zoo, conducted a project on Antarctica, learnt about the states of ice, water, steam and the water cycle. This connecting of experiential knowledge ‘allows young people to follow their curiosity, whereas school fragmentation presents a view as engaging as a windowplane of shattered glass’2. 1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.21
2 lloyd. c (2013) home schooling / telegraph article
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fig. 5 / portait of child - ‘idiot box’ donna stevens
fig. 6 / lego boost kit aims to help children with coding
3 the degeneration effect the impact of the digital age on creativity From shattered glass to Nicholas Carr’s work ‘The Glass cage: Automation and us’. He vivdly discusses the fact that artificial intelligence has that name for a reason - it isn’t natural, it isn’t human. So what effect has modern technology had on developing creativity in our children? ‘In one sense it’s mesmerizing to be able to witness the assemblage of a product with a click of a button, but in order to truly appreciate the process of making, you have to implant the relevant skill in your brain, weave it into your neural circuitry – and no amount of button-clicking is going to do that1.’ Carr here relays that when we carry out a task on our own, we seem to use different mental processes than when we rely on the aid of a computer. The more the interface replaces human effort, the lower the adaptivity of the user to the new situation. This gives us the degeneration effect. The worrying fact is this allowance for automation to replace the manifestation of skill, relates to all ages and risks further anaesthetising our children in what already is the most stimulating age in human history. Let’s take the example of a child playing with coloured blocks for example. From a 1 carr. n (2014) the glass cage:automation and us
very early age, kids learn from touch and movement. The child will endlessly play, trying to create imaginative and various iterations of object. Knocking down and building up repeatedly. Carr emphasizes that to achieve mastery in any skill, the individual has to develop tacit knowledge, and that comes only through real experience - by rehearsing skill, over and over again. The more you practice the more you have to think about what you are doing, and the fact that the objects are solid and provide a kinetic sense is invaluable as opposed to a virtual counterpart. The physical coloured piece would provide the child with a more immersive experience, challenging task and direct feedback which provides a sense of flow. This regular feedback is essential to skill building2. Another major side effect of the technological revolution has been that many children have replaced traditional play activities such as running, climbing, making and sharing, with a solitary and sedentary screen-based lifestyle3. With PC’s, the internet, television and mobile phones, the modern day child is surrounded by the electronic village at all times. There no longer seems to be 2 carr. n (2014) the glass cage:automation and us p.84 3 plamer. s (2006) toxic childhood p.48
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an ‘off switch’. But how much if any is this inundation of media having an adverse effect to the childs natural inclination to play in their immediate surroundings? Dr.Marian Cleeves Diamond conducted a study which pointed out that sedentary rats didn’t get any cleverer if they were allowed to watch enriched rats running around having fun. She states ‘It is important to interact with the objects, to explore, to investigate, both physically and mentally’. Children learn by doing not watching1.However, it can also be argued that good childrens television can be a magnificent resource, touching parts of the human consiousness that other media cannot reach. It can transport the child into any realm of imagination. Maybe if balanced, this ‘edutainment’ could nurture their scope of play and ideas. ‘The two institutions that control our children’s lives at present are often claimed to be television and schooling, in that order. They both reduce the real world wisdom, fortitude and non stop abstraction limited the child’s real world play and adventures.’2 1 palmer. s (2006) toxic childhood. p.255 2 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.25
Excessive consumption of television, another form of mass schooling, has become prominent across the globe and blots out vast swathes of time and attention spared by school. Between television and schooling, all the time children have to experience other significant causes is eaten up. Real education doesn’t cost much or require expensive toys or gadgets, the experiences that produce it are virtually free. Despite Gatto’s strong beliefs, legendary toymaker Lego has recently announced a kit for building and programming robots, designed to encourage a younger generation to learn how to code. Developed for children aged seven and older, the Lego Boost kit allows users to assemble moving toys from a range of programmable elements and the Danish company’s iconic plastic bricks1. Designed to mimic the process of building Lego, the interface requires users to link digital coding blocks in a horizontal layout. ”We want children to first and foremost have a fun and limitless play experience, adding the coding opportunity is the means to get there,” said Lego group design lead, Simon Kent. A combination allowing children to play, create and learn a form of technology perhaps? 9 1 howarth. d (2017) dezeen article
