There are a million ways to skin a cat, or so the saying goes. Which, by the way, who are these people skinning cats? Is it such a popular pastime that it has earned its own saying?
But so it goes in education. There are a million ways to teach and learn. Each one of those approaches comes with a name or two, and a devoted following. You’ve got Inquiry-Based Learning, Cooperative Learning, Expeditionary Learning, Self-Directed Learning. Honestly, I could go on for quite a while.
Looking at a list of dozens of approaches, it may seem a bit odd to think about teaching and learning as this hodgepodge of options. Why don’t educators simply find the best approach and apply it well?
Because there isn’t a best approach. There isn’t even a best approach for a specific subject, no matter how many textbook publishers or teachers swear up and down that there is. The best approach for teaching and learning is contextual.
When I’ve got my curriculum design hat on, I choose my tools based on the job at hand. Sometimes I use Social Learning, other times my foundation will be Game-based Learning. And more often than not, I’m pulling things together with Project-Based Learning.
As a parent, all these approaches play a major role in how I set things up, and interact with Rémy. I try picturing the results I want and then think about the best, easiest, and most fun way to get there. Having a wide variety of strategies means that I can tailor his learning experiences to him.
If I want him to develop knowledge of his body, I might try some Kinesthetic Learning where we play a game that involves independently moving each part of his body. If I want him to increase his emotional resiliency, I might offer up an activity based in Constructive Struggling; one that’s just out of his skill range, in order to help him strategize on how to work through frustration.
Like all educators, I do have my favorites. On the top of the list you’ll find Play-Based Learning, and Arts Integrated Learning. Those are always in my top five, no matter the age group or subject matter. I firmly believe that almost anything can be learned through play or art.
Play-Based Learning
As the name suggests, this approach is all about reaping the learning benefits of play. And those benefits are immense. Through play, children (and adults!) practice problem solving, creativity, imagination, logical thinking, collaboration, negotiation, organization and management skills, emotional regulation, gross and fine motor skills, and conflict resolution.
Within the approach, there is a sliding scale of teacher or parent involvement. On the one end you have play that is completely child-directed. On the other end, you have play experiences that are guided, set up, or supported by adults.
There’s nothing wrong with giving play a nudge in one direction or another by guiding the experience, but even within the framework of entirely child-directed play, you can influence the type and quality of play.
This is all done through environmental influences. You have control over what toys, materials, and space is provided for playtime, and that is more than enough to push play in particular directions.
If you’d like to take a stroll down Play-Based lane, check out the post by Edmentum, or another by Edutopia. Either give a solid background on this powerhouse approach.
Arts Integrated Learning
Like Play-Based Learning, Arts Integration allows children to construct and demonstrate their knowledge while engaging in an activity that is natural and enjoyable. Pretty much the same list of amazing benefits, stated above, would be relevant here as well.
All of the art disciplines apply, so we aren’t just talking about drawing and painting. There is also a celebrated place for art history and criticism within this approach. Children should not only be focused on their own personal acts of creation, but be gathering knowledge about what other artists have brought to light.
For a very thorough dive into Arts Integrated Learning, stop by artsintegration.com. They have several articles, like this one, that will give you a clear picture of how the arts can be used to drive curriculum.
There is considerable overlap within the two approaches. Play is often times an act of creation, and making art requires a hefty amount of play. But the difference lies in the goal of each, which has an impact on a child’s mindset.
The goal of play is pleasure. Even when focused on winning a game, the underlying goal is still to find some level of enjoyment. Whereas the goal of making art is… to make art. Your mind is focused on an end product, and how your ideas are communicated and received.
Arts Integrated Play
We’re pretty much all-in when it comes to play at our house. As Maria Montessori said, “Play is the work of the child,” and Rémy loves his work.
I spend a good deal of time observing him while he plays, and thinking. Mama is always thinking. I got to wondering how I could infuse more interaction with art, without inserting myself into his self-directed work. And here’s where I started to fixate on the idea of blending the two complimentary approaches together.
What if all those toys and activities that Rémy engages with day in and day out, simultaneously provide him with insights into the arts and art history? Instead of hanging a couple pictures of famous art on the wall and flipping through books now and again, what if art became something you physically interacted with?
These questions led to experiments, and the experiments led me to rethink everything. In my mind, I started constructing a new approach. Well, maybe that’s a bit lofty. Let’s say, I started constructing a personal sub-approach. I’ve been calling it Arts Integrated Play.
