Table of contents for SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER ISSUE 4 2018 THE ARTS in Pedagogy+

This is a very special edition of Pedagogy+ the art of teaching. In planning this edition focused on the arts, there was never any second thought as to who would grace our cover. Ursula Kolbe, pioneer, mentor, teacher, author, artist and friend to many was undoubtedly the most fitting person to feature. She has led both research and practice in the early education sector with respect to children and the arts, and her work has transformed how we think and engage in the arts. No doubt many of us have Ursula’s voice and words of wisdom in the back of our minds when thinking about setting up creative spaces or considering the ways in which we might engage children’s thinking. Ursula’s publications including Rapunzel’s Supermarket have been the books that educators…

YOUR ABSOLUTELY MOST FAVOURITE SONG - YOURS? A track titled ‘Woman’ YOUR ABSOLUTELY FAVOURITE SONG - NOT YOURS? A French song called ‘Avec le temps’ by Leo Ferré ON SUNDAYS I LOVE TO… sleep in and go to breakfast somewhere with the family… It’s all about them WHAT INSPIRES YOU? Just living … fills me with inspiration WHEN EATING ITALIAN FOOD-I LOVE TO ORDER… whatever their signature dish is! THE PLACE IN THE WORLD THAT SPEAKS TO ME MOST IS… Sicily WHAT I MOST ENJOY ABOUT MY JOB IS… my artistic freedom THE BEST ADVICE MY MUM/DAD GAVE TO ME IS… to treat others, and yourself with respect. To love, be loved, to make a contribution, whatever that may be. And in my father’s words… ‘Never compromise on food… cause…

I was a beach kid. I grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney. My happiest childhood memories are filled with the hot, gloriously colourful days of the summer beach and the cool invitation of the water. The blustery days of the winter beach, the colours hailing from a more subdued palette and the turmoil of crashing waves. Our childhood experiences do have an impact on our later years of life, and this is never to be underestimated. From an early age, I was interested in art, in painting, in fashion design. Artistic activities that enabled self-expression, allowed me to tell the stories of my world. When I was growing up, I was exposed to creative lifestyles. I was surrounded by artists of another genre, those of the theatre and…

I follow the pathway as it zigzags through tight corners of thick, black fabric. Noise and light are completely muted, muffled, absorbed in this between space, until the final corner turned reveals the opening of a huge room filled with beds, music, darkness punctuated with vivid colour. Projections flow slowly on the ceiling, across the walls, downwards onto some of the beds. Georgia, who has recently turned one, and even more recently started to walk with confidence, stands arms outstretched, her face turned upwards to the largest amorphous projection on the ceiling. She begins to dance - her body moves with the music and also with the light and colour. Her dance starts in the centre of the room, swaying, turning, wiggling, clapping, spinning, then she dances, arms still reaching…

‘I AM NOT A BIG ARTIST, BUT I AM AN ARTIST’ ‘So despite everything, it is permissible to think that creativity or rather learning and the wonder of learning…. can serve as the strong point of our work.’ Loris Malaguzzi Bomaderry Community Preschool (BCPS) is a 60 place early years education and care program catering for children aged 3-5 years. We are located in the regional south coast town of Bomaderry, New South Wales. BCPS offers a ‘Living and Learning with Nature program,’ enriching learning beyond the classroom. The focus of this program is to provide an opportunity for children and educators to develop a deeper connection with nature. The bush setting provides our community of learners with a wealth of multi-layered learning. Through the affordance of time, we are…

As a cultural event approaches, such as Mothers or Fathers Day, Christmas or Easter or perhaps Valentines Day, many educators and teachers in early childhood settings give children templates or outlines to colour-in so that they have something ‘good’ to present to their parents. What is the message we are giving children when we offer children such experiences? For me, we are giving the child a clear message that their own drawings are no longer good enough. In reality, we seek to impress the parents because many adults have expectations and impose their views about what learning is on their children. While well intentioned, such views can easily hijack the child’s opportunities for a rich, joyful and more valuable art experience. As a young teacher, who trained over 40 years…

