Beards, Masks and Racism

Its been a while since I sat here to write. I have had ideas of what to write... but no energy to sit and write them... not sure how this post will be but it has been on my mind for a week now and I need to get it down and let the thoughts start musing about other things too! lol

Two years ago I was working as a head teacher at a bilingual preschool and a situation arose where one of the staff came in and exclaimed her horror at the fact she had seen three other staff make a child cry and the frustration that she had done nothing to prevent it.

The scenario was this. A just turned two year old child was scared of one of the assistants, who was at the time the only pedagogue of African American descent. The three assistants involved said the child was a racist and wanted to cure the child by forcing the child on the knee of the very adult he was afaid of. He cried, naturally.

The three staff came into my office so that we could talk through and understand the situation and discuss whether small children could  be racist (and I am not even going to the place where children are fed racism and hate - because the children, I feel, are not understanding what they are doing, the are merely mimicking what others do).

I pointed out that this assistant was in fact very different on the outside than the rest of the teachers and the rest of the child's family - and that fear of the unkown is common in young children - it is just to look at how many children cry of fear when they see Santa with his face hidden behind a big beard - or when masks are being used. It does not mean that children hate santa and will go round and say and do mean things about santa and bearded people. It just means that this child has not been given the chance to get to know the real santa - and by watching and observing the kind behaviour of santa and other bearded people they will learn that it is not something to fear!

In the same way the forcing a child to sit on someones knee to get over a fear is not going to work - instead the child needs to be given the opportunity to watch and observe this adults interactions with others to learn that this person is no different than anyone else - and allowed to come to terms with what is different and scary does not need to be...

The reason why this has come up again is because on the last two Fridays we have had song-time with the whole preschool where teachers have dressed in costumes from the book "Mamma Mu" and sang songs inspired from the book (they are very catchy) watch here to see a trailer of the film it's actually quite hard to listen to that music without singing the words in my head!!

Anyway - despite getting dresssed up as characters from children's books three of the children were totally terrified and could only cry - so instead of forcing them to be in the room with something that scary (even though the head/mask had been removed and the teachers revealed and the situation explained - the fear was still too strong) I took them to be in another room... sad I got to miss song time, but much better for those three children to be able to calm down and play on their own terms... and maybe next time it won't be so scary - or the time after or the time after...

So this fear of the unknown I see it as a survival mechanism - until you know what it is you kind of keep your distance. As teachers we need to explore HOW to create opportunities for these children to understand their fears - to work out which ones are there for safety (like not playing with fire) and which ones are hindering the child's play and exploration.

Our exploration of the dark and of heights was our attempt to help the children to understand WHAT it is they are scared of - and I am not saying we have cured the children of their fear of the dark or heights - but they have been given the opportunity to see them in a new way - to laugh and have fun in the dark makes the dark a lot less scary - and our light experiments in the dark was that kind of opportunity - and the first time round there were children that were scared and had to leave the room - the second time round no-one needed to leave the room (although that time the child with the greatest fear of the dark was at home sick). The days are getting shorter here in Sweden, so dealing with the dark is something we have to come to terms with - in midwinter it will be pitch black by 3pm!

I am going to keep it at that... I would like this to be a start of a dialogue about fear - and I would appreciate if you could share experiences as comments - so that I can learn more - and also so that others reading this post have the opportunity to learn more and deepen their own thoughts about fear, beards, masks and racism...

Back to the fairies...

During our philosphical dialogue yesterday about darkness - and whether we can see things in the dark the topic of fairies re-surfaced again (it keeps popping up) - but this time the energy and enthusiasm surrounding the fairies indicated to us as teachers that we need to return to our fairy project of August and September... the children had questions... lots in fact... for example...


where did the fairy door go?
Where are the fairies now?
were the fairies dead?

