ArtBreak. Katherine Ziff
play to flourish. I learned this early on when I could not understand the source of the children’s enthusiasm about making things. In 1977, social worker and philosopher Edith Cobb wrote that a child engages imagination and creativity “through the controlled poise of his own body, through the sense and vision of his own hands moving pieces of his world into structure and pattern.” During a session in which children were making lots of cardboard objects (drums, dolls, small vehicles), hurrying to finish so that they might take them home, I asked, “What do you do with them at home?” The children put down their scissors and tape and cardboard, looked at me in disbelieving pity and chorused: “We play with them!” Of course, they were making toys! And they were incredulous that I could not recognize what they were doing. Absorbed in spontaneous mental images of things they wanted to play with, and inspired by the materials at hand, they were completely engaged in bringing their creative visions into form.
Relatedness with others grows from an environment that supports working together. Photo by Josh Birnbaum
ArtBreak creates school engagement in part by offering fun. The idea of fun and joy as a companion to learning and well-being is enjoying a revival, though fun can be a suspect notion in schools. I felt that our work bordered on frivolous, and even stopped writing down how children continually describe ArtBreak as “Fun!” until I read research on the learning benefits of fun. Fun creates engagement, meaning, purpose, and joy. Neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis argues “The truth is that when joy and comfort are scrubbed from the classroom . . . students’ brains are distanced from effective information processing and long-term memory storage.” Edith Cobb wrote that a sense of wonder, manifested as joy and surprise, is a prerogative of childhood and essential to the development of creative thinking. Martin Seligman, pioneer of positive psychology, believes positive emotions like fun are an essential part of happiness and well-being. And any kindergarten teacher can tell you that fun, or engagement in meaningful activity, creates joyful, happy classrooms and productive work groups.
Children participating in an ArtBreak talked about imagination and engagement:
“ArtBreak is when you can express your’ magination.”
“I watch the clock all day, waiting for 2:30. That’s when I get to go to ArtBreak.”
Imaginative play, fun, joy, choice, competence in problem solving, and belonging to a community are all linked with school engagement. Researchers Ming-Te Wang and Jacquelynne Eccles conceptualize engagement as behavioral (positive conduct and involvement in school tasks), emotional (positive reactions to school activities), and cognitive (willingness to exert necessary learning efforts). Engagement is created by a school context that supports children’s needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness to others. ArtBreak is designed with all three needs in mind.
A TRAUMA-SENSITIVE SCHOOL CULTURE
ArtBreak supports a trauma-sensitive school culture. According to the American Psychological Association about half of children in the United States experience some kind of trauma, usually beginning in early childhood. Most recover, but a substantial number do not, with poverty a significant risk factor for both exposure and recovery. The Massachusetts Advocates for Children publication, Helping Traumatized Children Learn, provides an overview of the nature of childhood trauma and what schools might do to help. ArtBreak provides many of the things needed by children who have suffered trauma in order to thrive in schools. These include the opportunity to:
• move into a state of calmness from an alarm state
Example: An eight-year-old, frantic because his father had been arrested the previous night, left a session calm after spending a half hour absorbed in art making.
• develop a sense of empowerment via choices
Example: A child from a homeless family, delighted to learn that she had free choice of a rich variety of materials to bring her ideas into form, worked to build an elaborate dollhouse to her own specifications.
• practice using language to articulate needs and feelings and to problem solve
Example: ArtBreak participants are encouraged to ask for what they need from each other and from the facilitator.
• learn about cause and effect relationships and recognize their own ability to affect what happens
• learn to attend to a task at hand, in a safe and predictable environment
• practice regulating emotions
Example: A child who began the year screaming and throwing materials when frustrated with the outcome of his work learned to manage his feelings so that by year’s end he could step away for a few minutes and then return to try again.
• practice executive functions like setting a goal, anticipating consequences, and carrying out plans
Example: Construction projects, including sewing, support cognitive executive functions and require planning. Having decided to make a playhouse, a child made a sketch of what she had in mind, prepared a list of materials, thought through different ways to create doors and windows, and, through problem solving, made a door knocker in order to complete her project.
• learn these things in an environment in which they are not publicly labeled and featured as “traumatized” or “abused”
Example: Children are not gathered into ArtBreak groups by mental health diagnoses or behavioral goals. Goals and functions of the expressive therapies continuum guide referrals, and groups are formed mostly to align with schedules rather than grade level or age.
ACADEMIC ALIGNMENT
ArtBreak is particularly aligned with mathematics skills, fitting well within such standards of mathematical practice as
• making sense of problems and persevering in solving them
Example: A child finds a way to make movable arms and legs for a robot.
• using appropriate tools strategically
Example: The participants measure and mark with rulers, use tape measures, use awls and brass fasteners, and punch holes strategically with a hand-held hole punch.
• attending to precision
Example: The students calculate fabric yardage, find midpoints on objects, cut cardboard to exactly form a box lid, design a fastener, and design a pattern for a three-dimensional box.
• looking for and making use of structure
Example: A child figures out how to make a wearable table.
• constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others, at the elementary level elucidated as constructing arguments using concrete referents such as objects, drawings, diagrams, and actions
Example: A student wanted to build a “hideout” and presented a diagram and a written plan supporting his request for two really large cardboard boxes.
ArtBreak’s foundation is built on cardboard, paper, tape, paint, ribbons and strings, repurposed materials, and lots of ornamental doodads all chosen and organized with regard to the framework of the expressive therapies continuum. Its studio is a community of freedom and order that encourages expressiveness, problem solving, and creativity. The next chapter details the workings of the expressive therapies continuum and other elements of ArtBreak’s creative framework.
2
A Creative Framework
“When I have been able to transform a group—and here I mean all the members of a group, myself included—into a community of learners, then the excitement has been almost beyond belief.”
—Carl Rogers, The Carl Rogers Reader
ARTBREAK INCORPORATES three frameworks that integrate a manner in which to relate