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What if…? Art as language in early childhood |
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‘Is art really important?’
‘What is art?’
Questions like these are usually better argued in my house over a couple of bottles of wine and a good dinner party. But of
course, there are no easy answers. Nevertheless we expect to see, in any early childhood setting or classroom, samples of
children’s colourful paintings, drawings and visual representations. But why do we do art with young children … and how do we
read it? There is any number of ways of seeing art: it gives schools and settings a ‘look’. We read it as evidence of busy,
happy, healthy children. It is other to ‘work’. It is a tradition in early childhood settings, the origins of which are
perhaps lost on us. It is a means of ‘self-expression’, ‘creativity’. It is ‘therapeutic’. It helps develop fine motor skills
(this, as a main reason, can set my teeth on edge!). Each of these views of art carry some truths, and can shape the
decisions we make about how, when and why we teach art.
I have many conversations with both pre-service and in-service teachers about the importance of ‘creativity’, ‘self-
expression’ and ‘art’, and we nod our heads and agree – sometimes while we are looking together at 25 paper plates displayed
on the wall, decorated fairly identically to resemble, say, a stylised version of a lion. Paul Duncum (2001) refers to this
as ‘bunny-bum’ art, and in this article, I attempt to explore some of these ways of seeing art, and in so doing, raise some
new questions.
What if there was no such thing as art?
Can you imagine a world without art? We would have very little ancient history, no cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphics,
records of ancient people’s religious beliefs, customs or culture. No weavings, pottery. No music – no blues, jazz, hula,
Beethoven, Mozart, nursery rhymes, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Elvis, Powderfinger, Wiggles. No Michelangelo, Salvador Dali,
Albert Namatjirra, Frida Kahlo. No cathedrals, galleries. No Stonehenge, pyramids, temples, Eiffel Tower. No movies – no
Sound of Music, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Mad Max, Finding Nemo. No novels – no Pride and Prejudice, Da Vinci Code,
Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. No poets, dancers, actors, designers. No Kath and Kim... I can’t go on! This would
mean we were condemned to evenings of Big Brother and Burke’s Backyard …or watching the grass grow.
Our knowledge of the world, and our existence as human beings would be vastly different without art. It is art that sets us
apart from other living things, and it is art which can lift us to a higher plane, sometimes helping us to see, feel and
express what words cannot say. When art is all this and more, I can’t help but think it is sold short when we justify ‘bunny
-bum’ art and colouring in with the argument that it assists with the development of fine motor skills. I think you would
agree that those who created the cave paintings, the Mona Lisa, the hieroglyphics, were on about more than developing their
fine motor skills. They wanted us to see things. They were engaged in creative acts which speak to us across time and
place.
What if there was a language that everyone in the world spoke?
There is … it’s art. I am not referring to the language of art catalogues:
‘It became a cliché in the work of followers like Palma il Giovane, but here it has all the force of a novel idea’.
‘ … is regarded by Professor Michael Jaffé of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, as a masterpiece and a splendid example of
Van Dyck’s Genoese portraiture’.
I mean a language that you can know with your mind, heart, body, and ‘soul’, if you like. I feel it when I walk into a
cathedral, when I look at a sunset, and when I look at one of Nolan’s paintings of the vast, empty interior landscape of
Australia. It can bring a lump to my throat when I watch a sad play or movie, and I empathise with the actors. I can feel a
thrill when I watch the New Zealand haka, or African tribespeople, in full regalia, singing and dancing their tribal music.
Gospel choirs can lift me, and reggae music can make me want to party. Art can help us to laugh and cry – at weddings,
funerals, and other big events in our lives. The national anthem can move me, and so can Waltzing Matilda. For that matter,
the flags of countries can say so much, through simple combinations of colours, shapes and lines. The Union Jack, in the
corner of the Australian flag, tells a story of our history and colonisation.
What if you really wanted to learn this language, so you could read, speak and write it … but nobody would teach you?
Then you would experience all the feelings of being illiterate … you would feel disempowered, foolish, constrained and
inadequate. Eventually, you would give up trying to communicate. You might even convince yourself that the language is silly,
and that you have no interest in it. When you tried to become proficient in this language, people told you to just experiment
and explore, and you will naturally come to understand. They simply provided you with a sometimes vast array of raw
materials, frequently changed these materials, and told you that all attempts were absolutely brilliant. They refused to help
you, even when you could see room for improvement, and when you asked for their help. If artistic development and mastery is,
indeed, a natural occurrence, why then are we not all fantastic artists? How do artists learn to paint, draw, sculpt? They
are taught. Many of the earlier artists studied from their masters for years. Currently, most artists have been trained in
art for at least as long as we all have to become educators.
Where does this ‘hands off’ approach come from? The taboos against ‘teaching’, particularly in early childhood education, are
persistent when it comes to art (McArdle, 2001). One of the most pervasive of these beliefs is that correcting children’s
artwork, or saying anything less than praise, will damage the child’s self-esteem. But what builds self-esteem? A sense of
confidence, accomplishment and mastery.
Let’s think about how we teach children to read and write the English language. We call on a vast repertoire of strategies.
We demonstrate; we have conversations; we provide opportunities for frequent practice; we correct; we drill; we teach skills
and techniques; we question; we expose children to models of exemplary language; we immerse them in the language. Imagine if
we were teaching children to learn to read and we announced that, since they had been working with letters and words for a
few weeks, we were going to change things for this week. We don’t want them to be bored so we will introduce a new ‘gimmick’,
and for this week, they will not work with letters and words, but instead, will work with a piano and a basketball. And yet,
instead of teaching children the skills and techniques for successful use of the basic tools for artistic communication—
brushes and pencils—we urge them to communicate with feathers, balloons and marbles. Such gimmicks produce random results,
not deliberate communication.
Conclusion
I hope my questions have started you thinking about your approach to art education, and I will finish with a couple more
‘what ifs’:
What if we said: ‘I’m not very good at maths, so the children in my class don’t do much. Never mind, they will get to do more
next year when they go to Ms Maths’ class’?
What if we charged children a ‘literacy levy’ to buy their reading books?
What if we helped all children to master art as a language, and help them to make their learning visible?
Imagine what we would learn about our children.
Dr Felicity McArdle
Senior Lecturer & Course Coordinator
School of Early Childhood
Queensland University of Technology
References
McArdle, F. (2001). Art in early childhood: The discourse of ‘proper’ teaching. Unpublished PhD, Queensland University of
Technology, Brisbane.
Duncum, P. (2000). Christmas and Easter art programs in elementary school. Art Education, 53(6), 46-53.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 June 2007 )
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