Competent children - reflecting our image of the child

Everyone is busy with the preparation of the art exhibition, yet, I let children give the finishing touch to their clay sculptures, rather than doing it myself. As there has not been enough time to fire the clay work, I decided to cover them with a glaze of polymer medium, so the sculptures look better and won't break easily. Though the glazing takes time, but I respect the children as 'artists', so they are involved in every single step of the art show.  Why I take so much troubles? because I see children as competent learners.

it's amazing that the children can still remember what they had made weeks ago. One boy asked the whereabout of his lizard, when I let him glaze his dinosaur. A girl recalled that the hair of her clay dancing girl has fallen off, and she asked me whether I had figured out how to glue it back on. They invested time, thoughts and energy into their work, though it seemed they were just having fun. The children are committed artists who took ownership and responsibility seriously.

Marvin, when talking about working with children in art, advised against demonstration because children tended to think following what the teacher has done is more important than original thinking. He sees children as competent artists and are able to come up with ideas and solutions.

The same applies to behavior management. Here's my recent experience. Out of the blue, a new child cried and screamed. We have tried to comfort him and have done all sorts. But we could not figured out what's the issue, because he did not talk and just screamed. The head teacher decided to shift the balance of responsibility back to the child. She calmly told the child that we were willing to listen whenever he was ready. Then she just walked away. After a short while, the child came to me and explained that he had no friends to play with, because a particular child did not play with him. I explained that we can always have more than one friend, and pointed to the children at the playground and asked him to join in. Happily, he went to make new friends.

The head teacher trusted that the child is a competent communicator, and he is able to express his needs and wants once he has calmed down. She understood that children need time to learn to regulate their emotions, and she respected the child's need to do things at his own pace.

Ask yourself what's your image of the child? One who sees children as dependent on adults' help will intervene and 'teach'; and others who see children as competent and confident learner will observe and seize the magic moment to support and facilitate 'learning'.