Drawing, Visualisation and Young Children’s Exploration of “Big Ideas”

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Drawing, Visualisation and YoungChildren’s Exploration of “Big Ideas”Margaret Brooks aa School of Education , University of New England , NSW, AustraliaPublished online: 17 Feb 2009.

To cite this article: Margaret Brooks (2009) Drawing, Visualisation and Young Children’sExploration of “Big Ideas”, International Journal of Science Education, 31:3, 319-341, DOI:10.1080/09500690802595771

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International Journal of Science EducationVol. 31, No. 3, 1 February 2009, pp. 319–341

ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/09/030319–23© 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09500690802595771

RESEARCH REPORT

Drawing, Visualisation and Young Children’s Exploration of “Big Ideas”

Margaret Brooks*School of Education, University of New England, NSW, AustraliaTaylor and Francis LtdTSED_A_359745.sgm10.1080/09500690802595771International Journal of Science Education0950-0693 (print)/1464-5289 (online)Research Article2008Taylor & Francis3130000002008Dr. [email protected]

It is in the visualisation of ideas, and the expression or representation of our ideas, that we canbring something more clearly into consciousness. A drawing might be seen as an externalisation ofa concept or idea. Drawing has the potential to play a mediating role in the visualisation of ideasand concepts in relation to young children exploring scientific concepts. This paper explores howdrawing and visualisation bridges the gap between perception-bound thinking and more abstract,symbolical thinking. It demonstrates how drawing, and the related visualisation that results fromdrawing, helped children to construct meaning for themselves as well as share their ideas withothers and across contexts. A socio-cultural framework is used to examine the dialogic engagementwith drawing in relation to young children’s exploration of scientific ideas. Drawing and visualisa-tion can assist young children in their shift from everyday, or spontaneous concepts, to morescientific concepts. Drawing also assists young children’s interactions and competencies withspatial visualisations, interpretations, orientations and relations. When young children are able tocreate visual representations of their ideas they are then more able to work at a metacognitive level.When children are encouraged to revisit, revise and dialogue through and with their drawing theyare able to represent and explore increasingly complex ideas.

Keywords: Visualisation; Drawing; Elementary education

Introduction

Drawing often provides young children with their first means of making a perma-nent, tangible, concrete and communicable record of their ideas so that most youngchildren have a strong desire to draw. Drawing is both a means of communication aswell as a problem-solving tool. Through drawing they are not only able to see whatthey are thinking, they are also able to play around with and transform their ideas.Drawing, and mark making, is also among the child’s first efforts at abstraction and

*School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. Email:[email protected]

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the use of a symbol system (Athey, 1990; Cox, 1991; Eisner, 1972; Matthews,1999). Facility with abstractions and symbol systems are essential for school-basedliteracy like science, mathematics, information technology, reading and writing(Athey, 1990; Barratt-Pugh & Rohl, 2000; Gifford, 1997). The ability to visualiseideas, concepts and problems can help move children to higher levels of thinking.When children are able to work at a conceptual level, they are able to move beyondbasic recitation and make links between concepts. This paper will demonstrate howdrawing plays a vital role in the shift from everyday concepts to more scientificconcepts.

Drawing in Early Childhood Education

First, it is important to briefly note that drawing in early childhood is not unprob-lematic. Despite a growing interest in young children’s drawing there are manybarriers to the adequate support of drawing for young children. In particular, there isa lack of any viable or meaningful frameworks for examining drawing and thedrawing process. In early childhood there seem to be two dominant discourses thatunderpin our understanding and responses to drawing. One derives from Piaget’sdevelopmental learning theory, the other from aesthetics. I would argue that neitherserves us well and have proposed that a Vygotskian socio-constructionist frameworkmight engage us with young children’s drawing processes in more productive ways(Brooks, 2002).

Piaget (1956) drew on the work of Lauquet’s (1927) developmental stages ofdrawing and incorporated these stages into his developmental framework. For Piagethowever, drawing was not a special domain of development but merely a windowinto the child’s general cognitive development. He argued that a child’s drawingperformance reflected the child’s cognitive competence. From this framework camea belief that children’s drawing follows a consistent, universal, sequential progression(Kellogg, 1969) over which the adult had little influence. This developmental frame-work emphasised drawing products and spawned such things as “draw a person”tests as benchmarks for children’s cognitive development. I would argue that suchdisembedded analyses of children’s drawings do not adequately address theintentions of the child or the social and cultural context in which the drawing tookplace.