Experiencing the world as an environment with every sound playing at the same level, or as a giant wide shot where every visual detail is seen at the same time, would be unbearable. We manipulate sensory input into a manageable form to make meaning out of it. We mix the sound we hear, making important sounds louder and others lower. We ‘get used to’ traffic in the background or find ourselves engrossed in conversation in an environment we first thought was too noisy. Try looking from left to right and right to left a couple of times. Notice how you blink as your head turns, closing your eyes for most of the movement. That blink is like an edit between two shots in a film. When you glance at your…

Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Part1: States Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. Part 2: States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity. Australia ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in December 1990, which means that Australia has a duty to ensure that all children in Australia enjoy the rights set out in the treaty. The Australian Human Rights Commission references Article 31…

Semann & Slattery wish to acknowledge and thank Early Childhood Australia for generously granting permission to feature excerpts from this seminal work by Frances Derham. Chapter 1 DRAWING Drawing is here considered as a creative art, distinct from copying, which wil be discussed in the next chapter. WHEN drawing is recommended as an essential to the child’s intellectual development, it must be understood that the skill, or talent, for copying is quite sperate from the kind of drawing which expresses the child’s own thought and which will help develop clear thinking. The subject ‘copying’ will be discussed later. The proof that Cave man was superior to any ape is seen at once when we find his drawings, many of which have never been surpassed by civilised man. Very young children…

For me, the role of teachers and educators in supporting children as they learn about, and explore the visual arts (or languages), is very much about the use of materials and developing skills. Visual languages as we know support learning in many areas such as physical development, emotional and expressive exploration, problem solving, literacy, numeracy and scientific concepts – to mention a few. A key message throughout my arts training sessions with teachers and educators is that a vital aspect of visual languages, is learning how to care for the arts tools and the materials being used. This also logically for me leads to considering sustainability in our arts practices. I believe that teaching children about caring about and respecting materials and tools not only achieves that objective, it is…

Polyglot Theatre is a contemporary theatre company making work for children, with children at the heart as creative collaborators and participants. We follow, listen, pay attention to and respect children for their innate imaginative capability and divergent thinking. We travel down roads we would not have chosen because of our connection with children. All this is more than just words. Polyglot holds fast to a principle of participation that shapes everything we do and that means physical and emotional challenges for us as an organisation as well as a group of artists. Participation means being open, it means collaboration and inclusion, it means validating and enabling the choices of children. The work that we create through this lens is immersive, sensory, contemporary and ever-changing. Authentic participation demands that ideas and…

Maree Conroy is the Director of Tuntable Falls Early Childhood Centre, a small community-based preschool. The preschool is situated in a sub-tropical rainforest setting on an intentional community, in northern NSW. Maree and her colleagues have been using wool to create felt with children for many years. There are many natural fibre artists using wool in our creative community, so it made sense culturally, to incorporate this medium into our children’s arts curriculum. I became interested in using felt with our pre-schoolers after I saw older children at a Steiner school felting. Although the Steiner approach I observed was very adult-directed, I saw the potential for younger children using it with more self-directed freedom. Very young children are capable and confident of using the wool to illustrate their ideas. Children…

Art in early childhood programs is nothing new. Everyday we set the paint pots and easels up and put the playdough out. We know that children feel a great sense of satisfaction when they are engaged in art and we know that for many children art is a wonderful sensory exploration activity. But for a team of educators at Just Kids Early Education House in Cairns, Far North Queensland, they are taking their children’s love of ‘art’ and using it to dive deep into making language and critical thinking a priority. ‘We’re using a context that is meaningful to them right now and through this, we’re giving the children language, critical thinking and listening skills and a new appreciation for different perspectives’ (Williams, H. - Early Childhood Teacher, 2018). Drawing…

