RAPPORT
WWW.RECORDINGACHIEVEMENT.AC.UK
Issue 2 (2015)
evidence that are prioritised in compulsory
education favour logico-deductive reasoning and
traditionally ‘academic’ subjects. Arnheim (1969)
similarly argues that visual thinking has long been
seen as the poorer relative of cognitive practices-=
but that cognitive engagement can’t happen without
the senses. Creative approaches to learning,
including the playful and exploratory, move away
from the false separation of brain (intellect) and
hand (doing). The artist Nathan Sawaya, famous for
recreating iconic art works in LEGO® such as
Klimt’s The Kiss and the Sistine Chapel ceiling, also
created a piece that embodied the impact on him if
he were handless (Fig.3)
Arnheim and Sawaya in their own ways argue for the
reinstatement of visual and kinaesthetic knowing
alongside the cognitive and are backed by the
extensive work by neurologist Frank Wilson. He has
conducted extensive research into the importance of
the hand, which must be one of the most taken-forgranted assets of the human configuration:
“ the hand’s neurological and biomechanical
elements are so prone to spontaneous interaction
and reorganization and the motivations and efforts
which give rise to individual use of the hand are so
deeply and widely rooted that we must admit we are
trying to explain a basic imperative of human life”
(Wilson, 1998:10).
The hands are central to constructionist learning,
based on neuroscientific data showing that nerve
receptors in our fingers send electrical codes to the
brain via our central nervous system. There, in the
cerebral cortex, these messages are interpreted,
thus we can envisage thinking as starting with our
hands, as opposed to the popular assumption that
the brain ‘thinks’ first and tells the hands to act
(James, 2015a, p.285).
Constructionism, as defined by Seymour Papert
(Papert and Harel, 1991), suggests that students
learn best when they are constructing something.
When they do this they produce two outcomes, one
being a physical item and the other new knowledge.
This can be seen at work in any number of creative
interventions involving making of some kind,
although it is not limited to physical outputs. Sellers’
work (2013) with labyrinth walking to quieten the
mind or stimulate new approaches to teaching and
learning has shown how the use of space and
movement for reflection adds a new dimension to
engagement and understanding. This has been
taken into newer realms in an in-house project by
Rachel Clowes, embroidery technician at the
London College of Fashion (LCF), who prototyped
wearable labyrinths by incorporating their design
into the surface of garments, building on the tradition
of traceable hand-held labyrinths in wood. The
spaces to think offered by labyrinths are physical
ones which can be walked or touched, but also
engender a certain kind of mental space. Similarly
the creation of items through the examples which
follow are about creating a space in which the item
lives, as well as the space in which it is made. In the
case of LEGO® it is also about building a different,
metaphorical space in which to examine reality and
options.
The importance of tactility and material to creative
exploration is evident, although the nature of
materials can also have an effect on engagement.
Playdoh, for example, evokes quite different
responses, ranging from wistful nostalgia for its fruity
smell, squishiness and connotations of childhood to
disdain for its dreadful pong, clamminess, and the
way it declines from multi-coloured to sludgy brown.
(Some of us are even old enough to remember the
rivalries that divided ‘Playdoh children’ from those in
the Plasticine camp.) Emma Jenkins and Rachael
Stead, writing separately in the online magazine
Creative Academic (2015) describe two very
different cases where they have used Playdoh as a
means of teaching complex ideas or the acquisition
of technical skills unrelated to the dough. Emma
used it to help model patterns, visualise grading
theory and get students to sculpt bodies and
consider how they grew and changed over time.
Rachael encouraged nursing students to create
models of concepts they were grappling with. Of
particular relevance to this article is her reminder,
following Tosey and Morrison (cited in Stead, 2015),
that much learning is ‘emergent or constructed’; that
we cannot control or determine learning; and that if
learning is viewed as a product we may limit what is
learnt and how. Creative exploration encourages
willingness to be open to, and travel with, the
unknown.
The idea of creating a reflective quilt came from
Clare Lomas wh o devised a PDP activity to get
students to decorate or embroider quilt patches as
part of mapping their transition into university
(James & Brookfield, 2014). It was piloted at a
conference on motivating learning and teaching in
2013 at which it was agreed that all presentations
and contributions would involve ‘getting stuck in’, not
sitting down and being talked at. People therefore
ended up analyzing kitsch objects, decoding
clothing, making 18th century pockets, learning
about the psychology of motivation and all sorts.
Instead of capturing people’s thoughts through vox
pops and post-its the decision was taken instead to
create a patchwork quilt. Plain fabric squares were
made available in advance of the day and a quilting
station set up where colleagues could come and
decorate a square using a range of beads, pens,
and other treasures. As the squares become
completed we raced against the clock to tie them all
together to make an artefact which could be
admired, displayed and discussed as the closing
plenary activity.
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