So I asked if the children would like to write a letter to the fairies to see if we would get an answer - the children got excited at this idea and we left a letter for the fairies attached to the fairy lights in the hope that they would read the letter...

we voted on the colour of the paper and the colour of the pen - and then discussed which questions should be put in the letter. Dear Fairies, Can you come and live at preschool Filosofiska again? Are you dead? We don't want you to leave again. Why did you go away and where did you go? Where is the fairy door? the children then all signed their names. One child looked at me and said "but I can't write my name" so I wrote his name down on a piece of paper for him to try and copy and used words of encouragement that the fairies would probably understand all symbols. His first two letters were perfect, although done with ENORMOUS concentration, and his last two letter were placed randomly on the paper and randomly formed. He looked at them and then looked at me and said with a wrinkled nose "but that's not my name, those are not my letters". I looked back and said "but this is just your first time, it takes many many practices before we can write our letters and make words". He looked back at me and seemed satisfied with the answer - and now i look forward to next time he tries to write his name...

Today Ellen and I had out planning/reflection time together - it was a busy half hour throwing around ideas and developing the potential project of a penfriend relationship with the fairies that were trapped in fairyland and needed the children's help... but I am not going to reveal more than that... as the children do not yet know anything - and we still have to see if the children will be interested in following this idea (but I have my suspicions they will...)

The letter we wrote was still there... and I asked the children why they thought it was still there - we hadn't posted it! Do we need to post it to reach fairies... no-one was sure, but maybe we needed some kind of stamp - so a stamp made of glitter was decided upon and was then left high up in the hope that the fairies would find it...

Tomorrow it will not be there...

Tomorrow it will be gone...

But there will be no letter in return... we want a pause in communication until next week - as in real life the post takes a day or two.

BUT - I do have some special paper, glitter pens and some small wings ready for the answer... and next week they will get to find out the first step in their quest...

I am soooo excited - and its not easy to sit here and not share... because its totally bubbling away with ideas and it covers so much of the curriculum that I am positively singing with playful joy - I just love it when learning and play weave so perfectly together ...

So more fairies will be coming your way....

and if you are wondering how exploring fear and the dark could end up in fairies - well it is just to return to the original fairy dialogues... the children said that fairies came out in the dark of night... a perfect logical connection!

Return to the dark... to play!

The value of repeating activities should never be underestimated.
Today we returned to playing in the dark with various light sources - with a few new ones added... and we could really see that this time the children were able to focus on experimenting more as they settled down from the buzz of the excitement - last week it was a scream-fest, it was high energy and it was running around and there was for the most part not a great deal of exploration (even though of course they WERE exploring and experiencing the newness of playing with lights in the dark) but by returning to the dark today the children were able to deepen their experience by testing things out - and using the camera as a source of creativity was very apparent - partly as they have seen the photo images from last week and also because as the children were exploring so did Ellen and I - in true Hawkins style we had a good mess about too - which inspired the children to try making light pictures too. Also testing if lights could shine through material and their own clothes as well as what happened when several light sources cam together.

Afterwards we talked about if they felt the dark was scary when they had played and laughed in the dark - and there was a resounding - no, the dark was not so scary when we were playing together.

using torches on the fibre-optics - there were torches and small coloured finger torches.

a new effect appeared when using a light source under a chiffon scarf

art in the air... like magic - this was a snail!

so many different kinds of light play and exploration - it was hard to try and capture everything and there were many discoveries that I simply did not capture on camera - for instance light colour mixing on the white walls.

creating scary monsters with fleece blankets and light eyes shining through...

fibre-optic exploration

the great thing with the fibre optics is that you did not need the camera to see the special effects - it actually looked like this - flowing, moving - was it fairies?

tummies glowing as one of the light globes was stuffed up a top

Face to face with FIRE

During our philosophy dialogues we have candles floating in water in the middle - and we as teachers felt that the children did not fully understand the respect you need to have with any flame... so we thought that having an excursion and grilling sausages on an open fire might be a great way to discuss this... the children thought this was a great idea too!

old newspapers to make lighting the fire easier - at this stage the children could come VERY close.

once the fire got going and we had all felt how hot it was - and how uncomfortable it was to get smoke in your eyes - we went looking for sticks so that we could cook our suasages...

there were big discussions about what kind of stick we would need - too short and your hand would get burnt, to thin and the stick would burn and your sausage would fall off, to fat and you would not be able to get your sausage on it... we did not need a too long discussion...

once the sticks were ready it was a matter of waiting for the flames to die down so that we could grill on the embers...

