The Experience

Lines began to move rapidly from one place to another, offering the extension of a line from one being to another, waiting for the line of travels to connect to the feet of one’s body. Charcoal moved with the bodies in fast pace, with gentle pressure to the paper. Slowing down was not offered through the children’s bodies, but from the noticing of the marks left behind as the charcoal travelled across the paper.

Fingers pushed tiny pieces of charcoal, but the creation of dark, thick lines moving from beneath fingers was noticed. How could such a small fragment offer such darkness? Intricate and thoughtful up and down movements with our hands invited other children to move or transfer the “imprinted charcoal” from the initial space of contact to another, pulling, smoothing, and rubbing with fingers to create connections between each child. The children moved with the charcoal and took up ideas of connecting lines to bodies and making tracks from one space to another. Children moved or strayed from the charcoal space presented, and multiple attempts to bring our attention back to the charcoal were accepted by many, but there remained smaller struggles to regain focus and be with the material.

A declaration emerged from some of the children – “that is the forest”; “we go there”— and the encounters shifted yet again away from the charcoal but to the forest, and movements of our bodies across the paper, around the room, eventually ending the encounter.

Understanding the importance of bringing back not only the children but myself to focus on one experience by drawing out and engaging together differently than before has left me wondering: What are the complexities within our role and our confidence as an educator to allow us to venture with the children into the forest time after time?  How do we need to adapt to slowing down, noticing, and paying attention, and to focus? What do these things mean for us in our work?