In contrast, an aesthetic framework, which focuses on abstract ideas of beauty inrelation to young children’s drawing, is a much more seductive notion. Young chil-dren’s drawings often do have a balance and simplicity of form and fluidity of linethat is the envy of many artists. However, aesthetics is largely rooted in the adultworld of modern art and art history. Its language belongs to the art critics and artdealers and while we might apply this lens to young children’s drawing it also oftenbelies the contexts and the intentions of the children. Aesthetics does little to addressthe many real problem-solving and meaning-making activities that are inherent inthe process of drawing for young children.

I would like to briefly illustrate these two points.

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Visualisation and Exploration of “Big Ideas” 321

If we look at Alice’s drawing of a tadpole (Figure 1) from a Piagetian perspective wemight think that the child believed that a tadpole’s eyes were set out from its head.However this child was actually experiencing a problem with the medium of graph-ite. Having coloured the head heavily with graphite, because the tadpole’s head wasthe darkest part of its body, it was then difficult to get the eyes to show by drawingon top of the graphite. Alice’s solution to the media problem was to slightly relocatethe eyes so that she could continue to represent the salient features of eye for herself.It was more important for her to be able to continue her graphic examination of thetadpole than be concerned about the accuracy of her drawing.Figure 1. Labelled, observational drawing of a tadpole. Alice, aged 4Emma’s solution to a similar problem was to draw another tadpole and leave thehead uncoloured so that she could show where the eyes were (Figure 2). In bothcases, the children were concerned about the recent appearance of the previously

Figure 1. Labelled, observational drawing of a tadpole. Alice, aged 4

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unnoticed eyes, their location and what they looked like in relation to other eyes thatthey knew. These children were more intent on examining the eyes of the tadpolethan any realistic or aesthetic considerations. They were using drawing to explorethe eyes of the tadpoles. The teacher’s and child’s annotation of the drawingsindicates that language was also a critical component of the drawing process, as wasthe dialogue that occurred between teacher and child and child and child.Figure 2. Labelled drawing of 11-day-old tadpoles. Emma, aged 4Drawings can also illustrate surprising misunderstandings or gaps in children’sknowledge. Drawing upon knowledge from her everyday life, Kiera (see Figure 3)drew her understanding of the growth and development of a potato she was about toplant.Figure 3. Kiera’s (aged 4) prediction about how the potato will grow

Figure 2. Labelled drawing of 11-day-old tadpoles. Emma, aged 4

Figure 3. Kiera’s (aged 4) prediction about how the potato will grow

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At first I read the red circles above the ground to be leaves, however, she told methat they were actually the potatoes growing on the plant and they were ready forpicking. While Kiera had grown flowers and peas and beans, she had never grownpotatoes. In contrast a child who had actually participated in the harvesting of pota-toes was able to draw the potatoes under the ground.

In each of these three examples the socio-cultural and historical context, alongwith the dialogue with the children about their drawings, were important to thereading of the drawing and the thinking behind it. However, in early childhoodeducation the legacy of Lowenfeld’s (1975) “hands off” approach persists and thereis still a reluctance on the part of adults to engage in any meaningful dialogue withchildren about their drawing. Like any other activity children do encounter problemswhen drawing and many adults seem to be at a loss as to how to support children’sdrawing efforts. At the same time, an aesthetic perception of drawing tends toposition it in a decorative and recreational category. Neither point of view supportsdrawing as an important meaning-making tool.

I would like to suggest that if we examine the process of young children’s drawingwith a Vygotskian lens we might begin to develop a more useful theoretical frame-work for looking at both the process of children drawing as well as their scientificthinking through their drawing. We might also begin to better understand how thevisualisation of ideas and concepts through drawing can support young children’sscientific ideas and higher mental processes.