the joy of being able to start cooking. Chicken hotdogs so that we can be inclusive (no veggies in this group - and the packages were all checked to make sure there were no ingredients that would trigger an allergic reaction)

now this bit was MUCH trickier than what the children originally thought - sausages did end up in the fire - or so high up that it would have taken forever to get even slightly warm. And once they all had a sausage in their tummy there was no more interest in grilling the sausages even though there was still some interest in eating more - so next time we will be taking a rack with us to line the sausages on - this would allow us to focus on other areas of the fire - as for this trip ALL energy and time was consumed by the cooking of sausages. Yes, the trip was a success, but we did not achieve all out aims about fire and fire exploration so that the children could develop their own risk-assessment ability when it comes to fire - a true understanding of the power of fire.... but as with all things with children - repeat repeat repeat - to allow the children to experience the same thing on many different levels...

Once we were finished it was time to extinguish the fire - so that we could leave the forest safely. There were 2 bottles of water and ALL the children wanted to extinguish the flames - so I asked the children "How are we going to solve this?" The suggestion that they all help with their own water bottles was made and agreed upon by everyone as a good idea...

Afterwards there was a chance to feel the warmth of the stones heated by the fire (a lovely feeling as most children were complaining about the cold - as sadly many did not have either gloves or hats with them). After checking on the sly to see if it was cool enough, the children also had the opportunity to draw with bits of charcoal left by the fire.

 We all returned to the preschool tired and smelling like smoked kippers - but all satisfied with their first excursion with a picnic lunch! A BIG day for the children in "The Wind" group.

The Shadow Theatre in Action

Having realised that I had jumped the gun somewhat by making the shadow theatre with the children on Monday without having properly introduced them to shadows the shadow theatre was put to the side and neglected for the week as I prepared some puppets to use as I told the story of Room on the Broom. I chose this story as they are already very familiar with it and have been playing theatre with the characters for each other already - it seemed the obvious choice...

So we moved our morning meeting into a room that we could darken, the children were all sat waiting and the story began. Judging by the quietness on the other side of the screen the children were obviously intrigued - and as soon as I finished the story and asked if anyone else wanted a go there was a whole forest of hands that couldn't stretch high enough to show their eagerness - and waiting for a turn (as they got to do it in pairs) was not easy either - the NEED to try this out was HUGE and the body was barely able to contain itself.

Some of the children were able to tell both a story and move the puppets around so that we could see, some were completely quiet, except for some soft roaring, others could not quite work out how to make a shadow and moved the puppets around behind the screen and lamp while telling a story...

I could see directly how great this was for language development, for inspiring the imagination, for science exploration about shadows, social development - yes, I was sitting there watching the shows smiling and seeing more and more of the curriculum that could be covered by the shadow theatre...

In the afternoon there was great interest in playing with the shadow theatre again - and we went back to where it was set up and performed for each other again - this time I helped the children who were not making shadows so they could see the difference between playing with the puppets and moving them in front of the lamp to make a shadow.

I used a small Ikea reading lamp that can be clipped onto the table (or shelves or whatever) - it worked fine (but I have to admit that I did take it from my son's bedroom, but as he is sleeping in my bed - as my husband is away in Brazil attending a sleep conference and Michael is excellent on maximising snuggle opportunities - I don't think he will notice for the next 10 days!!). One of the children did have her face close to the lamp at one time and realised that it was warm - and of course developed a healthy respect for the lamp at the same time.

Later we made some more puppets - a few more for the Room on the Broom story, as well as some from Gruffalo - the children also started making their own. This was not so easy for some of the children as their need to play with the pen on the paper exceeds their desire to create a puppet - but it DID give us time to TALK about purposeful drawing, and it also inspired one child to take the leopard figure and draw that, and her observations in the drawing were wonderful, especially as this was her first attempt (her choice of colours were spot on).

