Some ideas seem so rich with possibility that when I hear them in a child's conversation I pay attention. Anything to do with point of view almost always opens a new door to children's thinking.
Twice recently children have mentioned eyes in ways that were intriguing. First, in a conversation in the kindergarten, the children were proposing ways to know what the weather was each day. Alexander said something about making a magic weather chart outside that could write itself, and then said "school should have eyes and an arm to check the weather." Many children laughed or shook their heads, but Hunter said "I really think the school could have eyes." At first it may seem frivolous or fantastical to think of a building having eyes, but really, think about how much things can tell us about the environment they are in. Lately I wonder if young children and scientists are on the same wavelength, and the rest of us are just trying to catch up.
On another occasion some girls were drawing themselves (as a test to see who was oldest). One girl felt that she wasn't able to draw eyes on her tracing, so she asked her friend to draw them. But the eyes (below) didn't turn out the way she wanted. "I look a little evil now!" she said. The other girls didn't seem to realize the problem; it was clear they didn't think the same about eyes. She became a little upset, as her friends tried to solve the problem. "She doesn't really like the way her face looks." I wished there was time to sit with them and come to some kind of intersubjectivity about how eyes should look.
Hello, I love your blog! This post reminded me of a recent drawing by my five year old daughter. She drew a line down the middle of her paper, and proceeded to draw her "good" side and her "evil" side. They were joined in the middle at their feet, like they were lying down. The good side was much more developed, and the evil side had a small mouse crawling around the lines! Kids rock. Thanks for your awesome blog.
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