At Bear Park, we view each child as deeply unique, with their own opinions, experiences, thoughts, and feelings. As teachers, we seek to truly understand children—their ways of being, who they are, and their sense of self-identity, both as individuals and within a whānau/community. Inspired by Loris Malaguzzi’s concept of “The Hundred Languages of Children,” we believe that every child possesses a multitude of languages, encompassing visual, verbal and emotional dimensions, which provide authentic pathways for self-expression.
In our recent investigations in the Tui group, we have sought to deepen our understanding of our children’s self-identities, inviting them to express ‘who they are’ through the languages of materials, clay and drawing. Our intent is reflective of our image of the child as rich in potential; with knowledge, capacities, experiences and meaningful connections to people, and the wider world around them. This focuses our attention to knowing and ‘listening’ to each child’s interests, working theories, dispositions and strategies which they bring to their learning.
To begin our investigation we offered children mirrors and encouraged them to study their faces from this unfamiliar perspective. We then invited them to express their observations through drawings, clay or open ended materials. We revisited this exploration with mirrors over a number of weeks to allow children time to ‘look closely’ extending ideas by revisiting their previous work and analysing the details of our features from differing perspectives including things the child may not notice like eyelashes, the shape of their eyebrows, cheeks, the openings in their ear or how their hair falls. As a teacher it is special sharing this experience as it’s possible that some children are paying attention to these things for the first time.
The simple question ‘what do you see/notice?” sparked rich exchange about our noticing’s, the shapes, form, colour and structure, as well as the similarities and differences amongst the group. This context invited thoughtful discussions around diversity as children shared their ideas about what makes them unique or the same as their peers.
Children also explored emotions by moving their face to create different expressions in the mirror and artistically depicted concepts such as ‘a sad eye.’.
As our investigation progressed we noticed how each child ‘sees’, interprets and expresses things differently – their self portraits became a very special glimpse into their individuality and self identity, a unique expression of how they see themselves – ‘this is me, this is who I am.’
For some children their curiosity motivated them to consider what is happening beyond what we can see, hypothesising about things like the insides of their ears, up their nose, under their skin or within their pupils. Others shared their acquired knowledge such as facts about their teeth which they contributed to the group as they carefully sculpted their mouth and each individual tooth within it from pieces of clay.
Some chose to approach the invitation in a completely different way, moving beyond documenting their observations in the mirror to illustrating narratives about themselves. Their stories shared imaginative ideas about aspirations to be a princess, a flower (or a rat!) as well as things that are important to them such as connections with family and their life experiences. Their work a bold declaration of their own identity as both subject and artist, with all images having a rich story to tell.
As teachers this affirmed the importance of listening, closely observing and being open to what might emerge when children are given the time, space, resources and materials to express themselves in authentic ways. Our objective of investigating self portraits is not for children to draw or sculpt their face but to gain insight into the child’s self image and find some understanding of their “me-ness” (a term coined by Loris Malaguzzi).
Through exploring self-identity, we hope to highlight our image of the child as capable, rich in potentials, and to empower children to develop these positive views for themselves. In this environment children develop mana tangata, confidence in who they are as an individual as well as an appreciation of their peers’ uniqueness too, fostering a vibrant learning community where differences in perspectives, ideas, experiences and ways of being are listened to.
Written by Linda Mikaere, Bear Park Mt Eden.
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