The ideas shown in the danish way can be found in earlier Islamic teachings: The cousin of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and fourth Caliph of Islam, Ali (RA) advised us to play with our children till the age of 7, to discipline and teach them from the age of 7 to 14 and to befriend them at the age of 14+1. 1 musa. a.r (2011) thoughts on parenting article
fig. 7 / play in the environment
fig. 8 / danish way of hygge
4 case study: the finnish and danish way a revolution in school reform For many years, Finland has been the country renowned for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables. Even still, it is about to embark on one of the most radical educational reform programmes ever undertaken by a nation state – potentially scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”, termed as ‘Phenomenon’ teaching. Meanwhile, the pre-school sector is also embracing change through an innovative project, the Playful Learning Centre, which is engaged in discussions with the computer games industry about how it could help introduce a more “playful” learning approach to younger children1. ‘We would like to make Finland the leading country in terms of playful solutions to children’s learning,’ said Olavi Mentanen, director of the PLC project. The following is an extract of a case study from the school: We come across children playing chess in a corridor and a game being played whereby children rush around the corridors collecting information about different parts of Africa. Ms Jaatinen describes the ongoings as “joyful learning”. She desires greater collaboration and communication between pupils to allow
1 Garner. R (2015) Independant article
them to nurture their creative thinking skills1. Bjarke Ingels Group’s design of the Vilhelmsro Primary School in Asminderoed, Denmark, may be seen to be a building which fosters learning and play within a deep connection for its surroundings ‘Drink from places, then you can work on your mind.’ says Anthropologist Keith Basso, revealing the Western Apache’s poetic sense of place. This statement is used by the designers to explain the premise that when ‘children come of age, they demonstrate their maturity by recognizing and honoring the stories of each place2’. Could this empathetic and intrinsic approach to learning more about the surrounding community help children communicate stronger narratives through play? In addition, what rich rewards could come to children who are in the presence of a real teacher who loves his material and loves them? Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, says ‘The most enjoyable teaching I ever did took place in a classroom that had thick carpeting but no chairs...I picked up on whatever appeared in the room on any particular day and followed
1 Garner. R (2015) Independant article
2 Le. T (2011) fastcodesign article
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The Danish are considered by some studies to be amongst the ‘happiest’ people in the world, raising confident and successful children year after year. For the Danes, these are the following six parenting principles which have been used for decades to help achieve this:
Play: free play creates happier, better adjusted, more resilient adults. It is also essential for development and well-being. Authenticity: honesty creates a stronger sense of self. Praise can be used to form a growth mindset rather than a fixed mind-set, making children more resilient. Additionally it fosters trust and an ‘inner compass’. Reframing: reinterpreting information helps to create children who are realistic optimists, also helping them to cope with setbacks. Empathy: Understanding, incorporating, and teaching empathy are fundamental in creating happier children and adults, allowing us to act with kindness towards others. No Ultimatums: Avoiding power struggles and using a more democratic parenting approach fosters trust and no resentment in children. Togetherness and Hygge (Coziness): A strong social network is one of the most important factors in our overall happiness. Creating family hygge can help us give a powerful gift to our children and is a way to celebrate family time, on special occasions and everyday1. Can these principles be implemented in new methods of creative learning?
1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down foreword 2 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.22
1 alexander. j.j / sandahl. i.b (2016) the danish way p.xi
it through...I’ve never seen so much learning take place, for me and my students, anywhere else’1. This may indicate that a radical reform like the Finnish way may not be neccessary in extracting creativity from children. Gatto states that the ability to communicate, collaborate and share experiences with others is a critical and central part of a sound education. Another method of educating, the home-schooling movement, has grown in size over the last few years with the education press reporting that, in their ability to think, children schooled at home seem to be five or even ten years ahead of their formally trained peers2. What if we open up the idea of ‘school’ to include family as the main engine of education? The ‘curicculum of family’ and the strengthening of family bonds is evident in the danish way of hygge.
