When children create art and craft items in their early education or school settings what are your first thoughts? Do you:
- Think a child’s handprint turned into a flower for a Mother’s Day card is cute?
- Wonder what the scribbles and marks mean?
- Secretly wonder when you can sneak the splats of paint and glue into the bin?
- Plan to keep every treasured artwork as a childhood memento – to remember when they were so small?
A wide range of arts and crafts activities are implemented with children in educational settings. Some processes support children’s individual expression and the resulting products are obviously child made and unique. On the other hand, children are sometimes guided by adults to make identical items to focus on a classroom interest or topic or produce special event gifts for families (think Father’s and Mother’s Day, Anzac Day and Christmas).
Vecchi (2010), an artist educator from the world-renowned educational project in Reggio Emilia explains their educational intention to "illustrate the extraordinary, beautiful and intelligent things children knew how to do” and to reject production line work “where mostly teachers' minds and hands were central and children had a marginal role, which led to the same stereotyped products for all” (Vecchi, 2010, p. 132).
Production line processes for children don’t lead to “extraordinary, beautiful and intelligent things."
The early childhood sector Guide to the National Quality Framework (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), 2023, p. 125) highlights the need for teachers and educators to use “open-ended resources and materials that allow children to express themselves (rather than using templates, stencils or resources that limit children’s capacity to create, interpret, experiment and explore).”
Despite this clear guidance, the production-line work Vecchi (2010) warns against still happens in too many classrooms. When this happens, children miss out on opportunities to engage in “work developed by children with minimal educator input” (ACECQA, 2023, p. 125).
Looking at the art product children make can reveal a lot about the quality of the learning experience children were engaged in and whether the child was central to the process (Lindsay, 2016). Important questions to reflect on when looking at children’s art and craft work are:
- Whose hands, hearts and minds were central to the process?
- Did the child have a choice of materials and processes?
- Does the art or craft product help you to better understand and appreciate children’s ideas, thinking and development?
- Can you see that it was genuinely made by the child?
- Did adult hands have a lot to do with making it?
When it is obvious that an art and craft item was not actually made by a child, but was planned, designed and even mostly made by educators or teachers - one must question whether the process honoured children’s right to “participate fully in cultural and artistic life” (United National Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 31).
When children play with visual arts materials and make their own marks, they are provided with rich opportunities to visually communicate, explore, experiment, and express their responses to the world around them (Roy et al., 2015). They are supported to show you what they think and how they are learning and developing. In fact, McArdle (2016, p.10) suggests “art can create new knowledge that matters.”
"Art can create new knowledge that matters." Image: Gai Lindsay.
Because of this, the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) expects educators to:
- “Provide ongoing opportunities for children to express their ideas, feelings and emotions through the creative arts” (AGDE, 2022, p.48).
- “Teach art as language and how artists can use the elements and principles to construct visual…texts” (AGDE, 2022, p. 60).
- “Teach children…skills and techniques that will enhance their capacity for self-expression and communication” (AGDE, 2022, p. 61).
- “Build on children’s family and community experiences with creative and expressive arts” (AGDE, 2022, p.61).
- Support children to “use materials to create art works…to express ideas and make meaning (AGDE, 2022, p.61).
Image: Gai Lindsay.
The creative arts are as important to children’s learning and development as other learning domains like numeracy, science and literacy (McClure, 2011).
Meaningful engagement with the arts has positive impacts on children’s arts knowledge and skills, social and personal development, attitudes to learning, and literacy and numeracy outcomes (Roy et al., 2015). The kinds of educational opportunities offered to children have the potential to support or to limit such learning benefits as The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), reminds us:
“Children see before they speak, make marks before they write, build before they walk. But their ability to appreciate and interpret what they observe, communicate what they think and feel, or make what they imagine and invent, is influenced by the quality of their art, craft and design education” (2008, p.1).
If the adults in children’s lives only present children with structured, adult-driven template activities, children miss out on rich arts-centred experiences that motivate learning, enrich creative potential and support visual meaning-making and communication.
Image: Gai Lindsay.
Honouring children’s ideas and learning through quality visual arts processes and child-made products doesn’t mean you have to give up on receiving special treasures or cards made by children for special events. It just means that parents and educators need to be more intentional when planning arts and crafts experiences that genuinely value the voices, ideas and activity of children instead of choosing processes and products that devalue children’s authentic learning and development.
As Dewey (1902, p.9) reminds us,
"The child is the starting point, the centre, and the end…Literally we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him. It is the child and not the subject-matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning."
About the author
Dr. Gai Lindsay; PhD, B.Ed Studies with Distinction, Dip.T (Primary and Early Childhood Education with Distinction, University of Wollongong, School of Education.
Following a two-decade career as a teacher and director in early childhood settings, Gai is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Bachelor of Education – The Early Years at the University of Wollongong. Her research, teaching and consultancy work focus on the visual arts skills, knowledge and self-efficacy of the adults who teach and care for children so that children will be well supported to engage in, make meaning and communicate through rich visual arts experiences.
Follow-up reading suggestion
- Lindsay, G. (2023). Visual arts in early childhood settings. Everyday Learning Series. 21(1). Early Childhood Australia.
References
Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA). (2023). Guide to the National Quality Framework. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-03/Guide-to-the-NQF-March-2023.pdf
Australian Government Department of Education [AGDE]. (2022). Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (V2.0). Australian Government Department of Education for the Ministerial Council.
Dewey, J. (1902). The Child and the Curriculum. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Lindsay, G. (2016). Do visual art experiences in early childhood settings foster educative growth or stagnation? International Art in Early Childhood Research Journal, 5(1), 1-14. Retrieved from http://artinearlychildhood.org/2016-research-journal-1/
McArdle, F. (2016). “Art education” in the early years: learning about, through and with art. International Art in Early Childhood Research Journal. 5(1), 1-15. http://artinearlychildhood.org/journals/2016/ARTEC_2016_Research_Journal_1_Article_3_McArdle.pdf.
Roy, D., Baker, W., & Hamilton, A. (2015). Teaching the arts: Early childhood and primary education. Cambridge University Press.
The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). (2008). Making a mark: art, craft and design education. www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/110135 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, November 20, 1989, https://www.ohchr.org/en
Vecchi, V. (2010). Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. London: Routledge.