Science in Early Childhood Education

In science education we can find similar mismatches between theory and whatyoung children are actually doing. Klein (2006, p. 170) critiques the notion ofscience literacy and points out that there is a gap between the “relatively denota-tive nature of the science text and the expressive nature of human cognitive repre-sentations”. He argues for mediation between the two forms of representation byassisting children to move from an informal, expressive and analogical writing styleto a more authentic science text, and to move from an individual mode of operat-ing in science to a more collaborative. Similarly, science models for young childrentend to rely on representations that link concepts to objects at a basic level. It israre to see opportunities for children to work at a metacognitive level so that theyare able to move from concepts to objects as well as across concepts (Gilbert,2005). Science language and understanding in early childhood often remains atthe level of recitation. Children appropriate the language without the necessaryexperience. As Vygotsky suggests it is not enough to have labels for objects inorder to think and solve problems, but what is also needed is an ability to manipu-late these labels across contexts that will allow for connections that promote higherlevels of thinking.

True human communication presupposes a generalizing attitude, which is an advancedstage in the development of word meanings. The higher forms of human intercourse arepossible only because man’s thought reflects conceptualised actuality. That is why

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certain thoughts cannot be communicated to children even if they are familiar with thenecessary words. The adequately generalized concept that alone ensures full under-standing may still be lacking. (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 7)

Having a word label for a concept is different from having had the experience of it. Itis different to read and talk about the word “swim” or “hatching” than it is to do itor be there when it is happening. There is a difference between knowing aboutsomething and experiencing something. Some ideas appear to take more processingthan others do. Vygotsky suggests that a “closer understanding of the developmentof understanding and communication in childhood, however, has led to the conclu-sion that real communication requires meaning—i.e. generalization” (Vygotsky,1962, p. 6). When children are encouraged to manipulate labels across contexts andwork from spontaneous encounters towards more scientific concepts then fullunderstanding of science concepts are more likely. This paper suggests that theprocess of drawing can help with the processing of ideas and the movement towardshigher levels of thinking.

Art education and science education in early childhood have both suffered fromsimilar philosophical dichotomies. In order to move beyond such dichotomies I turnagain to Vygotsky. To better understand the relationship between thought andspeech, Vygotsky drew upon two different and contradictory philosophical heritages,i.e. designative (objective/scientific, enlightenment) and expressive (subjective,romantics) (Wertsch, 2000). This is a similar philosophical dilemma that, accordingto Klein, faces the sciences. It is also the concern I have highlighted in art education.However, Vygotsky did not see reason to prefer one approach over the other andinstead allowed both to sit as different points of viewing word meaning (Wertsch,2000). Vygotsky began his analysis of word meaning by clarifying the need to studythe relational properties between “word” and “meaning”. He argued that if eachwere studied as separate elements then there was little possibility of one coming to abetter understanding of the development of thinking (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 4). Hedeveloped a new and different method, one that analysed the “unit”, i.e. “word-meaning”, rather than the “elements”, i.e. the word and the meaning. By “unit” hemeans “a product of analysis which, unlike elements, retains all the basic propertiesof the whole and which cannot be further subdivided without losing them” (1962,p. 5).

Vygotsky used water as an analogy to explain further. When trying to discover whywater puts out fire, a division of water into its elements of hydrogen and oxygen forfurther examination would not help solve the problem. Hydrogen burns and oxygensustains fire. In this kind of analysis one is left to speculatively reconstruct thevanished properties of the whole.Figure 4. The Vygotskian metaphor of water (Wink & Putney, 2002)Drawing upon Vygotsky’s methodology, and focusing upon the “meaning” behindyoung children’s drawing has helped me better understand the relationship betweenyoung children drawing and their thinking. Extending this idea to also examine therelationship between young children’s drawing and their scientific thinking mightyield a deeper understanding of the kind of processes young children engage in tomake better sense of the world they live in.

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Outlining a Vygotskian Framework

In order to illustrate further how a Vygotskian theoretical framework might be help-ful in an exploration of young children’s scientific thinking and visualisation inscience education I will very briefly outline the basic principles of one small part of aparticular Vygotskian theory. I will then use one child’s series of drawings to describehow an adaptation of this particular theory provided me with an informative way ofviewing children’s scientific thinking through their drawing processes. I will explorethe notion that in drawing there is evidence of a relationship between thought, draw-ing and visualisation that becomes clearer through the study of meaning-makingprocesses. When I use the word “visualisation” I am conflating the words “visualperception” and “visual imagery” (Gilbert, 2005).

