Propuesta de mejoras

This part of the system is concerned with what is happening for the individual children within each approach. The research carried out for this section has been undertaken to support the question raised in the previous one: is the practice in the setting conducive to creativity? The data in that section relied upon my observation and interpretation of what was happening, which made it open to suggestions of subjectivity. It was hoped that by getting the children to talk about their experiences themselves, it would be possible to establish whether they felt that their needs were being met, was their creativity being cultivated in the setting? It was not

179 feasible to gather data from all the children about their individual experiences, therefore a sample of three were taken from each setting. These samples were largely self-selecting in that the children who took part were those who had responded with interest to my presence or to my activities and accepted my invitation to participate.

Using data gathered from walking tours and map-making by the children, this section attempts to establish whether the needs of these children regarding their creative processes were being met by the practice in each setting. This will be done by examining what took place using the literature outlined in Chapter 2 and by recording the presence of Cremin et al.’s (2006 in Craft, 2008) core features of learners’ and teachers’ engagement once again (information which will appear in summary tables at the end of each section). It should be recognised, however, that what happened during these activities cannot be considered representative of normal practice in the setting, but there may be some clues to pick up from the children about what happens usually. For this reason, evidence of the features taking place on the tour and inferences about them evidence occurring in more general practice have been separated. These inferences might include hints the children give about what usually happens or by clues given by staff members who might be interacted with during the tour.

Nena O – Lloc A.

Figure 9 - Nena O's Map.

The child who drew this map was a quiet-seeming girl who had demonstrated great interest in my presence from the beginning. She was from a family of North-African immigrants and her teachers said that she did not speak much. It was certainly true that she did not have a wide vocabulary; most objects within the setting were identified simply as 'toys', she preferred to demonstrate the affordances of a space or resource rather than to explain and her spoken

180 answers, when given were usually of just one word. We began the tour as the rest of her class were doing a psychomotricity session, so many of the areas were empty. She moved quite quickly through the indoor spaces and their contents. When asked which was her favourite area and thing to play with whilst in the area devoted to 'racons', she replied 'the spades'. There were no spades to be seen in this area, when asked where they were, the child replied 'on the patio' and proceeded to lead the way outside to the deserted play area – all of her classmates were in their classroom. She went directly to a plastic chest which was full of sand toys and when asked what she did with those toys, she took out a bucket and spade, went over to the digging area and began to dig in the sand, filling up the bucket. She was immediately engrossed in her task, to the point where she did not immediately hear any further questions, though she was happy to give simple replies about her activities. This was the longest part of the tour by far, and she sat there making variously 'housies' and

'mountains' by the same process of filling the bucket and tipping it out, smiling and showing me her work.

Returning inside, she returned to the more perfunctory style of tour she had demonstrated before. Asked what her favourite thing in the classroom was, she started heading for the door again and when questioned about this, she agreed that she had been about to go back to the playground again. The map that she drew is a beautifully clear representation of how she feels about her nursery class and her experiences within it. The three lines around the outside is the school itself, the small rectangle is the sandpit - coloured in to show that it is full of sand – and finally there is the letter 'A', which she says is 'a name', something that the class spends a lot of time learning how to do.

Her picture perfectly illustrates both the one thing that she would like to be doing and the one thing that she is mostly doing. Was her creativity being fostered? Nena O has been able to tell her story through the tour and map-making, now I would like to propose a reading of it using an important element of the theory around creativity and young children. This child displayed strong interests in one specific area, and the type of repeated behaviour that marks a schema, which Duffy (2006) strongly connects to the creative process. It is true that Nena O is able to access the activity she enjoys in her setting, though this access is confined to one specific part of the day and dependent upon the weather. Bruce (2011) says that creative ideas need to be gathered, prepared and incubated – in other words they require time. While Nena O’s

creativity is not exactly being stifled, perhaps time and freedom to pursue her interests would enable her to develop and explore her ideas more fully.

181

Evidence during the tour? Evidence about practice?

Posing Questions Yes No

Play Yes Restricted

Immersion in a Loving Environment No No

Innovation Yes No

Being Imaginative No No

Self-determination and Risk-taking Yes No

Table 5 - Evidence of the core features from Nena O.

Nen P – Lloc A.

Figure 10 - Nen P's Map.