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fig. 9 / tactics and strategies
fig. 10 / whole-Life workplace initiative
5 neets empowerment from the roots What possibilities could this creative learning present when children reach the point of maturity? Could skills be taught through a disseminated knowledge, from those who have experienced an aesthetic education to those seen as ‘no longer part of society’? Currently over 2million NEET’s (not in employment, education or training) are looking to the government to deliver the three million apprenticeships it has promised, and with 12% of these individuals aged 16-24, immediate action is vital. The Creative Industries Federation has also warned that the UK could face a creative skills shortage. A call has been made for the UK’s art, design and cultural industries to be put at ‘the heart of government thinking’ and a report from NSEAD, has shown the number of students studying art and design at GCSE fell 6% this year, the biggest fall since records began. If these individuals were linked with other members of society could a creative solution blossom? For Gatto, he would continue to argue that schools take children away from any possibility of an active role in community life. Aristotle also taught that without a fully active role in community life one could not hope to become a healthy human being1.
1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.13
Children and the elderly community are seperated away from the business of the world to a degree without precedent. Without children and old people mixing, a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present. Have we lost our identity?
Therefore, for strategies to manifest a place is needed for it’s base. At the Wrk/Ldn Exhibition a new proposition to test a strategy nurturing creativity across disciplines and ages arises. The Whole-Life Workplace is a new way of delivering enterprise, skills and training services. It is a co-working space that specifically targets two demographic groups that have been overlooked in the political discourse regarding workplace and innovation. The first target group are the young, burdened by expensive education, who do not manage to step into full-time employment. The second, senior professionals who are looking to be productive in society and those interested to pursue the pleasure of learning1.
Gatto believes community service should become a compulsory part of a restructured school system. After running a program for five years, where children would give 320 hours a year in community service, he found that the children would return in later life and state the experience of helping someone else, changed their lives. It taught them new ways to see, to rethink goals and values. ‘If you want to do good and preserving acts you must think and act locally’ Alexander Pope called this ‘the genius of place’, which calls for local knowledge, local skills and local love. He believes we can only get this by a local fidelity that we have to maintain through several lifetimes1. A strategy is needed for this ideal to be truly implemented. Pscyhoanalyst Michel de Certau states a strategy is ‘the calculation or manipulation of power relationships, once the subject with will/power becomes isolated2’
If the aesthetically educated child, one who has learnt and developed through self-knowledge is also considered to transfer knowledge and collaborate in the scheme, the whole-life workplace could act as a precedent in teaching and learning creative skills. This would not only serve to fuel the UK’s entrepeneurial engine, but would also act as a handshake across a societal divide and on a deeper level connect individuals to better themselves and serve the community at large.
1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.80 2 certau. m.d (1984) the practice of everday life
1 new london architecture (2016) wrk/ldn: shaping london’s future workplaces p.90
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fig. 11 / craftsman at work
fig. 12 / children at the craftsman and apprentice, denver
6 master and apprentice imagination and wisdom unite First, we have to become people able to contribute with skill. Craftsmanship, is about making things well. As Richard Sennet states ‘craftmanship cuts a far wider swath than skilled manual labour; it serves the computer programmer, the doctor, and the artist’. Even parenting improves when it is practiced as a a skilled craft. He believes every good craftsman conducts a dialogue between concrete practices and thinking; this evolves into sustaining habits, establishing a rhythm between solving and problem finding1. Sennet makes two arguments: first, that all skills, even the most abstract, begin as bodily practices; second, that technical understanding develops through the powers of imagination. The first argument focuses on knowledge gained in the hand through touch and movement. The argument about imagination begins by exploring language that attempts to direct and guide the bodily skill. This language works best when it shows imaginatively how to do something. The use of imperfect or incomplete tools draws on the imagination in developing the skills to repair or improvise. Every craftsman has to learn from experiences rather than fight them.