Vygotsky suggested that “the rational, intentional conveying of experience andthought to others requires a mediating system, the prototype of which is human speechborn of the need of intercourse during work” (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 6). Figure 4 illus-trates Vygotsky’s theory of the connection between thought and speech and thedevelopment of verbal thought.Figure 5. Verbal thought (Wink & Putney, 2002, p. xxv)Verbal thought is “the linkage of multiple layers of language and thought as theytransform themselves into greater mental abilities, the joining of thought andlanguage to make meaning” (Wink & Putney, 2002, p. 152). Speech informsthought and thought is given life through speech. Meaning is created at the intersec-tion of, and through the dynamic relationship between, thought and speech.

However, Vygotsky also proposed other forms of communication such as symbols,algebraic systems, art, drawing, writing and diagrams (Vygotsky, 1962). These signsand symbols might also be considered forms of language and a way of communicat-ing. My work builds on Vygotsky’s ideas, however, my focus is specifically drawing.If we consider drawing to be a mediation tool, and a language of sorts, then we canstart to see how drawing might contribute to the formulation of thinking and mean-ing. Figure 5 borrows from Vygotsky’s theory and illustrates a possible connectionbetween thought, drawing and the development of visual thought.Figure 6. Visual thought (Brooks, 2002)It is through the dialogic interchange between thought and drawing that we getvisual thought. It is in meaning that the relational properties between thought and

Figure 4. Verbal thought (Brooks, 2002)

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drawing can be found. When we study the whole—drawing, thinking and meaning,within the socio-cultural and historical contexts of the production of drawing thenwe are able to see how children use drawing as a meaning-making tool.

At this point it is helpful to consider Vygotsky’s description of thought. Vygotsky(1962) describes thought as being both whole and simultaneous. It is not alwaysconnected to speech. There is also simultaneity in a completed drawing that parallelsVygotsky’s (1962) description of thought. A drawing can be a visual representationof a thought or an idea. An image is seen as a whole and simultaneously, whereasspeech has a more linear and temporal order. Unlike oral speech, drawing leaves amore permanent record that can be shared again as well as revisited. While text mightleave a visible trace it does not have the same simultaneity of access that an image has.Text has to be read in a linear fashion and one has to remember details over time inorder to make sense of it. Often with text one has to also translate the text into imagesto make meaning as one reads. The power of drawing for children (and adults) is thatit has a simultaneity that more closely represents thought. When a thought or idea isexternalised in the form of a drawing then it is possible to interact with it both at aninterpersonal and intrapersonal level as well as re-contextualise, revisit and revise it.

Returning to the relationship between thought and speech, Vygotsky proposedthat it is “in meaning (that the) answers to our questions about the relationshipbetween thought and speech can be found” (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 5). Vygotsky wroteabout two forms of meaning: (1) meaning as reference and abstraction; and (2)meaning as contextualised personal sense (Wertsch, 2000). There are also two basicassumptions about meaning as reference and abstractions. One is that “languagemeaning is a matter of referential relationships between signs and objects”, and theother is that “the development of meaning is a matter of increasing generalizationand abstraction” (Wertsch, 2000, p. 20). Vygotsky believed that an understandingof the difference between what he termed a child’s spontaneous concept and achild’s scientific concept depended on one’s understanding of these two assump-tions. It is in the spontaneous concept, which occurs in a child’s first encounter withan experience that the referential use of language plays an important role. However,

Figure 5. Visual thought (Brooks, 2002)

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for meaning to develop further into abstraction the child has to move beyond thisdirect linking of referent to object to a more generalised meaning. Objects aregrouped into categories rather than remaining single objects. If I consider drawingto be a communication system that supports meaning and that might operate insimilar ways to language then I can begin to understand how drawing might be amediator between a child’s spontaneous concept and a child’s scientific concept. Imight also be able to see how visualisation (as seen in children’s drawing) bridgesthe gap between perception-bound thinking and more abstract, symbolical thinking.When young children are able to create visual representations of their ideas they arethen more able to work at a metacognitive level. Drawing could be seen to supportthe metavisual capabilities that Gilbert has identified as being critical to scientificunderstanding (Gilbert, 2005).

Vygotsky believed that a child’s spontaneous concept differs from a child’sscientific concept, particularly in the path the child takes in his or her thinking.