As the children cut out their drawing they went off to test them at the shadow theatre. Their drawing and cutting inspired others and many toddlers were busy at the tables drawing and cutting with great concentration. It's really wonderful to see how infectious learning is through play...

building the shadow theatre last Monday - there IS a post about this too!

sometimes a head became a part of the performance

the puppets are without sticks - it makes them quite easy to handle, BUT it does mean we see a lot of body parts... I do feel though that the power of imagination will be strong enough not to see the hands etc and just focus on the figures - if it does get to a point where the children start to notice then I will be able to challenge their problem solving and ask what we could do...

experimenting with the puppets and different distances - close to the screen, close to the lamp, just off centre... etc - The shadows were always changing...

experimenting with the colour of the card - and also the frame of the shadow theatre allowed you to slightly post a puppet and let it stand (or hang) there while other puppets could be moved. ALSO different thickness of paper was used - lucky for us the ghost was drawn on thinner paper which made it more spooky! I am itching to start cutting out eyes, using tissue paper and cellafane to see how the children react and develop the puppets over time...

a leopard - a first attempt at drawing from a model - the child gave me a funny look when I suggested she should give it a try - she REALLY studied the leopard before starting

can't wait to see the stories that will come - this was  GREAT way for language development/support as well as an imagination fuel injection. The theatre took 20 minutes to build - and it was the best 20 minutes spent ever spent - as I can see hours of play, learning and imagination in front of us - think I better put a pen and notebook near the theatre to document the stories!!

Braving the dark....

As part of our Fear Project we offered the children the opportunity to play in the dark - we have a LARGE room that we can make completely dark - we put on some spooky music and there were torches, small colour changing lamps that were soft and easy to play with as well as some glowsticks...

All but one child thoroughly enjoyed this play - that one child was able to go out of the room with a teacher and talk about how it felt and explore and face their fear (in the afternoon session, requested by the children, this child also participated and also commented that he was no longer afraid of the dark - "Where have the ghosts gone? They are not here anymore")

There was a LOT of screaming - the kind you hear on the roller-coaster and other white-knuckle rides - fear and delight mixed all at once. There was lots of running around with the light sources - although the two globe colour changing lamps tended to invite a calmer play and exploration... I am now wanting to get LOTS more of those lamps as they are such fun...

In the afternoon I had put up photos on the board and on the digital frame of the morning session - and they looked so much more spooky - as my camera had a long exposure as I did not use the flash - these photos were what inspired the children to want to play in the dark again... The great thing about the afternoon session was that we did not make it fully dark - as we had toddlers with us as well - which probably allowed the scared child from the morning able to see that there were no ghosts... it also allowed more children the opportunity to experience the play with dark and light - and those colour-changing lamps were a HUGE hit with the toddlers - they REALLY explored them - how they sparkled on the wall, how you could switch them on and off and watching how the colours changed - sometimes they were the same colour as each other - but most often not!

I think our ears have just about recovered from all the screaming...

ghostly like appearance on photo!

the colour changing ball looks like a snake as it moves across the room

the lamp when still

another fascinating moving light photo

the differences between the movement of the lmaps, the movement of the torches and the movement of the glow sticks

drawing with the torch

a fun exploration of fear - and an opportunity to talk about fear and feel a little braver later...

Making a shadow theatre

As our Fear project has progressed it has been noticable that the children have shared a fear of the dark as well as for monsters, witches, ghosts etc, we have also noticed the children's interest in theatre and acting out the storybook we have been reading. So I thought that making a shadow theatre would be a great way to mix their interests with their explorations of fear.

So I experimented - I have NEVER built a shadow theatre before (having just used sheets hanging up with a light behind it before) - but this time I wanted something smaller that could be brought out and used and then put away - and also something that would allow the children to make their own shadow puppets - and I have noticed that at the moment the children's drawings tend to be quite small. Of course when making something that comes from your head like this, there is always a risk of it going wrong - but I feel that it is important that I show the children that I work with that I am prepared to take risks - that it is OK for things to go wrong, and that we can learn from our mistakes...

So in my head I reckoned I needed black card, white baking paper, and some cardboard for extra support and also so that the theatre could stand...

As you can see on the above photo I cut out the black card to create a frame - it was two pieces and first we glued on a piece of white baking paper (as it will disperse the light nicely to create shadows at the same time as allowing light through easily. We then glued some extra cardboard in to make it a bit more sturdy and then another layer of black card to finish it off.
I taped on two wings of cardboard that I cut slits into at the bottom so that an additional supporting strip of card could be used behind the theatre to help it have better blance, abd keep the wings open. We are thinking about adding trees and other things to this strip behind the theatre to add a backdrop to the performances that will eventually happen.