1 sennet. r (2008) the craftsman p.10
Worryingly we risk losing these experiences in our technological age. Just as pilots are forgetting how to fly, with their expertise eroded, reflexes blunted and attention spans diminished as reliance grows on their automated instruments1. The skills of makers also risk being forgotten. So would it be beneficial for younger children to learn under master craftsman? Those who have become experienced in their respective disciplines? If so, a development of the innate imagination of a child may be given license to experience the potential of professional skill in nurturing their talents, with a little guidance from the experts. Gatto tried this method with his students. He arranged a one-day apprenticeship for one of the girls who had littered the beach with a Gatorade bottle. The purpose was to act as an apology to the local police chief and allow her to gain real life experience in the smalltown police prodecures. Similarly, he tested his twelve-year olds with an apprenticeship with the local newspaper editor. He states that this independance for the child at a young age, enaging in the real world is the key to self-knowledge.
The apprenticeships, along with community service, large doses of privacy, solitude and independant study are all cheap, and effective ways to begin the true reform of schooling, he believes.1 Children need time to develop self-knowledge, and learning experiences, even if taken place away from the institutional setting space needs to be provided where each child has a chance to develop private uniqueness and self-reliance. If we were to learn from the Congregational principle: people are less than whole unless they gather themselves voluntarily into groups of souls in harmony. Gathering themselves to pursue individual, family, and community dreams consistent with their private humanity, is what makes them whole2. This is a principle the Craftsman and Apprentice workshop, initiated in Denver, aims to revive. Named the ‘best place to learn your craft’. The workshop spaces can host fullsized field trip classes and the founders recently used funding raised by the public to grant scholarships to children for their summer camp3. An inspirational example of trying to reunite child creativity with wisdom and skill. 1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.33 2 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.87
1 carr. n (2014) the glass cage:automation and us
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3 archuletta. l (2016) westworld article
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fig. 13 / metamorphosis - akiana kramarik
fig. 14 / labryinth - akiana kramarik
7 nurturing the inner child a means to the ultimate goal What are the goals of all of these hypostheses? Ted Hughes in his letter to his son, poetically explains the concept of the inner child. ‘Everyone tries to protect the child within, and develops an artificial armour...every single one is, and is painfully every moment aware of it, still a child’1. This is what people meet, but when the inner child begins to manifest a flash of the real person illumines. A vulnerability, a talent, a love that one is afraid to express, ultimately is brought out through one medium or the other. This individual humanity lies behind the exterior, a world being held like a glass of water bulging at the brim is what the aestehtic education of Read, Gatto’s reform in teaching, the Danish way of parenting, and the teaching of craft are all trying to expose. As Hughes states the child is the only real thing in them, the one who knows it will die. It is the carrier of all the living qualities and centre of hope and inspiration. What doesn’t come from the depth of this soul isn’t worh having. Aldo Van Eyck also comments that whatever obstructs new and vital ways of education obstructs spiritual integration and thus a self-realisation of the child. Without imagination, art and play, we shall never meet the child on it’s own terms2.
To encounter the city is to rediscover the child. Whether snow in the city or a river in the country. Gatto’s personal example of playing on riverboats, and being inspired by the crew as they advised and inspired the boys of Monongahela allowed him to be grateful for a revealing of a flash of his potential future, however small it was. This time spent in the country whilst still a child, helped him to learn to find adventures he made himself from the everyday stuff around him - the river and the people who lived alongside it. He discovered meaning for himself as well as satisfying purpose for himself, a big part of what education is. This later manifested through his teaching and became evident in his studetns. ‘How this can be done by locking children away from the world is beyond me’, he states. Whatever an education is, it should make a unique individual, it should furnish the spirit with which to tackle big challenges, it should allow the child to find value in their lives, to be spiritually rich and allow an individual to truly love what they are doing, to truly teach what is important: how to live and how to die1. Children learn what they live. The only thing people regret is not living boldly enough, not investing enough heart, not loving enough2.
