Elsbeth Bandli

Professor Ann Oberding

October 12, 2018

Critical Observations from the Child and Family Study Center

Last week, I was given the enlightening opportunity to volunteer at the Child and Family

Study Center (CFSC). I spent time playing with the three-year-old children in the Why

Classroom. When I arrived, the children were “reading” books on their own as a way to wind

down after a busy day at the Blue School. However, it was apparent that after about 5 minutes or

so, some of the students were beginning to become antsy and easily distracted. After sensing this,

the head teacher of the classroom rang a small bell and calmly informed the students that they

would be able to participate in free play as soon as their books were put away. I admired how

this educator was aware of the needs of her students at the time. After three long days of

consistent rain, the educator understood that her students would benefit from free indoor play as

a way to release pent up energy that is typically disbursed during outdoor play.

I was then introduced to the class and the head teacher told the students that I was a

“guest artist” in the classroom who would be leading the drawing station during Free Play. For

the next thirty minutes, three children came to sit at a small horseshoe table to color with me. In

order to respect the confidentiality agreements of the CFSC, I will call these children by the

names of Penelope, Ivy, and Oliver. Even though all three of these children are the same age,

they could not be more different.

 Penelope is a very talkative little girl. As soon as she sat down at the table to color with

me, she told me her name, her favorite color, and the names of everyone in her family. Penelope

stayed at the coloring station for the whole thirty minutes. Over the course of this time, she

created three works of art. Within minutes of starting to draw, it was obvious to me that this child

was a thriving young artist amidst Lowenfeld’s Second Stage of Creative Development; the pre-

schematic stage. First, Penelope drew a picture of herself with her pet cat. Next, she drew a

picture of her family. Lastly, before ending Free Play, she vocalized to me that she was drawing

Olaf from the movie, “Frozen”. When asked guiding questions about her artwork, Penelope was

quick to answer. Even the simple question, “Can you tell me about what you’re drawing?”

elicited a detailed response from her. Penelope easily pointed out the characters in her drawings

and vocalized the color marker that she used to draw them. While working on her family portrait,

Penelope forgot which character she had put in each place on the paper. Every time that she

would tell me who was placed where on her paper, her answer would change. The only

consistency in her response was that the picture featured her “Dad, Mom, Sister, and Me”.

Penelope’s “tadpole humans” rested haphazardly along two planes. Every character looked about

the same: a circle body, two stick arms, two stick legs, 2 dots for eyes, a dot for a nose, and a

straight line for the mouth. However, after drawing this picture, Penelope did something

interesting. She ripped part of the paper on the bottom to “make Mom shorter than Dad”. I found

this action to be very intriguing because it suggests that this student is on the verge of developing

a schema for depicting her family.

I was surprised to see how different Penelope and Ivy were. Ivy quietly came to sit at the

table and refused to answer any personal questions. She pulled out a grey marker and scribbled

on a piece of paper. Occasionally, Ivy would make a large arched shape on her paper, but most
of the marks that she drew were longitudinal. This child also lacked a sense of space. She

happily drew on the table or extended her marks from the paper onto the table. When redirected,

this child would not color for a couple of minutes but would then go back to drawing on both the

table and the paper until redirected once again. I believe that this habit was partially due to a lack

of fine motor skills, and partially due to insubordinate behavior on behalf of the child. Unlike

Penelope, Ivy grabbed her marker with a full fist. This denotes that the child does not have as

much fine motor control as a student that grasps a marker like one would hold a pencil. Ivy

would stop coloring completely when redirected and sulk, but only for a couple of minutes.

Afterward, she would look to see if the head teacher was watching her before starting to draw on

the table once more. In my opinion, this suggests that Ivy knew that coloring on the table was

frowned upon by her teacher, but she continued to seek attention by doing so. This is common

behavior for a young child. Along with creative experimentation comes behavioral

experimentation. Therefore, insubordinate behavior coming from a young student does not

necessarily indicate that the child is “naughty”, but rather that the child will require more

redirection as they develop their morals and their understanding of rules inside the classroom.

The third student, Oliver, like Ivy, is currently in the Scribble Stage, but he displayed

more developed fine motor control than his peer. Oliver began by scribbling large, horizontal

lines, but then he transitioned to drawing small circles on the paper. Every time that he would

successfully draw a circle, he would seek out my attention and approval by shouting, “An O! I

made an O!” In order to draw these small letters, Oliver adapted his hand to hold his marker or

crayon with the typical pencil grip. He was also the only student to switch colors while working

on his artwork.
 As a future art educator, I found this experience to be quite rewarding. I was in awe of

how each child was so different. Before this experience, I understood that children pass through

Lowenfeld’s Stages of Creative Development at different rates, but I did not realize how very

drastically different each child would be. When working with older students, it is easy to classify

students as “gifted” or “not gifted” with visual arts skills rather than being sensitive to the fact

that each child progresses through creative development at different rates. Spending time with

very young children after learning about Lowenfeld’s Stages of Creative Development helped

me to assess the three students in a more individual manner. For example, I would not judge that

Penelope was the best artist of the group of students simply because she drew more recognizable

forms and vocally communicated with me about the subject matter featured in her work. Instead,

I would individually assess each student based upon the creative stage that they were currently

exploring in order to assist them with moving onto the next creative stage. In an art classroom,

this realization will help me to evaluate my students on a more personal level and seek to grade

students on an individualized scale based on artistic growth. I thoroughly enjoyed my time

playing with the children in the CFSC. In fact, I became so enthralled with this experience that I

ended up losing track of time and I found myself leaving the Blue School only after every child

had been picked up for the day. I am looking forward to gaining more experience working with

children in an artistic setting and studying how children learn and grow as I work toward my

degree in Art Education.

 Bibliography

Edwards , Betty, and Susan K Donley. “Perspectives: Drawing Development in Children .”

Drawing Development in Children, Susan Donley Learning Design , 1987,
www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html.

Efland, Arthur D. “Viktor Lowenfeld (1903–1960) - Early Career and Influences, Lowenfeld's
American Career, Influence on Art Education.” Practical, Sternberg, Creative, and
Students, State University , education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2195/Lowenfeld-Viktor-
1903-1960.html.