"Who am I Becoming?"
Together, we turned to materials. We began to puzzle over what language materials might offer us in inviting the children to know themselves as learners. How might they take up the offerings of loose parts? We connected the materials work to their exploration of personal identity, a process the children felt agency in. They used loose parts and natural materials to reflect on who they are at this moment in time. To allow the learners to show who they are becoming, Matt, Emma, Sara, and their Teacher Candidates offered up three questions to deepen their reflections:
How do you know when you’ve grown?
How do you know when you’ve learned something?
How do you know what your strengths and stretches are?
The natural materials offered opportunities for expression of themselves, but we wondered what materials might give them language to illuminate those moments where they were bumping up against one another. What might paint allow them to express about themselves as learners in relation to others?
What might wire allow them to consider the permanence of their actions, or the trajectory that can be set in motion by an action? We wanted to offer materials that might disrupt or complicate their ideas of being a learner in community, ones that might help them capture a fuller picture of what it means to grow and develop in tandem. We sought materials that would speak to the language of tangles, the language of bumping up against each other.