The birth of the spontaneous concept is usually associated with the child’s immediateencounter with things … In contrast, the birth of the scientific concept begins not withan immediate encounter with things, but with a mediated relation to the object. Withthe spontaneous concept the child moves from the thing to the concept. With thescientific concept, he is forced to follow the opposite path—from the concept to thething. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 219)

It is the referential nature of the relationship between the sign and the object that isthe key to understanding the differences between everyday spontaneous conceptsand more abstract, scientific concepts.

The key difference … is a function of the presence or absence of a system. Conceptsstand in a different relationship to the object when they exist outside a system thanwhen they enter one. The relationship of the word “flower” to the object is completelydifferent for the child who does not yet know the words rose, violet or lily than it is forthe child who does. Outside a system, the only possible connections between conceptsare those that exist between the objects themselves, that is, empirical connections …These relationships mediate the concept’s relationship to the object through its relation-ship to other concepts. A different relationship between the concept and the objectdevelops. Supraempirical connections between concepts become possible. (Vygotsky,1987, p. 234)

Table 1. The relationship between spontaneous and scientific concepts

Spontaneous concept Scientific concept

Referential relationship between signs and objects Increasing generalisation and abstractionFirst or immediate encounter with an experience Mediated relation to the objectReferential use of language Objects grouped into categoriesThe child moves from the thing to the concept Child moves from the concept to the thingAbsence of a system System in placeEmpirical connections between objects Supra-empirical connections between

concepts become possible

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The following table summarises the relationship between a spontaneous concept anda scientific concept. It is important to note that, while I separated these two conceptsso that I can better understand them, in fact they work in continuous dialogicrelationship with each other. Scientific concepts reach down into spontaneousconcepts and pull them upward, while spontaneous concepts reach up into scientificconcepts and pull themselves up.

In the next section of this paper, I demonstrate how a group of children (aged 6),in a Year 1 classroom in Canada, used drawing to explore some of their ideas in rela-tion to light. I hope to show how drawing enabled them to visualise and representtheir ideas so that they were able to move from spontaneous concepts to scientificconcepts and higher levels of thinking.

Examining Flashlights—The importance of the context

In this photograph (Figure 6), there are two different flashlights on the table. Thechildren have brought these from home because they wanted to test a variety of lightsources that might be possible to read by. All three children are doing an observa-tional drawing of the flashlights. These children have chosen to draw and havechosen which flashlight they want to draw for their own particular reasons. Thematerials that are visible on the table, loose-leaf paper and pots of pencils and pencilcrayons, prompt collaborative use with open-ended possibilities. I can learn a lotabout children’s thinking processes when they use blank paper because I can seehow they lay out their ideas on that space. I chose pencils and a wide range ofcoloured pencil crayons because children of this age like to be able to include finedetail with the sharp points and to carefully select matching colours. These materi-als, laid out on a round table for small group work are important for establishing acontext of social construction of learning.Figure 7. Observational drawing of flashlightsThe social context for learning reflects my belief that knowledge is socially andculturally constructed. The choices we give children about where to work, who to

Figure 6. Observational drawing of flashlights

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work with and how to formulate their ideas reflects our beliefs that children alreadyknow a great deal about the world in which they live and have the capacity andmotivation to share this with others. Given a trusting and supportive environmentyoung children are able to make good choices, collaborate and construct knowledgewith their peers. Accountability for the choices they make is built into theprogramme. We also need to actively guide and make suggestions that will bring theclass together as a cohesive learning community. This sometimes means limitingchildren’s choices or being selective about which of their ideas we might adopt. Thematerials brought from home reflect the understanding that learning is not some-thing that happens only within the context of the classroom. Finding opportunitiesto invite families and the community into the classroom to participate in projects isan important part of social constructionist practice.

The topic under investigation was “light”. As the days grew longer and the clockschanged the children noticed these changes. To provide a contrast to light the chil-dren suggested that a very dark space be made in the classroom so that a comparisonbetween very dark and light could be made. The piece of black plastic you see in thebackground of the image is the covering for this dark space. Children took the flash-lights, and other light sources, into this dark space and were able to study how theylit the space. A candle gives out a very different light from a flashlight and someunderstanding of candlepower rating became evident. My adoption of the children’ssuggestion indicates that I valued their ideas and would help negotiate and constructlearning opportunities with them.

