For the research report, I have gathered a rough idea of a topic to use for my research report. I had been thinking of ideas since the task of gathering 4 quotes from 2 books that I find would be relevant. At the moment, I want to research into Child Development at an early age and how they learn about the world. I've come to learn that I want my work to be engaging for children and I feel looking and researching around this topic area will be beneficial to my practice in the future. Berger, J. (2008) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Classics. "Later still the specific vision of the image-maker was also recognised as part of the record. An image became a record of how X had seen Y." (Berger, 2008) The artist purposely selects the composition of the subject matter and contextualising it in a way to show the audience how they perceive the subject, not what it is explicitly. It’s about what the image-maker wants to display to others so that they can understand how the image-maker personally feels upon the matter. I think this is important because I believe displaying personal relation to the matter explains why I’ve wanted to capture the moment and how I personally feel, expressing and communicating my emotions and thoughts through the image. I feel that this quote explained that perfectly quoting the work as a record. "...the sense of touch was like a restricted, static sense of sight. Every square inch of the surface of this painting, whilst remaining purely visual, appeals to, importunes, the sense of touch." (Berger, 2008) Being able to representing different types of textures that are recognisable is important I find. By looking at the textures, it becomes possible to understand how a person may react to the touch of these and how it can affect them, provoking certain emotions. Giving the impression of a tactile surface creates a mental understanding of how it would feel when touched and the emotions tied with it. Expressing emotions through texture that can only be seen I feel helps the audience understand what’s being represented within the artwork and engages them on an emotional level. I find achieving this a highly successful approach to the artwork if the audience can engage with the artwork itself. Linden, D.J. (2016) Touch: The Science of the Sense that Makes Us Human. United Kingdom: Viking.
"The raw stuff of tactile sensation must be combined with the imprints of our life experiences - starting in the womb and continuing to the present moment, soaking up culture and gender roles and personal history along the way - to ultimately produce our highly nuanced perception of social touch." (Linden, 2016) Certain textures to touch create certain emotional responses but the same touch can be different for different people due to experiences and I think this shows that the touch sensory is a personal matter. I like my work to be able to represent personal emotions, and the way people touch and respond to their senses illustrates their views and opinions on the matter, and perhaps as to why when tied with past life experiences and their connotations. This quote highlighted to me the importance of these experiences and how we relate to them, take a role in our lives and affect our responses of touch. "If our long childhoods are not filled with touch, particularly loving, interpersonal touch, the consequences are dramatic." (Linden, 2016) I related to this quote quite well as I like to target my work towards and be approachable for children, so to understand the importance of touch and the social side to it for children to develop in society is crucial to know. Children are always learning through their senses and more aware of how they’re learning through them. Creating tactile work that’s interactive is important as it’s engaging them through their motives to explore and understand the world around them.
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The mind-map session was a great way of putting my foot into ideas around my own practice and the subject theme. Writing all these key words and thinking about opportunities, as to where I could find the information I need, gave me a good head start to begin finding sources. Children's psychology is a very broad subject and I think this session led me on to start narrowing down to the post-it notes that I was given which evolved around gender and development.
Listening from the 3rd years calmed me down knowing how their journey through their research developed greatly from their proposal and it's not all set in stone.
The key point I achieved from this session was the possibility of looking into other modes of learning and how/if that plays an impact on child development. After this, I researched further on the topic and found that Norwich has two montessori schools which I'd like to contact in order to hear opinions from both parents and staff there about choices of education for children.