This child was a boy from a local Catalan family. When we started the tour, the class were outside having playtime, so we started by exploring the playground area. Nen P was quite assertive on his tour, with firm ideas about where we would go next. He had his own names for some equipment, reflecting his interpretations of their uses: climbing frames were variously 'hills' or 'houses'. During the outside part of the tour, he became engrossed in mark- making with a spade on the sandy floor, saying that he was making 'letters'. On questioning, he explained that his favourite thing was 'the car', by which he meant a small plastic digger, though it appeared his favourite activity with this toy was to bury it carefully. Once inside, still carrying the spade in spite of his teacher’s instruction to leave it outside, Nen P proceeded to demonstrate all the toys in the 'racons' area, switching items on, moving the component parts, or showing their correct usage, ensuring that no item was missed in the process.

182 On being asked what his favourite item was in that room, he picked up a child-sized broom and began to sweep vigorously, though he soon moved onto other role-play items. Inside the classroom itself, the process was repeated, though in a yet more cursory manner. He identified the toy tractors as being his favourite item within the classroom and played with them for a few minutes before continuing his demonstration of the classroom contents. Having completed the tour that he wished to give, he suddenly turned and headed for the door, though he returned when asked if he would mind drawing a map. He began to draw a

rectangle, though he said it was in actual fact a 'festalma' which was from 'the telly'. As he was drawing, he was asked what other things he liked about his school, he thought and said 'ummm – the shapes'. When it was suggested that he draw some of his favourite things from school such as the vehicles he had pointed out, he said 'no. This is the festalma'. Having carefully completed drawing this figure, he turned over the page and drew a small object with two circles that appeared to be a car. Having finished the picture, he gave it to me saying 'this is yours'. I praised his picture and asked as a final question if there was anything he did not like about his school, he gestured at the papers on his table and said 'well I don’t like this', I

thanked him; he then put away the things he used, picked up his spade and went back outside.

'Reading' Nen P’s story was a little more complex; his use of language was more developed than Nena O, which could obscure his narrative as his words could often contradict his actions. Part of this may be his reaction to the task he had been set: he had been asked to identify his favourite things, perhaps he felt obliged to provide an answer rather than examining his real interests. He identified vehicles twice as his favourite thing, yet kept the spade with him at all times, using it to manipulate and mark-make upon his environment. This practice could indicate that this item had become a 'transitional object' for him: this is a concept developed from Winnicott (1971) where the child carries an object that represents for them a soothing state and Nen P clearly preferred being outside. He also appeared to enjoy mark-making in that environment, but was very clear that he did not enjoy similar activities inside at a table and on paper. It was unfortunate that the research methods unwittingly put the child in the position of taking part in an activity he professed not to like, he was either too polite or too well-trained not to participate, and did not express his real feelings until he was expressly given the chance to do so. As with Nena O, Nen P’s favoured activities had restricted access, whereas usual practice centred on activities the child professed to dislike. His opinions are important here, Bruner (1962) suggests that creativity requires fun - can Nen P develop his creativity within a framework he does not enjoy?

183

Evidence during the tour? Evidence about practice?

Posing Questions Yes No

Play Yes Restricted

Immersion in a Loving Environment No No

Innovation Yes No

Being Imaginative No No

Self-determination and Risk-taking Yes No

Table 6 - Evidence of the core features from Nen P.

Nena Q – Lloc A.

Figure 11 - Nena Q's Map.

This vibrant map was produced by one of the younger girls in the setting. She had a non- identical twin-brother in the class and they were from a Catalan family from the local area. The twins had not spent much time away from their family when they first came to the nursery class and the practitioners mentioned that they had struggled a little emotionally. However, the impression that Nena Q gave throughout the tour was of an open and sociable character who relished the opportunity to show someone around her setting. This map prominently features a person and is decorated with the names of her classmates, displaying an interest in the people around her that was reflected by her tour. Throughout this she would relate aspects of the setting to the people in it, showing me every single child’s drawer, pointing out where certain people sat, greeting or mentioning passing children and explaining the list of names on the wall from which the 'protagonist' of the week would be chosen. Indeed, Nena Q was very aware of the activities that had been taking place in the setting and gave detailed

184 explanations of what they would do, though often with more emphasis on whom she would do the activity with as opposed to the activity content.

