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Working with Charcoal and Paper
My relationship with charcoal is one of indifference. As much as I adore stirring the hot coals in a bonfire, boxed-up uniform artists’ charcoal for me leaves something to be desired. I sat back, committed to observing the toddlers as they confronted this new material in their space. As I watched, I started to make marks with the broken bits of charcoal that had scattered across the paper. I found myself distracted by the movement of the little bodies all around me. Distracted in a good way… I began to attend to the physicality of the experience—the energy shifts, the varying density of the marks they left behind on the…
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Working with Charcoal and Paper – response
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Invasion of the Charcoal!
How can such a tiny piece of black charcoal create such angst and yet generate moments of clarity? As the toddler room begins its exploration with paper and charcoal we notice: markings, movements, mess, and at times mayhem! But within the tension of exploring how footprints-bodies-charcoal-papers become entangled, something unexpected emerges! Paper transforms, charcoal bits and pieces transform, tracing transforms, and human relations with charcoal transform. As Shelley and I reflect on the happenings of the past couple of days we sit with the uncomfortable feeling that charcoal is not welcome in the classroom. But we are not abandoning our contentious relationship. Instead we zoom in with great focus. EDGES!…
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Improvisation with charcoal & paper
Laura and I sit at a table with paper and charcoal and a small group of children. Laura notices a large dark scribbly drawing that had previously been made. She says, “This reminds me of a dark forest. Who want to meet me at the forest?” The children and educators use their charcoal to draw paths to the dark forest. They meet and gather there. They begin to find spiders and bats in the forest. They leave and come back several times. Some are hesitant to return but are encouraged to visit again. Their desire to meet others keeps them coming back.
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The liveliness of charcoal
The invitation to slow down, notice and pay attention to the liveliness of which charcoal offers and the potential connections to the beloved forest, sparked many thoughts of practicality and curiosity in my self as an educator. 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 ones 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…
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Charcoal proposals & invitations
A Walk in the Forest There was much enthusiasm about the possible interactions with paper and charcoal. Charcoal has been used by artists for a very long time, dating back to 15,000 BC. The children were invited to join these long artistic traditions within many cultures around the world. To set the scene and foreground the importance of charcoal as an art material, we placed large pieces of white paper on the floor and offered children thin willow charcoal sticks. In this initial exploration in the classroom, the children began to understand some of the properties of charcoal: “Charcoal is brittle, fragile and easily breaks when pushed on paper’s surface.…
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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…
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The Beginnings
We would like to propose that together we focus on the arts of slowing down, paying attention, and noticing. hat it might mean for us to support children to notice and slow down when we go to the forest. How might we invite children to slow down rather than “consume” everything they find/see in the forest? How do we invite children to focus, slow down, and notice? If a child picks up a stick, we might become curious about what it is about this particular stick (and not others). Can we stay with what children notice about this stick (and challenge them to think beyond) rather than moving on to…
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Charcoal
We are inviting the children to engage in the arts of slowing down, paying attention and noticing. Because the children and educators are interested in visiting and sharing stories about the nearby forest, we want to extend what happens in the the forest into the classroom. For the past few months, we have been observing children’s engagement (even fascination) with sticks/branches/logs in the forest. In order to connect to children’s interests, we are inviting children to explore charcoal and paper. It matters deeply what materials we invite into our classroom. Paper and charcoal link us directly to forests – they start in forests… The sticks that children are fascinated with…
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A Walk in the Forest with Educators
We (educators, pedagogists, researchers) took a walk in the forest with the intention to pay attention, notice, engage in the presence of more-than-human others. We asked ourselves…. What and how do we notice when I walk in the presence of others – including non-humans? What relations do we notice? What logics do we notice and how might we follow these logics? Our Engagements… We noticed life, death, playfulness, garbage and plastics, patterns and textures, sounds (wind, squirrels, sticks and leaves under our feet, a plane flying above us), human-made and organic structures, levels and heights, animals (frogs and insects), a wide variety of trees and plants, strength and resiliency. The…
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Witnessing Ruins of Progress: Recuperating “Staying with the Trouble”
Our pedagogy is guided by a devoted commitment to the aspiration of noticing and the active and ever shifting process of paying attention. We are committed to an aspiration, as opposed to a tangible goal or outcome, because it signals our willingness to engage with the only true constants our world offers us: uncertainty and mutability. In this extended moment of history, our world (the children’s world) is characterized by ecological and economic precarity, one that educational systems too often try to soothe by fostering illusions of stasis and stability. We are committed to bringing this essential instability of our surroundings to the surface of educational encounters with the children.…