Child Development Investigation For my research report I want to look into the effect that creativity and play have on educating children about the world they live in. I also want to discover if play has a direct importance on how a child develops. I’m particularly interested in how forest and Montessori school’s curriculum differs to traditional education and if there/what are the differences on the impact on the children behaviour and personality. I find that researching child development will give me a further understanding how children may respond to certain things. As an illustrator who wants to create artwork for children as a target audience, I always want my work to have an interactive element to it that children would enjoy to play and experiment with. I feel that having knowledge about what children need and want from what I could create is important for my creative practice. I feel that the contextual lens that I’ll be looking at this will be very social as I believe theories on how children should develop at a young age is a social discussion. By looking at it as a social issue, I think that my report should be written in an editorial report, because I find that reading about social issues in an article seems most appropriate for the topic. It was also my favourite and most successful style of writing I produced in the previous term. In order to gather my research, I want to use my time over summer break wisely to collect as much as possible. I think this time is valuable to volunteer and engage with children themselves. Although most schools will not be open during the six-week vacation period, I’m looking into finding possible volunteer activities for young people that’ll be happening in Norwich over the summer months. I’m willing to try and become a volunteer at Norwich Castle Museum and take part in interactive activities they may have on over the summer break. I think that by doing this I’ll be able to see first-hand how children interact with each other and their use of creative skills in practice. I’m also going to make time over the summer to watch the Channel 4 documentary series ‘The Secret Life of 4, 5, and 6 Year Olds will prove to be valuable to gathering information about child behaviour and interaction amongst others. The documentary also offers is experts saying how certain actions that a child perform can explain what sort of personality they occupy and what this may develop into when they become adults. As stated earlier, I was also interested in the different impact, if any, of forest or Montessori schools on children compared to traditional schooling. I know that there are two Montessori schools in Norwich. There is Little Peoples Montessori Nursery and The Norwich Montessori School Ltd. I’d like to be able to contact at least one of these schools and hear from the teachers for their opinion on why the need for different schooling technique and what it provides for the children. Depending on their schools’ policies, It’d be great if I had permission to see first-hand how they conduct their sessions and how children respond back to it. It could also be valuable to ask the parents of children as to why they chose their children to attend these particular schools instead of traditional. I know that the Little Peoples nursery is open throughout summer except one week, therefore I’ll use my summer break to attempt getting into contact with the nursery in hope to learn more about this method of teaching children. There are a few books I want to read as well to understand more about creativity in education. Two books I want to read are Creativity, wisdom, and trusteeship: Exploring the role of education and Understanding art in primary schools. I think these will provide a better understanding of how creativity itself is an element to how children learn and discover, and it’ll also teach myself how to ensure I incorporate these elements into my own practice. There are also a few articles I want to read such as Children should learn mainly through play until age of eight, says Lego by the Guardian. It shows another angle at what people’s opinion is to be the right way of educating children to be most beneficial for them. I’m hoping to gain at the end of my research a thorough investigation into what play benefits children when learning and discovering about the world. I believe having the knowledge about how children learn can be inputted into my practice to make it valuable for children to learn from and be interactive enough to be enjoyable. Will cite and harvard reference later. Current Indicative Bibliography
After reading out my current draft, I received some positive feedback from my peers saying that I'm on the right track and constantly bringing my reasoning's for researching back to my own practice. They offered me a range of more sources to look at for my subject which evolves more around people's opinions on the matter. I think this will be a good angle to look at research more because I should hopefully be able to see more than one side to a debate about what is suitable for children.
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Feedback on my Pecha Kucha was valuable because I was told I may be looking at not the right sources for the information I'm after because they're aimed a different audience than me. Also my contextual lens wasn't condensed enough by choosing only social. I think what I need to do first is choose a narrowed down contextual lens and then I can begin to think more appropriate sources to follow. Following advice, I wrote down the key words from what I want to research which are revolved around children in a learning environment and how/if play and creativity perform an impact on this. For more opinion based resources, I was recommended to try and find more journals and articles which would be more aimed to be read by the public rather than certain scholars.