Investigating light in the context of the classroom brought each child’s personal expe-riences with light and dark into an arena where these more spontaneous concepts wereextended to include more global or scientific concepts, for example, the notion ofcandlepower and the reasons for the clock and time changes. Most children wouldlikely have used a flashlight but few may have taken the time to examine it closely.The children had many different ideas about how flashlights work and why there wasa range in the quality of light produced. However these cause and effect ideas tendedto have a more spontaneous logical base. Bringing the many different ideas into thecontext of the classroom discussion and activities meant that these children were ableto hear that others might have different or conflicting ideas. These differing ideas helpedto raise the questions that provided the impetus for further investigation. Compilingand comparing observational drawings, as one of the children did (Figure 7), gave theother children a reference upon which to build and elaborate their ideas.Figure 8. Drawings of different kinds of flashlightsThrough shared reviewing, as well as discussions, the drawings prompted a deeperunderstanding of the differences among flashlights. Drawing was encouraged atevery possible opportunity. Comparing flashlights against different criteria helpedthe children to group and categorise in more complex ways; ways that acknowledgedthe scope of the technology of the culture in which they live. The children in thisclass were encouraged to formulate good questions and to investigate these ques-tions either in small groups or independently.

On the display board behind the children are the beginnings of a display of children’swork. Placed beside the drawings and work samples are photographs of the context

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for the work. The children helped to assemble these displays and contributed piecesof work that told the story of their learning. They also helped to write captions thatprovided additional information about the images. These displays allowed children tosee the different ideas their peers were working with as well as the different possibilitiesfor representation. Taking part in the documentation of their own learning helpedthem understand that the communication of ideas was important and that there weremany ways to do this. Documenting their learning in this way also helped their parentsand other visitors to their classroom to know about their ideas and discoveries.

Ed’s Flashlight Drawing Process

Ed examined the large red flashlight with another child. They discovered that thisparticular flashlight had three levels of light. Ed and his friend Blair, each had theirown theory about how the three levels worked. Ed seemed intrigued by the switch ofthe large flashlight. He told me that he thought the light changes had something todo with the switches. His friend Blair told me that he thought it had more to do withsome mechanism around the bulb.

Ed began his exploration of the switches on the flashlight by making a drawing(Figure 8) of the flashlight with a plan view (a plan view is an overhead view). Thiswas a different view from the one that he saw from where he was standing. A planview was the best view of the switches he was about to spend so much time on.Congruent with this perspective, the stand the flashlight rests on was drawn as if itwent under the flashlight. He used the cultural convention of occlusion that he hadlikely seen in other drawings to assist him to establish his point of view and so main-tain his focus on the switches. In this instance the process of drawing the flashlight

Figure 7. Drawings of different kinds of flashlights

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allowed Ed to make the beginning of an idea visible. He was then able to dialoguewith, extend and elaborate this idea through his drawing. Drawing mediatedbetween his initial idea and his visualisation of this idea. He was also able to extendhis competency with spatial visualisation and orientation.Figure 9. Ed drawing the red flashlight with a plan viewHe drew the flashlight with the light on and brought his recent experience ofobserving it in the dark space into his drawing by colouring black, to representdarkness, all around the flashlight. The manner in which he had represented thelight was similar to the girl next to him. He had perhaps thought of her as expert andborrowed an idea from her. This borrowing, or sharing, of knowledge is an impor-tant aspect of learning in a social context. It might be regarded as an example ofknowledge existing in an interpersonal state before it exists in the intrapersonal state.

Ed drew the light from the bulb in a rectangular enclosed space. He drew theconvex dome of the light with a line to represent transparency and included this inthe uncoloured (undark) rectangle. Ed then took a dark coloured piece of paper thesame size as the rectangle and placed it over the drawing of the dome and the unco-loured rectangle (Figure 9). He talked to me about the flashlight looking as if it is off(dark) when the paper covers the drawing of the bulb and on when the paper is notcovering it (light). He was able to represent the contrast between light and dark andlink it to the corresponding notion of on and off. Linking these two concepts movedhim beyond a more immediate referent/object response. His drawing was more thana replica of what he saw. The process of drawing out his ideas and observations andthe subsequent playing with ideas that the drawing allowed seemed to have thecapacity to move him to a higher level of thinking. In this instance drawing seemedto mediate between thought and action and provided a means for Ed to move to alevel of abstraction that might not previously have been possible. The process ofdrawing was able to bridge the gap between perceptual-bound thinking and moreabstract, symbolic thinking. Ed was able to play with the idea of on as light and offas dark.

