Young people and their creative learning about art
WHY IS OUR CHILDHOOD NOT A GOOD GUIDE TO OUR CHILDREN’S?
For someone like me, who grew up in the 1960s, the world of 2022 can seem quite disorienting. Although the Sixties are now seen as a time of social, political and cultural upheaval, that was not how they appeared to a child in primary school. The world is mysterious to children, but the limits of their under- standing protect them with simplifications they can deal with. So, at least for me, the world seemed rather stable. At the global level, it was divided between us and the largely unknown communist bloc, who were the bad guys: about everyone else we knew little and thought less. Everyday life was similarly intelligible. Mostly, the other children at school, their families and everyone else you met seemed much like you. They looked and spoke like you, kept the same festivals, watched the same TV shows. The other, like the communists, was elsewhere. With two television channels, offering just an hour or two of children’s programmes a day, our window on the world was small and closely controlled. And the future seemed equally straightforward: there were jobs and professions to choose from and you could picture yourself living a life much like that of your parents, only better.
from ‘Playful Adventures’
Children and young people get most from art when, paradoxically, least is intended or expected. When art is used as a tool for instruction—deliberately to build skills and confidence, to address ‘offending behaviour’, or to pass on cultural or identitary values—it becomes just another part of an inflexible education system. It ceases to be a space for learning and becomes, like maths or science, a means of teaching. The child’s experience switches from an active one of discovery to a passive one of reception.
Playful Adventures v.3 (07/22) was originally written in 2008 and published in Engage Journal 22 (July 2008) under the title ‘The Seriousness of Games, Art, young people and learning. It was subsequently revised for a talk at the ARTES conference on 14 November 2014 at Florence (Italy). This version was published on 1 July 2022 at https://miaaw.net
François Matarasso 