The overarching concept is simple. Play remains play, nothing is taken away from the emphasis on child directed experimentation, but there’s another layer that adds or extends the whole play experience. That layer comes by pulling from the artistic vocabulary we all share – whether we know it or not.
But, Why?
Is there a place in the educational landscape for yet another approach – or in this case, sub-approach? I wouldn’t be writing this article if I didn’t believe it to be so.
As a teacher and a parent, I am always on the look out for more tools to add to the toolbox. Each strategy I learn gives me one more that could apply to a specific situation.
This particular tool provides some benefits that I’m eager to take advantage of. Because I’m piggybacking on Play-Based Learning, Rémy will be gaining in all the ways listed above. The value add here is in the development of background knowledge and vocabulary related to the arts.
For some, that may not seem like a value add worth the extra effort, but to me, those additional benefits are of the most critical, and least talked about, ingredients that make up a creative thinker.
Navigating our social terrain in a thoughtful way requires high levels of artistic literacy. One advertisement is a culmination of hundreds of years of artistic evolution, and plays on you because of the creative rules established long ago.
I want Rémy to be able to see the connections to history, to pick apart and think critically about what has been presented to him, and to be able to express his own thinking in a way that rides the undercurrents that are already moving underneath him. This means that he needs to be exposed to art, and lots of it.
In Action
So I’ve taken a critical eye to all the toys and activities that sit on our play shelves. I’m looking for those play elements that would blend well with a style, school of art, or a particular artist. My first attempts have all centered around visual art because that’s what I’m most comfortable with, but in the next few months I would like to challenge myself to try integrating music or dance into a play offering.
Currently, we have a Yayoi Kusama inspired grouping on one shelf. I have presented three items together as an invitation to play. The first item, or actually items, is a matryoshka doll set that I painted. Each doll is inspired by a different painting or installation made famous by the artist. He was introduced to nesting dolls through a holiday set, and showed quite a bit of interest, so I knew that this Kusama set would be a hit.
The matryoshka dolls provide Rémy the opportunity to nest, stack, contain, and hide. All these are activities that he has been giving a lot of attention to over the past few months. They also work on his ability to understand size and pattern matching.
The second item is a basket of laminated prints of art. These are the images that inspired each of the dolls. I have the prints available so that he can play a matching game with each of the dolls. I knew he would be interested in this activity because every week, our matching work has been a favorite.
The prints also provide him with the opportunity to simply interact and inspect works of art. Adding some prints that relate back to the toy extends his understanding of what he is playing with. He starts to see the connection between the toy and the works of art. So, I’m trying to provide these types of prints whenever I present an invitation to art infused play.
The third item is the book, Yayoi Kusama Covered Everything in Dots and Wasn’t Sorry, by Fausto Gilberti. It is an introduction to Kusama, told through a first person story. I like it because it gives insight into what she has created, but also touches on how she got to be the famous artist we know today. There’s even a guest appearance by Georgia O’Keefe that will be a fun bird walk later on.
Rémy pulls the book off the shelf for a read aloud a few times a day. He loves to connect the dolls and the prints to the dots he sees in the illustrations. In particular, he is intrigued by the pumpkins.
He has played with all three items quite a bit this past week, and because it is child-directed play, some of the interactions have been delightful surprises. One of his soft dolls wears a dotted shirt, and so he felt that she belonged with the matryoshka set. The smallest doll fits comfortably in his little wooden car, so it has ridden around the playroom and kitchen a few times. And he has even used the dolls as containers to hold kale he feeds to his Giraffe.
The week has been an exploration of Yayoi Kusama, but on his terms, and with him choosing when and how to interact with the art. This is what I’m going for. This kind of magic is what I’m looking to replicate again and again.
For a quick look at how this all came together, check out our video:
Extensions
Our exploration of Kusama will not end at the play shelf. We will be doing additional art activities that allow him to use dots to create. As I said before, I am not a one-approach-woman. It makes sense to also explore the art in a non-play based way.
But the difference is that these art activities would have been my first stop in the past. I would have had Rémy look at art, talk about it (when he’s able to actually have a discussion), and then practice techniques that are inspired by the art. Play would not have been on the schedule. I think there’s room for improvement there.
Taking the time to introduce the art and artist through play helps him to connect in a fun, memorable, and personal way. By the time that he gets to painting dots, he will have created loads of background knowledge, and will relate to the art in an entirely different way.
Looking for Examples
Have you run across Arts Integrated Play? I’m curious to know what it looked like. Please leave me a note in the comments section and share so that everyone can check it out.
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