The Classroom as an Ecosystem: Living Materials
“A first encounter with any new phenomenon exercises immediately an impression on the soul. This is the experience of the child discovering the world, to whom every object is new. He sees light, wishes to take hold of it, burns his finger ... later he learns that light has a friendly as well as an unfriendly side, that it drives away the darkness, makes the day longer, is essential warmth, cooking, play-acting. From the mass of these discoveries is composed a knowledge of light, which is indelibly fixed in his mind.”
The moment that marked my fascination of how the environment conditions our existence was the day I saw an image of the cave art paintings of Lascaux, listening to my professor highlight -with vast emotion-, how visual communication was the first form ever used to record history. It was at that moment that I started considering the environment as an ever-changing canvas with tools and materials. In that cave, blood, stone, and hands, were enough to document a prehistoric moment in time, stories that needed to be preserved, read, analyzed, and passed on. A space where our ancestors could process uncertainty, findings, cause-effect, facts, wishes, projections.
Now as I work with children, I find myself in awe of how materials and the environment are more than inanimate objects. As I research and explore and co-create with children, I am convinced that materials play a dynamic role in the development of our collective curiosity and sense of connection with others. I have learned that materials hold affordances and qualities that ignite the conditions for children to tinker, fabricate ideas, construct artifacts, and to build and grow stories of who they are — of what life means to them at a given moment.
Mixing food coloring yellow and blue, M exclaims, “I made Thailand!”
We are in an inherent relationship with materials from birth, from the moment our senses collide with our mundane experiences. Materials have provided a path to grapple with unfair realities, political happenings, dreams and identity. From the Egyptian 2 and 3-dimensional artifacts, to the scissors that gave an alternative to Matisse’s exploration of form, to how a cast provided a space for Frida to cope with intimate challenges, to the spray paint and walls which provide a public space for Bansky’s voice.
Eelan (4.9) during a 28-day quarantine making a paper model of her game, “The Floor is Lava”
It is through art, and the diverse exploration of materials that an intersection of cultures happens. The environment provides us materials that can reflect the perceptions of our actions, of our ever-changing existence, of delicate and strong reflections. Simultaneously becoming part of our experience.
In a collective exploration, children ages 3- 4 decide to give the weeds the quality of a brush.
There is an interface created between us and the materials we use to learn about our reality. I remember Fiona Zinn’s invitation to consider how “a non-human identity can have agency (2019).” Similarly, Susan Harris MacKay, in her quest to find the relationship between play, literacy, and the arts, reminds us that, “Materials open the door to attention, they help us connect our head, our hands, and our hearts (2021).” This is precisely what I have observed in the different artistic periods, as well as in diverse learning spaces with children. While we discover, we construct understanding.
As my daughter Gaia played with water beads and various tools she declared, “When I die I want to have a job in the angel land and I want to be the human potion maker. I think that what people believe death is, is what death would be when they go to death, so like when they die. Kind of like a wish. I am going to start with sorrowness because sorrow makes joy and happiness. And plainness but not too much because that’s what makes a human not... like if we have all the elements, it’ll be perfect, like a perfect human, but the angels know that that’s not good, so the angels put plainness which is the original water and Earth that goes into people”. She continued measuring the beads and the water carefully using droppers and spoons. “So what’s next after sorrowness and happiness? Oh I think it’s peace! Yeah, peace!!”
She continued, “Well, there’s anger because sadness and happiness create anger. So for anger we have to use the dropper and we’ll have to take a little bit of sadness, only five drops of sadness and then we put back in, we have to clean it to make sure there’s no more sadness in it. And then happiness. Only two drops of happiness and then misunderstanding. Misunderstanding goes with the big water beads or emotions because you get like all frustrated with it, and the big emotions are kind of like frustration and like they are covering each other, so like when you are blind with frustration. And so that’s misunderstanding and you have to be very careful with it, if you put too much, the people will be arghhh! -aggressive.”
I noticed that she was grappling with what it means to be human and to manage emotions. As I observed her play and interaction with the materials, I thought of how she was negotiating ways to balance emotions to crate an ideal human who she recognized, was not perfect, but a mix of complex emotions. I asked Gaia her thoughts on the relationship between materials and us, and she concluded: “I feel they make humans because children need [materials] to play and work. They're a way to express yourself, even for adults.”
In Gaia’s theory, I can see the importance of materials in her exploration and interpretation of feelings and how she considers this vital component in our lives when she says, “[materials] make humans”. Implying that the materials become part of us — the materials have a living quality that is brought to them by the words and actions of the children.
When I consider my intentions to expand wonders and possibilities to drive inquiry, I think of the affordance of each material. I seek to understand their relationship in the hands of children and the sensory qualities that can be stimulated, that can build a path to meaningful experiences.
Exploring the affordance of metal
When I observe children play and explore diverse materials, I notice how this process weaves a sensible connection to who they are. In this relationship I notice a dialogue [sometimes silent] where cultural and social processes are born, because in those instances, these materials we interact with, will capture the form of our ideas, our stories, transformations and our togetherness.
As we question and investigate with children, we nurture their sophisticated sensorial apparatus, which Vea Vecchi identifies as, “one equipped to receive a myriad of stimulations, a capacity for learning and growth (2010).” After all, our senses are the channels that absorb the qualities of our interactions. Encounters followed by connections and comparisons all the while guided by reflective observations. We must seek learning that unfolds from these interactions with the environment, and in doing so, we can co-create a common language, a social identity of participation towards a spirit of inquiry and invention.
Opening ourselves as learners to diverse materials, will enhance the development of a language that speaks for the materials and its qualities - a language that the children will acquire as they tune-in and discover what the materials can do for and with them. From the delicacy of watercolor, to the more complex texture of acrylic, to the flexibility of wire, the organic composition of clay, the mystical light and shadow, the sturdiness of metal or wood, and the infinite possibilities of loose parts among so many others.
I wonder — what if we consider materials as living organisms in the hands and hearts of children? Might the classroom also thrive as an ecosystem? A place of ever-changing relationships — as Malaguzzi considered the spirit of a school? I believe that if we treat our learning space as a sort of forest where we can stimulate powerful opportunities and possibilities to create, invent, and interact, that we will reconnect to our sense of wonder with children.
Exploring the territory of materials amplifies how we can harvest a space with living tools nurturing creative relationships that tell stories, build empathy, establish connection, democracy, social justice, and belonging; with the understanding that we are complex beings, always evolving, just like an ecosystem. Let us rethink our spaces, as more than classrooms where learning is facilitated — but as a versatile space where learning is expanded through complex questions, co-creating through collective research, and conscious solidarity. A space that changes and transforms those who inhabit it. Let’s embrace and live Ann Pelo’s belief: “The language of art becomes the language for inquiry and long-term investigation (2007),” Let’s embrace this within our interactions with each other and everything around us. Just like in a forest.
Let’s live with love for uncertainty, change, reciprocity, connection, belonging, and purpose. Let’s embrace learning as an ecological process, remembering what Virginia Wolf once said, “A self that goes on changing, is a self that goes on living.”
References
Edwards, C., Gandini L., Forman, G. (2012) The Hundred Languages of Children. 3rd edn. Santa Barbara: PRAEGER.
Harris MacKay, S. (2021) Story Workshop: New Possibilities for Young Writers, Portsmouth: HEINEMANN.
Kandinsky. V. (1977) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. New York: Dover Publications, INC.
Pelo, A. (1995) The Language of Art: Inquiry-Based Studio Practices in Early Childhood Settings. 2nd edn. St. Pau: Redleaf Press,
Vecchi, V. (2010) Art and creativity in Reggio Emilia: exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.