If I was to do this again - i would simply take a big cardboard box and cut of one of the long sides (which I would then use a part of for the supporting strip at the back) and then use the shorts sides as the standing wings and cut out a hole for the theatre on the long side which I would cover with baking paper. I would then paint the theatre (although I would paint it BEFORE I added the baking paper screen - well the children would paint it).

This was quite tricky for the children to do, but they participated the best they could (I will have to go back and re-glue some areas as the children were a bit haphazard as to where the glue was going ;-) )

The children started on the puppets - but I feel as the children probably don't fully understand what it is that they are doing, that I would just let them draw - some clearly made scary things like ghosts and monsters - but the majority just enjoyed the drawing process... So I am thinking of making a few puppets and putting on a show on Thursday morning to get them thinking about how they can best make their own puppets - and their own story-lines...

So hopefully later this week there will be some images of it in action!!

making a monster

During our philosophical dialogues about fear the topic of monsters has been raised - so a group of six of the children had the opportunity to describe a monster - which did not seem that easy at first... but I am interested in getting the children to THINK about what they are creating BEFORE they start painting etc - that their artwork is becoming more intentional and not JUST a sensory experience - although I still see the need for plenty of sensory art experiences too. I also wanted to challenge their imaginations and to be able to see the potential of art as a great way of expressing their imagination...

The session started with drawing round one of the children to get a form - the idea being to see what was needed to transform a child into a monster - and for this session I drew the children's words - a big triangular head with spikes, wide arms with long claws (no mention of hands), a fat tummy, legs with scales and big feet. The children were then asked what was a monster colour - and that was the colour they got to paint with ( but they got to swap with each other too - and mix - but this took time to happen).

The main idea of this session was to get the children thinking about how far we can push things in art - but I felt the children were really rather conservative - I was hoping for many arms and legs, and hair all over the place, millions of eyes all over the body etc etc etc - in the end I have to admit I started to push their thoughts a little . challenge their imagination to expand from two of everything - and we did end up with three eyes...

When the children were painting it was VERY harmonious - the children chatted and worked together to fill the monster with colour - althought a couple of the children had their own agenda of painting everywhere EXCEPT inside the lines - and after a few gentle reminders about the intention of the morning I just let it slide and let them enjoy their own process - they knew the monster was going to be cut out, so the children who were slightly concerned about those children painting mangoes etc around the monster (and these images could be saved too)

Today we returned to the monster and started adding texture - and once the children got going on this they kept adding and adding and adding - looking for more things that could be glued on! It has ended up quite heavy - much heavier than I anticipated - so we will have to see what happend when the glue dries and we try to get it to stay on the wall!!

drawing around, counting spikes, counting colours, and adding adding adding texture....

everyone had their own position for painting - sitting, squatting, lying down.... and there was plenty of movement as the children are starting to get the hang of maving around and taking their paint with them to reach all areas of the monster/art - and just over half way through they realised they could mix colours with each other to create new colours - which started an interest in swapping colours with each other...

carefully carefull filling each claw with colour...

feathers, ribbons, ice-cream spoons - what MORE could be found?

prickles needed to be added - last winter we collected pine needles from the snowy ground from Christmas trees that had been dumped in the square for collection/recycling. Shredded paper... and the children's favourite - glitter

"how high dare you climb" art.

Just a quick post to share our process art session today...

We challenged the children with the fear of height - how high did they dare climb? On the step, on the chair, on the table or all the way up the step ladder?

ALL the children wanted to go up the step ladder - ALL but one went to the very top - one child was almost at the top!

First they chose a scary colour of paint - and this was dripped down onto the paper below. The idea was to have a lots of splats - but the children were far too interested in feeling the paint - so when everyone had challenged their fear of height (which there did not seem so much of - but maybe we simply need a bigger step ladder?) then they got to mix up the colours to a new scary colour!

Colours used...
night, dark black
blood red
ghost white
poop  brown
monster blood green
snot yellow
scary blue

I think we might need to do something similar again - climbing up the step ladder was POPULAR!