Our mission is to achieve positive social impact by engaging the community with quality literature for young Australians. CBCA NSW Branch goals: Topromoteactivitiesthatdevelop the enjoyment and appreciation of reading quality literature To disseminate information to children, parents, teachers, librarians and the community in general about children’s books and the value of reading To support interest groups with an affinity for literature Featured on the CBCA NSW Branch website is: KIDSCORNER which presents interesting and fun facts revolving around books, events, information and all sorts of random, or not so random happenings; and KIDS’ STUFF which adds further information, with hyperlinks leading to a world of learning fun facts and themes http://nsw.cbca.org.au/pages/kids-corner.html The CBCA Book Week is a national celebration of children and literature. As a rule, the CBCA…

Today, many of us only know Ursula Kolbe through her written work – the rich and joyful books: Rapunzel’s Supermarket, It’s Not a Bird Yet, and Children’s Creativity Under Our Noses. Some have memories of Ursula’s days working with children and as a lecturer at the Institute of Early Childhood – the way she would enter a learning space and cause you to think differently about it. Much admired and respected by the early education community, Ursula Kolbe made a tremendous contribution to our thinking and practice around children, art and creativity. Ursula was a leading light, she enabled us to develop a sophisticated visual arts vocabulary to support our work with young children in the arts space. Central to her work with children and educators, and what we will…

Developed in-house by Awe and Wonder this series of translucent resin loose parts and magical refraction rainbows will catch the imagination, encourage wonderful conversations and engage children in the exploration of colour and light. Why resin? Because it has beautiful properties that catch, cast and scatter light. A must accessory for the light box, these gorgeous, colorful pieces will create magic in the sunlight or in front of a window and inspire openended play. Win a Resin Rainbow and your choice of another resin rainbow set by emailing what you would like to use the Resin Rainbow for to hello@aweandwonder.com.au…

The Gallery of Children’s Art (GoCA) is Australia’s first public gallery dedicated to developing and presenting curated exhibitions of children’s art and associated programs. GoCA values and respects the voice, ideas and creativity of children, and their right to contribute to the cultural life of our community. The gallery is a long overdue validation of children’s creative agency, and recognition of young people as active cultural participants. The way we respond to the products of children’s creative expression is inseparable from a long history of social marginalisation. After thousands of years of human development, it wasn’t until the early 20th Century, with pioneering figures like Piaget and Freud, that a clear understanding of childhood development began to emerge. The insight that the very notion of a child is determined by…

Embroidery is a form of textile or fibre art, where design, threads and needle work can be combined with the imaginative mind to express ideas, thoughts and viewpoints. Yet it is not a common art form we see engaged in the everyday early childhood classroom. I wonder why this is? Perhaps when we think of embroidery we recall images of our grandmother with her thread and never-ending embroidery pictures of animals or flowers which eventually, when finished, got framed on the wall. What was the appeal I wonder to persist for so long with needle and thread? Dr Marlies Alvarenga, director of the Monash Clinical Psychology Centre at Monash University, says embroidery is known as logic relaxation. The quiet, slow and repetitive nature of embroidery positions us in a state…

‘I don’t know…What is the biggest thing?’ ‘Ooh, good question. How about infinity?’ ‘Is that bigger than the universe? Then that’s how much I love my cello.’ And eight-year-old Enzo sat back, his cello tucked into his chest, and made his way off into his music. I’ve been teaching music for nearly thirty years, through various string instruments. I’m a viola player originally, but as viola students are a little hard to find I also teach violin. I learned cello as an adult, so I teach that as well. And in an emergency, I could give you a pretty good double bass lesson, but for guitar or lute, you will need to ask your local music school! Still, over the last decades I have taught in a huge variety of…

This piece is an excerpt from a fictional letter from the mother of sixteen-month-old Grace. This is what I want from Grace’s educators: I want to hear something every day about how she spent her time, something more than ‘she had a good day’. I want to know what she’s interested in, what she’s good at, what challenges her, what she’s learning. I need more information now than I’ll need when she can tell me herself. I know the educators are very busy, but I want them to ‘gimme something’ every day. It’s not so much what might be called ‘preschool learning’ that I care about, like shapes, colours and numbers. What matters most to me are things like that Grace is learning to be strong emotionally, to try hard,…

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