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Promoting Creativity for Life Using Open-Ended …

Young Children July 20041 Promoting Creativity for Life UsingOpen-Ended Materialsreative art is so many things! It is flowerdrawings and wire flower sculptures inclay pots created by kindergartners aftervisiting a flower show. It is a spontaneous leapfor joy that shows up in a series of temperapaintings, pencil drawings of tadpoles turninginto frogs, 3-D skyscrapers built from card-board boxes or wooden blocks. It can be themovement and dance our bodies portray, therhythmic sound of pie-pan cymbals and papertowel tube trumpets played by four-year-oldsin their marching parade, the construction ofspaceships and birthday is most important in the creative arts isthat teachers, families, and children draw upontheir inner resources, making possible directand clear expression.

Young Children• July 2004 1 Promoting Creativity for Life Using Open-Ended Materials reative art is so many things! It is flower drawings and wire flower sculptures in

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1 Young Children July 20041 Promoting Creativity for Life UsingOpen-Ended Materialsreative art is so many things! It is flowerdrawings and wire flower sculptures inclay pots created by kindergartners aftervisiting a flower show. It is a spontaneous leapfor joy that shows up in a series of temperapaintings, pencil drawings of tadpoles turninginto frogs, 3-D skyscrapers built from card-board boxes or wooden blocks. It can be themovement and dance our bodies portray, therhythmic sound of pie-pan cymbals and papertowel tube trumpets played by four-year-oldsin their marching parade, the construction ofspaceships and birthday is most important in the creative arts isthat teachers, families, and children draw upontheir inner resources, making possible directand clear expression.

2 The goal of engaging inthe creative arts is to communicate, think, andfeel. The goal is to express thought and feelingthrough movement, and to express visualperception and representation through theprocess of play and creative art making. Theseforms of creative expression are important ways that childrenand adults express themselves, learn, and grow (Vygotsky [1930 35] 1978a, 1978b; Klugman & Smilansky 1990; Jones & Reynolds1992; Reynolds & Jones 1997; McNiff 1998; Chalufour, Drew, &Waite-Stupiansky 2004; Zigler, Singer, & Bishop-Josef 2004).This article is based on field research, observations, andinterviews about the use of creative, Open-Ended materials inWalter F.

3 Drew and Baji Rankin I just made a tulipand a sunflower. Thetulip is not like a VanGogh, but thesunflower is. I never knewtoothpicks could dothese things! I need to get this bighuge lump out of mypicture. Never mind. Iactually like it thatway. I can draw abigger flower now. Walter F. Drew, EdD, is a nationally known early childhood consultantwhose inspiring workshops feature hands-on creative play with Open-Ended reusable resources. As founder of the Reusable Resource Associa-tion and the Institute for Self Active Education, he has pioneered thedevelopment of Reusable Resource Centers as community-buildinginitiatives to provide creative materials for early childhood programs.

4 He isan early childhood adjunct faculty member at Brevard Community Collegein Melbourne, Florida, and creator of Dr. Drew s Discovery Rankin, EdD, is executive director of NMAEYC, lead agency Early Childhood New Mexico. Baji studies the Reggio Emiliaapproach and is committed to building early childhood programs with well-educated and -compensated teachers who find renewal through promotingchildren s Children July 2004 Creative Artsearly childhood classrooms and how their use affectsthe teaching/learning process. We identify seven keyprinciples for Using Open-Ended materials in earlychildhood classrooms, and we wrap educators stories,experiences, and ideas around these principles.

5 In-cluded are specific suggestions for 1 Children s spontaneous, creativeself-expression increases their sense ofcompetence and well-being now andinto the heart of creative art making is a playful atti-tude, a willingness to suspend everyday rules of causeand effect. Play is a state of mind that brings into beingunexpected, unlearned forms freely expressed, generat-ing associations, representing a unique sense of orderand harmony, and producing a sense of and art making engender an act of courageequivalent in some ways to an act of faith, a belief inpossibilities. Such an act requires and builds resilience,immediacy, presence, and the ability to focus and actwith intention even while the outcome may remainunknown.

6 Acting in the face of uncertainty and ambigu-ity is possible because pursuing the goal is actions produce a greater sense of competencein children, who then grow up to be more capableadults (Klugman & Smilansky 1990; Reynolds & Jones1997; McNiff 1998; Zigler, Singer, & Bishop-Josef 2004).Children and adults who are skilled at play and artmaking have more power, influence, and capacity tocreate meaningful lives for themselves (Jones 1999).Those skilled at play have more ability to realizealternative possibilities and assign meaning to experi-ences; those less skilled in finding order when facedwith ambiguity get stuck in defending things the waythey are (Jones 1999).

7 In Reggio Emilia, Italy, the municipal schools for youngchildren emphasize accepting uncertainty as a regularpart of education and Creativity . Loris Malaguzzi,founder of the Reggio schools, points out that creativityseems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled witha well-supported development of personal resources,including a sense of freedom to venture beyond theknown. (1998, 68)Many children become adults who feel inept, untal-ented, frustrated, and in other ways unsuited to makingart and expressing themselves with the full power oftheir innate creative potential. This is unfortunate whenwe know that high-quality early childhood experiencescan promote children s development and learning(Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart 1993).

8 Photos courtesy of the authorsYoung Children July 20043 The Association for Childhood Education International(ACEI) has enriched and expanded the definition of cre-ativity. Its 2003 position statement on creative thoughtclarifies that we need to do more than prepare childrento become cogs in the machinery of commerce :The international community needs resourceful, imagina-tive, inventive, and ethical problem solvers who will makea significant contribution, not only to the Information Agein which we currently live, but beyond to ages that we canbarely envision. (Jalongo 2003, 218)Eleanor Duckworth, author of The Having of Wonder-ful Ideas (1996), questions what kinds of people we as asociety want to have growing up around us.

9 She exam-ines the connection between what happens to childrenwhen they are young and the adults they become. Whilesome may want people who do not ask questions butrather follow commands without thinking, Duckworthemphasizes that many others want people who areconfident in what they do, who do not just follow whatthey are told, who see potential and possibility, andwho view things from different perspectives. The way tohave adults who think and act on their own is to pro-vide them with opportunities to act in these ways whenthey are young. Given situations with interesting activi-ties and materials, children will come up with their ownideas. The more they grow, the more ideas they ll comeup with, and the more sense they ll have of their ownway of doing things (E.)

10 Duckworth, pers. comm.).PRINCIPLE 2 Children extend and deepen theirunderstandings through multiple, hands-onexperiences with diverse principle, familiar to many early childhoodeducators, is confirmed and supported by brain re-search that documents the importance of the earlyyears, when the brain is rapidly developing (Jensen1998; Eliot 2000). Rich, stimulating experiences pro-vided in a safe, responsive environment create the bestconditions for optimal brain development. The yearsfrom birth to five present us with a window of opportu-nity to help children develop the complex wiring of thebrain. After that time, a pruning process begins, leavingthe child with a brain foundation that is uniquely his orhers for life.


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