Figure 8. Ed drawing the red flashlight with a plan view

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Figure 10. Using a piece of dark coloured paper to play with idea of ‘on’ and ‘off’Ed next wanted to attach the dark piece of paper to his drawing to make a flap thatwould open and close. By making a flap he was turning his two-dimensional drawinginto a more three-dimensional working model. Attaching the paper flap to the draw-ing seemed to be a significant idea for Ed because he took the time to actually drawa diagram of how he would do this. He enclosed his drawn plan with a single line asif to signify a complete idea. Inside the enclosure he drew the piece of dark paper, astaple and the paper his drawing was on. He labelled each of these and put an arrowfrom one to the other to indicate the order in which one might work. He placedthese drawings in a sequence that reads from left to right, the same direction as textis read (Figure 10). Ed likely encountered labelled diagrams, arrows as symbols fordirection, as well as directionality of text in his environment and brought these ideas,or conventions, into his own representation.Figure 11. Ed’s plan for a flapAfter completing the flap and having several of his peers test it out Ed had anotheridea. This was probably sparked by a comment one of his peers made about the

Figure 9. Using a piece of dark coloured paper to play with idea of ‘on’ and ‘off’

Figure 10. Ed’s plan for a flap

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switch on the flashlight actually having three settings, or levels of light, while hisdrawing only had either on or off. Ed took a piece of black paper to represent theswitch and stapled the two pipe cleaners so that they would hold the switch in placewhile also allowing it to move back and forth in three positions like the switch on theflashlight. While he could not represent the corresponding three levels of light, hecould synchronise the moving of the switch with the opening of the flap.

This drawing (Figure 11) is a good example of drawing functioning as an activitythat was leading Ed’s development (Vygotsky, 1962). Ed formed new cognitivepathways while drawing, pathways that allowed him to extend his thinking and moveforward to solve other related problems. He extended his notion of on and off toinclude the notion of different levels of “on”. To better represent the different levelsof light and the three-way switch he was forced to bring in new ideas. These ideasallowed him to move forward in a way that would not have previously been possible.In this example, Ed’s drawing processes extended themselves across contexts toallow him to solve a problem. Now, simultaneously in one drawing, Ed has access tomultiple ideas, the notion of on and off, and the related concept of light and dark. Itconsolidated his idea of there being three positions for the switch that controlled theintensity of the light and the ability to synchronise these activities in a way thatmatched his understanding of how the light worked. Having this working model thatclearly showed others what his theory was, he could then discuss his theory withothers in ways that ensured a common understanding. The focus in this drawing hasconsistently been upon the meaning the drawing holds in the construction of newknowledge. In this example we can see that drawing has assisted Ed with his spatialvisualisations and orientations. He was also able to use drawing to extend his initial

Figure 11. Ed’s completed drawing with the switches and the flap

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ideas and work at a more metacognitive, and conceptual level, thus supporting hismetavisual capabilities (Gilbert, 2005). Ed has been able to move from a spontane-ous concept to a more scientific concept (Vygotsky, 1962) through his drawingprocesses.Figure 12. Ed’s completed drawing with the switches and the flap

Light Traps

Extending their work with flashlights the children in this class next decided theywould explore how they might trap light. Each day individual children and groupsof children, arrived at school with new plans for how to trap light. They drewelaborate plans at home and brought them to school. They discussed their ideasover lunch and during recess. Individual children and groups worked on the floor toenclose flashlights with unit blocks as well as build structures with unit blocks onthe classroom light table. They had formed a common agreement that all of thetraps should be made from unit blocks (Figures 12 and 13). Unit blocks were a veryfamiliar material for the children in this class and were used for exploring andrepresenting many ideas. The children used unit blocks as a three-dimensionalthinking tool in much the same way as they used drawing. Each day before leavingthe classroom we gathered as a class and tested the light traps by putting out themain lights, plunging the classroom into darkness. This way we could better see iflight was escaping from any trap. The next series of drawings provides examples ofhow complex ideas can be carried forward in a community of learners through theirdrawings and how these drawings can work to collectively engage children at higherlevels of thinking.

Ed’s Light Traps

Ed was one of the first children to build a light trap. He chose to work by himself onthe light table. Two other children worked next to him building their own trap. Edbegan by drawing a plan for his trap. His plan helped him to give form to his ideas. Italso created a link between his visual thinking and his actions. His plan allowed meto see what he was intending to do.