Nena Q was very imaginative in her explanations, which often comprised of little stories about drawings she had made or objects she found around the setting: 'This is a fish. It comes from the sea. And it comes from the sea and there’s just a boy and he eats it but … with chips'. Having moved into the area outside the classroom dedicated to 'racons', she would offer a practical demonstration of each toy, often imagining herself into the role of the person who might typically use such an object in the real world. She did not dwell too long in any particular area, even admonishing me for focusing on one thing when there were more things to look at. Outside, she led me all over the space, running about and once again showing me every object she could see and providing snippets of the games that might be played with them. She demonstrated all of the climbing frames and even showed me the sand that covered the floor.

By far the largest part of the tour was actually the map-making activity, which took the same length of time again. She chose a range of colours insisted on writing her name on the paper before she began, identifying the letters, which she had written very carefully, as she went. The map that she drew focused on the outdoor area, she drew both rain and sun, though when asked what else there was in her school, she said 'there are names' and began to write the names of her classmates, beginning with her brother; where she could not remember the names, she ran to get them from the wall. The red figure in the middle of the picture is a slide, but it may also be a volcano, and the picture contains several spots which represent puddles. The word for puddle in Spanish – charco – may also mean 'pond', which reminded her of the pond in the farm story they had been doing in class and lead her to sing me the chorus of its associated song. Nena Q added a detailed picture of a child and coloured the whole map carefully, crossing the room to get pencil crayons to use too. She continued to colour and add more names and probably would have continued to do so had I not had to drop several heavy hints about having to join the rest of her class in the allotment.

Reading Nena Q’s map and tour, she appears to have assimilated well the teaching and learning elements that had been planned into the class: their current story-topic, the class activities and the focus on name-writing. People, particularly her classmates, seem to be important to her and while this may not seem to have a direct connection with creativity; Cremin et al. (2006 in Craft, 2008) do highlight the importance of the social environment and the child’s comfort within it as one of their core features for promoting creativity – Immersion in a loving environment. Socially at least, Nena Q feels well-supported, which is particularly

185 good considering her beginnings at the setting. Nena Q’s determination to show me everything in the setting did not allow for her to display any schema-type behaviour, but it was interesting the time and dedication she poured into her map-making. The tour had actually begun by her showing me the drawings that she had in her drawer, and she lavished a full fifteen minutes on her map, in contrast to the rather whistle-stop tour she had conducted. Drawing and writing were clearly activities she relished, and had been granted the opportunity to carry out in her setting. The question, as with the other children in this setting, lies in the extent to which she was able to carry out these activities and the degree of liberty she was allowed with them. The observations rather indicated that such activities would be targeted towards a set goal in a finite time, with freedom to experiment and follow interests being granted only to those who completed the task before the allotted time was up.

Evidence during the tour? Evidence about practice?

Posing Questions Yes No

Play Yes Restricted

Immersion in a Loving Environment Yes Yes

Innovation Yes No

Being Imaginative Yes No

Self-determination and Risk-taking Yes No

186

Nena R – Lloc B.

Figure 12 - Nena R's Map.

The child who drew this vivid map was a local girl from a Romany (Gitano in Spanish) family. This put her a little at odds with her classmates (who were also generally better off

economically), partly because she had been brought up favouring Castilian Spanish over Catalan. She was very communicative, however, and demonstrated considerable facility in both languages at the time of the visit. She could be a little more assertive than many of the other children and her vocabulary occasionally included expressions that would not be considered suitable for children. Though not explicitly apparent during the time as I spent at the school, it should be noted that as with many other countries across the world,

discrimination against this particular group is a serious problem in Spanish society (Fundación Secretariado Gitano, 2012). Nena R took to the tour and map-making with gusto, though she started uncharacteristically quietly, possibly as a result of being recorded, using one-word answers and gestures to indicate items of interest. She soon found her voice, however and was chatty and humorous; she did not like to be questioned though and would often answer 'why not' if asked why she did something.

As it was break-time, we began the tour outside. Nena R was rather taken with the natural elements of the outside area: stones, shells, pinecones and ants. She was keen to describe and demonstrate the qualities of these items to me, picking them up and wanting me to hold them and taking them to share her discovery with the other, appreciative, adults. She was rather less keen, however on sharing with other children, telling them off if they got in her way.