Thinking Approach to Art

In her article, "Changing Lenses:  It's All About Art!," which is the basis for an Exchange Out of the Box Training Kit, A Thinking Approach to Art, Patricia Pinciotti observes...

"A life-affirming view of art, evident in early childhood centers that approach art as a way of learning, is presented by Eric Booth in his book The Everyday Work of Art. Booth describes the everyday work of art as the process of making things with meaning, exploring the things others have made, and encountering daily life with a work-of-art attitude. At the heart of the ART experience is the respect and confidence given children as curious learners.  These are learners, not unlike artists, who ask questions, explore, compose, and construct with materials and media to understand themselves and their world.

"In classrooms where it's all about art, teachers, artists, and parents believe with conviction that this process generates learning both on their part and the children's.  They are adamant that children have the minds, hearts, bodies, and hands to explore, hypothesize, test, and make visible a world that is personally meaningful.  As Loris Malaguzzi says, children have a 'hundred languages' to grapple with making worlds, exploring worlds, and reading worlds as they construct physical models of their knowing.  This is exactly what artists do when they put things together, whether with words, their bodies, with voices, or musical instruments, paint, clay, or pencil."

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