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Art educator creates classroom to promote preschoolers’ independent thinking |
| By
Shannon Coon |
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Aug 3, 2005 |
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| Dr. Katherina Danko-McGhee in the Reggio Emilia-inspired Toledo Museum of Art Family Center |
If you walk into the Toledo Museum of Art Family Center, you may notice translucent cloth hanging beneath the overhead lighting, pastel curtains on the windows, windowsills lined with glass blocks, and Plexiglas containers holding assorted colors of water. For most of May and June, Dr. Katherina Danko-McGhee, UT associate professor of art, has been transforming the room into a Reggio Emilia-inspired environment.
Reggio Emilia, an approach to education that centers learning on the child’s interest to promote critical thinking and problem solving, has been a passion for Danko-McGhee since she went on a study tour to Reggio Emilia, Italy, in spring 2001 and fall 2004. Although she was not allowed to talk to the children or take photographs, she visited classrooms, saw children working, took notes, drew pictures to document what she saw, and talked to teachers and parents. “I was on a high for months after both trips,” Danko-McGhee said. “I realized that I wanted to transport some of these ideas here.”
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| Reproductions of paintings hang on one of the walls of the Family Center. |
Although many studies applaud the Reggio Emilia approach, few Reggio Emilia preschools exist in the United States. “However, when people have tried to incorporate Reggio Emilia into America, what they fail to realize is that they cannot just bring all of it from there to here. One must always be aware of the indigenous characteristics of the culture where the school is to be located,” Danko-McGhee said. “What I am borrowing from Reggio Emilia is the environment. In Reggio Emilia, the environment is seen as the ‘third teacher.’ The [Reggio] environment is designed in a provocative kind of way to encourage a child to learn, and it can entice a child to look and ponder and become engaged in learning and discovery. In the [Reggio] environment there is not a lot of text and directions, so the child is encouraged to make discoveries on his own, but with adult facilitation. The teacher sets out a variety of materials to invoke thought and that will set the stage for constructive thinking while the child makes connections between the various items. The child uses these materials as a language to communicate a thought or idea.”
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| An area is dedicated to Matisse in the classroom. |
To make the Family Center more aesthetically enticing, Danko-McGhee added a Matisse area where children can look at the French artist’s ceramic installation in the museum and then arrange foam magnets to make their own Matisse-inspired design. She also added a puppet area with a painting reproduction as the backdrop, characters from other paintings as the puppets, and chairs situated for children to watch performances. Chairs were upholstered in the fashion of a chair on display in the museum. Framed reproductions of paintings hang on the walls. These selected works have been found to be favorites of children in a research project conducted by Danko-McGhee. Her environment also contains a light table with glass beads for children to discover color, reflection and transparency. This light table is strategically placed near the windows. As children do their own experimenting with color on the light table, they can make their own connections to the glass blocks and water containers that sit on the window sill. A picture of an African headdress is placed on a wall near a table that has containers holding different items found on the headdress. Children can look in the boxes and try to match the items in the headdress. A literacy center includes calligraphy pens, homemade ink and an illuminated manuscript reproduction with a historical account for children to view. They are invited to make their own illuminated manuscripts using the tools provided.
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| Glass blocks line the windowsill. |
“One main thing that this environment highlights is problem solving and critical thinking,” Danko-McGhee said. “In America we are so geared toward standardized tests that children don’t learn to think for themselves. They are programmed to learn and remember the right answer and not always permitted to venture down the path of discovery. In Reggio, the child is empowered to answer his or her own questions.”
Danko-McGhee teaches AED 3100 — Art for Pre and Primary Child — and team-teaches AED 4150/5150 — CIEC 4150/5150: Setting the Stage for Learning: Inspirations From Reggio Emilia — in the summer with Dr. Ruslan Slutsky, UT assistant professor of early childhood education. Children who come into the Family Center on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays also will use the environment.
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| Children can learn about color, relection and transparency with glass beads on a light table. |
This project was funded with the help of a Center for Teaching and Learning Summer Faculty Teaching Fellowship Award, with additional funding from the Toledo Museum of Art.
Her future AED 3100 classes will help make the Family Center environment dynamic by changing interest areas in the room as part of students’ assignments. “I want this to be a dynamic learning environment because children are more excited when they see changes and [the changes] will keep them interested in learning and making future discoveries.”
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