Skip to main content

Playing Around



Photo by Matheo JBT on Unsplash

In March I offered an enso workshop for art teachers in my district. We had a great time that included discussion, mindful breathing,  lots of painting and generally making a mess of things. We talked about how enso painting fits into a Japanese aesthetic context, and how it is also relates to the "action painters" of abstract expressionism. Especially relevant is  the notion of  wabi-sabi,  the embracing of change and imperfection. 

We began the practice part of our workshop with some focused, mindful breathing, to help us become fully present. The silence was refreshing  after a very busy school day. I then demonstrated the traditional enso, where the artist completes a circle in  one focused movement. I also showed examples of ensos that I had done in other media, or combinations of media, to illustrate creative options for elaboration. After some practice on newsprint, my colleagues immediately began playing with heavier- weight paper, trying out effects with mixed media or additional imagery. They couldn't suppress their natural creative impulse to experiment- and it was wonderful to see them playing with this simple concept, and trying different artistic elaborations. 

 As a result of our workshop, one of my colleagues  Joelle Imholte implemented an enso lesson for her high school students. She recently showed me some wonderful examples of their work. For her lesson,  she included some guided mindfulness practice and then let the students play with paint, colored pencils, and ink to create their ensos.  She related their joy in playing with this simple shape as they  tried out  a variety of materials and approaches. 


Play is not a word one hears a lot about in education, but it is vital to the creative process, and to learning in general. But in an educational culture which is focused solely on learning targets, play, and its concomitant children, "failure" and "time wasting",  does not get much air time. But the price we are paying for this tight focus may be huge. Aren't joy, fun, and experimentation important parts of learning? As psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison puts it, “Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” The greatest  joy for me as a teacher are the times when I feel the freedom to play- whether it's  playing with ideas during a philosophy discussion, playing with paints in an art room, or brainstorming ideas with my colleagues. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I recently published my first book on Amazon, "Advice for Every Hour." It's available in both ebook and paperback. It has many of the essays on this blog, as well as additional content. It chronicles my adventures applying mindfulness and other strategies in my life, and classroom. 
Post a Comment
Read more

The conscious and connected student

While the mindfulness in education movement is still young, it has an increasing footprint in schools across the US and the globe. One can argue that most of the practices are body and sensory based practices- breathing, awareness of sound, mindful movement, etc. All in the service of self-awareness and emotional health, all well and good. But some educators are trying to expand that interpretation of mindfulness. Amy Edelstein is an educator in the Philadelphia schools where she has worked as an outside provider (meaning she is not a regular classroom teacher) teaching mindfulness to students for many years. She has developed her own program called  The Inner Strength System , and her most recent book is entitled, The Conscious Classroom (Emergence Education Press, 2017) . In this  wide-ranging book Edelstein shares her experience working in the urban schools of Philadelphia. She does not shy  away from describing the tremendous challenges her school f...
Post a Comment
Read more