Monday, February 4, 2013

Representing

Why Represent?

"Representing helps children to draw to learn in addition to learning to draw."
The Hundred Languages of Children

Representing a vision, idea or theory is a tenet of the education at Sabot at Stony Point. Children are asked to make their ideas visible using materials available in the studio or classroom. The learning community (peers and teachers) is then able to interpret, converse and gain a shared perspective. Representations especially for younger children are sometimes more exacting than words. 

There are many subtleties in the tenet  of representation for example the idea of cross-modal representation.  A child might first sketch and discuss a frog but if a decision is made to then sew the frog the child begins to consider the frog in  a different way---perhaps the outline of a frog will be more defined or the identifying features of a frog that must be cut from the felt.


"The mismatch between symbol and referent forces the child to be inventive."
The Hundred Languages of Children


The children represent ideas and thoughts about animals and their habitats

This is a secure home. No predators cannot get them here.

The monkey is at the lookout just like a soldier. He is looking for the bad guys (the predators).

These bad guys are sneaky. The good guys need to watch out.


The moat will protect them. The animals can leave (the habitat) using the bridge.


No comments:

Post a Comment