Child Development Investigation
For my research report I want to look into the effect that creativity and play have on educating children about the world they live in. I also want to discover if play has a direct importance on how a child develops. I find that researching child development will give me a further understanding how children may respond to certain things. As an illustrator who wants to create artwork for children as a target audience, I always want my work to have an interactive element to it that children would enjoy to play and experiment with. I feel that having knowledge about what children need and want from what I could create is important for my creative practice. I feel that the contextual lens that I’ll be looking at this will be very social as I believe theories on how children should develop at a young age is a social discussion, however the context I’m going to be looking at is the impact that play and creativity have on children learning. In order to gather my research, I want to use my time over summer break wisely to collect as much information as possible. I think this time is a valuable opportunity to volunteer and engage with children themselves. Although most schools will not be open during the six-week vacation period, I’m looking into finding possible volunteer activities for young people that’ll be happening in Norwich over the summer months. One example is UEA’s Festival of Literature for Young People, I’ve already had contact with them and arranged meetings to do a book illustrating workshop on the 23rd June. I’m also willing to try and become a volunteer at Norwich Castle Museum and take part in interactive activities they may have on over the summer break. I think that by doing this I’ll be able to see first-hand how children interact with each other and use their creative skills in practice. I’m also going to make time over the summer to watch the Channel 4 documentary series ‘The Secret Life of 4, 5, and 6 Year Olds will prove to be valuable to gathering information about child behaviour and interaction amongst others. The documentary also offers is experts saying how certain actions that a child perform can explain what sort of personality they occupy and what this may develop into when they become adults. Contacting professionals at University of East Anglia is something I’m hoping to do to hear information they may know or any references they can recommend to me that I would find helpful to my research. The two departments at UEA I’d like to contact are Research on Children and Families and their School of Psychology. I’m particularly interested in how Forest and Montessori school’s curriculum differs to traditional education and if there/what are the differences on the impact on the children behaviour and personality. I know that there are two Montessori schools in Norwich. There is Little Peoples Montessori Nursery and The Norwich Montessori School Ltd. I’d like to be able to contact at least one of these schools and hear from the teachers for their opinion on why the need for different schooling technique and what it provides for the children. Depending on their schools’ policies. It’d be great if I had permission to see first-hand how they conduct their sessions and how children respond back to it. It could also be valuable to ask the parents of children as to why they chose their children to attend these particular schools instead of traditional. I know that the Little Peoples nursery is open throughout summer except one week, therefore I’ll use my summer break to attempt getting into contact with the nursery in hope to learn more about this method of teaching children. An organisation that I think will be beneficial to my research is PlayEngland who promotes freedom for children to play. They have a few journals I want to read such as A World Without Play: A Literature Review (PlayEngland 2011) which covers a broad of themes that play has an impact in, including schools, and another is The Play Return: A review of the Wider Impact of Play Initiatives (Gill 2014). This contains information about what Children’s Play Policy Forum, whom PlayEngland are a member of, are currently doing in order to promote play for children across Britain. I think these will be of value to read because it’s about what organisations are doing currently to ensure that play isn’t lost within children’s childhoods and how they go about it. I think the how is important for my practice because that’s what I’m trying to put into my own work, how to still incorporate play for children in a learning context. I also want to look into other work that Tim Gill has produced as I’ve noticed that he’s an innovator on childhood and is a founding patron for the Forest School Association that I’m interested in learning more about. There are a few books I want to read as well to understand more about creativity in education. Two books I want to read are Creativity, wisdom, and trusteeship: Exploring the role of education (eds. Craft, Gardner, Claxton 2007) and Understanding art in primary schools (Craft, Jeffrey, Leibling, 2001). I think these will provide a better understanding of how creativity itself is an element to how children learn and discover, and it’ll also teach myself how to ensure I incorporate these elements into my own practice. There are also a few articles I want to read such as Children should learn mainly through play until age of eight, says Lego (Ward 2016). A toy company, that makes money based on children playing, believes that play is how children should learn and then begin learning academically. I thought this was an interesting view to look into what companies that profit from children playing opinion on doing so. I also found an article which I find relates to myself as a creative practitioner. Why You Should Have a Child-Like Imagination (and the Research that Proves It) (Robertson 2013) which gives me a reason that looking into how children are creative is beneficial to my own practice. I’m hoping to gain at the end of my research a thorough investigation into how play benefits children when learning and discovering about the world. I believe having the knowledge about how children learn can be inputted into my practice to make it valuable for children to learn from and be interactive enough to be enjoyable. Hopefully my research will allow me to create work in 3rd year based on this thesis and test out if my research has helped develop my understanding further. Indicative Bibliography Articles
Books
Documentaries
Journals
Interviews
Reports
Websites
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