Not too young to watch, not too young to make

I wrote an article for Youth Media Reporter, and it has come out in the online edition of the journal, Vol. 2 Issue 6. The print version will be available in January. It is called Not too young to watch, not too young to make, and features several of the children I worked with last year at PS 27 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Here is an excerpt:

While at young ages like four and five, children are not ready to operate cameras or editing equipment, they are ready to take the first step toward media creation, by being videotaped, watching their actions, and retelling what they did using their inherently diverse and creative storytelling voices. This process harnesses the vital role of storytelling in young children’s lives and pairs it with technology so as to make both components not only valid but also easily accessible to children.

The Puppets Ate the Sun Up

While making the final edit of the PS 27 videos for the end-of-project school screening today, I was again struck by the poetic language of the kindergarten children, as evidenced by this story Vertyce told about her group's play with their puppets, planes and backdrop representing Coffey Park:

When the sun woke up, the sun fell down, cause it was hot.
I got on the sun, then I got burned-ed.
The fire truck fired all the sun down, then it melted.
The sun melted, cause they put water on him, and then the wind blowed the sun, and after that, it fell on the ground.
And then the puppets ate the sun up, and then they spit out the sun, cause it was very hot.
And the sun got warmer, and then they ate it all up.

These children's poems will live on in the in between spaces, among the images of their lives, lived through story, when the children look back over these videos for years to come. At times like these, I truly believe in the video medium as a powerful tool in capturing such profound ideas that would not be remembered otherwise.

Puppets and Planes at Rotunda Gallery

Our DSW/PS 27 School Arts Partnership Grant project is currently on display at BRIC's Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn Heights, in the 16th Annual KidsArt Exhibition, curated by my colleague Hawley Hussey. The teachers (Shariffa Martinez, Andrew DeMers, Sandy DeFrancesco and Elizabeth Pavis) and I took all three classes, Pre-K, Early Kindergarten and K-1 (Self-Contained), to the gallery to interact with their own videos made over the course of the year, their backdrop and props (puppets and planes), and some representative picture story books compiled by my co-teaching artist Terry Solowey. What a wonderful culminating event of this year-long project!

Vivian Paley at PS 27

Last week, PS 27 in Red Hook was graced with the presence of the lengendary teacher and writer Vivian Gussin Paley, author of 12 books on childhood and recipient of numerous awards, such as the MacArthur Fellowship. We had a wonderful day with Vivian, who entertained teachers' questions in an informal lunch discussion, provided a Storytelling/Story Acting workshop for the Early Kindergarten class (Shariffa Martinez and Andrew DeMers, teachers), took questions afterwards, went on a walking tour of Red Hook with teachers and students from the neighborhood, and gave a keynote address in the auditorium to a crowd of around 150 people. I felt so honored to experience Vivian working with the same teachers and students I have been collaborating with over the past three years in the school. It was a day none of us in Brooklyn will ever forget.

Here is a highlight from the teachers' discussion with Vivian:
My first approach, in terms of using play as a starting point for whatever kind of lesson you want to teach, is very literal. That is, to put it briefly, you listen always, notebook in hand, you listen for a piece of play, a piece of dialog, or a piece of action. Now you’ve got something concrete. Now, a subject comes up, and here’s where the artful nature of teaching comes in. You say something like, “I heard Jeremy say this, before, on the playground, and it made me think of this. Can we act out what Jeremy was doing?” And bring in your math, your science, ...now this is just the first step….to show how vitally interested you are in every child’s exact language, exact interests, in other words, we’re not speaking of play in general, play in the abstract. We’re not discussing how to improve your golf, in general, we’re actually discussing things children have said, pretended to be. It’s a kind of game we play, that the teacher can play. Because the question is, how can I bring it in? Don’t think that the child will say to you, as adults often say to the child, “Well, how is that relevant? Why are you telling us about your Aunt Suzie’s canary, when we’re talking about. . .” Because the child thinks anything anyone says is relevant. Or why would they have said it? They have something on their minds that makes them think of, you know: "I was wondering when I heard you play, if the Ninja had to count out how many balls were in the air. . ."or whatever. We want the connection; it’s not phony. It shows, in fact, how logical thinking can progress. The logic here being, "I want your conversation to become part of ours." Think of play being a conversation. That’s what it is: it's a conversation. After that, I would simply say, become, yourself, a storyteller. That also binds together a disparate group, in all these subjects, being 4 to 7 is no problem. Being 4 to 11 would be no problem. These are the universal things children care about. Stories, make believe, and how what I’m thinking connects to what my teacher wants to tell. It’s the best classroom conversation.