1 hughes. t (1986) letter to his son, Nicholas Hughes 2 van eyck. a (2008) the child, the city and the artist
1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.68 2 hughes. t (1986) letter to his son, Nicholas Hughes
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Ultimately, how we think of children in the world depends on our philosophy of human nature: what we think people are, what they are capable of and what the purpose of human existence may be. If people are machines, then school can only be a way to make these machines more reliable, uniform and economical. Let us turn inward until we master the first directive: ‘Know Thyself’1. Only then can we begin to move to one’s ultimate goal. If we encourage and underwrite experimentation, trust children and families to know what’s best for themselves and involve all in the education of the community, the outcome could lead to the child’s inherent uniqueness becoming manifest, leading to a mirroring. To become a mirror in which others could see their own stories reflected.To do this a retreat is essential. A place where the individual can be alone to discover oneself, with tailored schedules, agendas, classes and spontanious recreation2. A place where the inner child finds itself and the measure of real aspect for people. Increasing the degree of feeling they can register, the voltage of life they can carry, tolerate and enjoy. And this all begins with the play of children. God’s mercy on us all.
1 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.102
2 gatto. j.t (1992) dumbing us down p.102
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Image Reference
Bibliography The Qu’ran A new translation by: M.A.S Abdel Haleem Oxford World Classics (essay chiastic structure based on Q.12 Joseph) Toxic Childhood Sue Palmer Orion 2007 Detoxing Childhood Sue Palmer Orion 2008 Dumbing Us Down John Taylor Gatto New Society Publishers 2002 The invention of childhood Hugh Cunningham BBC books 2006 Teaching as a subversive activity Neil Postman and Charles Weitgartner Penguin books Ltd 1971 The Danish way of parenting Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Dissing Sandahl Piatkus 1971 The Glass cage Nicholas Carr W.W. Norton & Company 2014 The craftsmen Richard Sennett Penguin 2009 Education through art Herbert Read Faber & Faber 1944
front/ back cover image: child drawing representing kindness
The human condition Hannah Arendt University of chicago press 1998
Fig. 1 (aelita andre: www.gallery151.com/portfolio/ aelita-andre-the-oracle-of-space/
The child, city and the artist Aldo van Eyck SUN 2008
Fig. 2 (aelita andre): www.gallery151.com/portfolio/aelita-andre-the-oracle-of-space/ Fig. 3 (the hidden curriculum?): https://www. amazon.co.uk/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/0865714487
The practice of everyday life Michel de Certeau 1984
Fig. 12 (child apprentices): http://www.westword. com/arts/the-craftsman-and-apprentice-getskeys-to-expanded-space-today-7818328 Fig. 13 (metamorphosis - akiana kramarik): www. akiane.com Fig. 14 (labryinth - akiana kramarik): www.akiane. com
Fig. 4 (christopher lloyd with daughters): http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10279339/Home-schooling-if-a-child-getsbored-at-school-blame-the-system.html
Words and buildings Adrian Forty Thames and Hudson Ltd 2004
Fig. 5 (idiot box - donna stevens): www.trueactivist.com
http://www.gallery151.com/portfolio/aelita-andre-the-oracle-of-space/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10279339/Home-schooling-if-a-childgets-bored-at-school-blame-the-system.html https://www.dezeen.com/2017/01/04/legoboost-kit-building-programming-robots-learn-coding/ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html https://www.fastcodesign.com/1664983/howschool-buildings-can-connect-students-to-theenvironment
Fig. 6 (lego coding): https://www.dezeen. com/2017/01/04/lego-boost-kit-building-programming-robots-learn-coding/ Fig. 7 (play in the environment): http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664983/how-school-buildingscan-connect-students-to-the-environment Fig. 8 (danish hygge): http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/health/wellness/hygge-what-you-need-toknow-11364096191162 Fig. 9 (tactics and strategies): http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/the-tactics-of-everyday-life/ Fig. 10 (whole-life workplace initiative): project showcase wrk/ldn Fig. 11 (craftsman at work): http://www.designworklife.com/2012/08/23/the-american-craftsman-project/
http://www.westword.com/arts/the-craftsmanand-apprentice-gets-keys-to-expanded-spacetoday-7818328 http://www.virtualmosque.com/relationships/ marriage-family/children-marriage-family/ thoughts-on-parenting/
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