After drawing his plan, Ed collected the blocks he thought he needed and tookthem to the light table. His drawing helped him make decisions about which blocksto choose and how many. His drawing mediated between thought and action tomake his actions more deliberate. When children work from a drawn plan they havea better idea of how many blocks and which kind they might need. The process ofhaving to draw the blocks seems to help them become more aware of some of thedecisions they would have to make for building.Figure 13. Ed’s plan for his light trapEd had drawn one elevation plan of the longest side of his structure (Figure 12).Ed methodically built his light trap, constantly referring to his drawing to guide hisbuilding. It seemed important to him to build as true to his drawing as possible.Having the drawing to work from seemed to aid his concentration and focus, as themany things happening around him did not easily distract him. Ed used his

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drawing as a reference point. It reminded him of his original idea. Ed’s movementbetween referring to his plan and the building he was constructing displayed anunderstanding of the function of a plan. The act of working with a plan offeredopportunities for Ed to gain a better understanding of the elements that could beincluded in a plan and its use. Here (Figure 13) you can see an example of draw-ing bridging the gap between perception-bound thinking and more abstract,symbolical thinking.Figure 14. Ed referring to his plan while building his light trapEd’s drawing also functioned as an abstraction of an idea he had about lighttraps. It was a two-dimensional symbolic representation. Working between this two-dimensional image and his three-dimensional structure meant that he had manytranslations to accommodate between the reading of the symbols and the actions hehad to perform. However, he was able to do this because the drawing was meaning-ful to him. When he built the other long side of his building he referred not only tothe drawing but also to the wall he had already built. He had to work in mirror

Figure 12. Ed’s plan for his light trap

Figure 13. Ed referring to his plan while building his light trap

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image from his drawing, however he seemed to realise that the back of his first wallwas the same as the mirror image. Here we can see how drawing and buildingsupported Ed’s competency with spatial visualisations, interpretations, orientationsand relations.

Ed’s drawing was specific to his understanding of light traps. It contained verypersonalised meaning. Within the context of the classroom, the other light traps anddrawing plans he had seen had likely influenced Ed’s drawing. His drawing alsorevealed some of the conventions that he had acquired from his viewing of plansand diagrams both in and out of school. He had oriented his page to best fit hisdrawing and had placed the drawing on the bottom edge of the page (the edgeclosest to the viewer) so that the page edge acted as a foundation or anchor for hisdrawing. The fairly accurate proportions of the blocks clearly indicated whichblocks he had in mind. He had drawn the blocks touching each other and some-times had even shared the line between blocks. This indicated to me, and likely tohim, just how snugly they must fit together to trap light. The visual representations(drawing and blocks) of Ed’s ideas about light traps allowed him to work at moremetacognitive level. He was able to take an idea he had about trapping light, giveform to the idea and play with it. Here we can see drawing and building supportingEd’s metavisual capabilities.

When Ed finished his building (Figure 14), he seemed a little perplexed that thelight from the light table was still escaping from around the outside of his building.He could see light shining through his paper when it was on the light table. In orderto check whether light was escaping from his structure he flipped the paper upagainst the blocks and looked to see if he could also see light coming through theblocks onto the paper from his building.Figure 15. Ed’s finished light trap

Stuart and Anton’s Light Trap

Stuart and Anton built a light trap just next to Ed’s (background of Figure 14). Thetwo boys sat together to plan their light trap. Each made a drawing of what the light

Figure 14. Ed’s finished light trap

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trap would look like. As they drew they talked with each other about their plans andlooked at each other’s drawing. The drawings allowed each child to see what theother was thinking. This facilitated a common understanding. It was also an exam-ple of knowledge existing in an interpersonal form, the medium of exchange beingthe drawings along with the related conversation. There are basic similaritiesbetween the two drawings. Mirrors featured in their conversation from the verybeginning. Both boys had noticed the mirror behind the bulb in the flashlight andseemed convinced that mirrors and light had to go together. Stuart said the mirrorgave the light “more power.” In the first drawing that Stuart did, the mirror wasplaced under the drawbridge. His rationale was that any light that escaped fromunder the castle walls would be trapped in the mirror and bounced back down towhere it came from. He drew the paths of the light bouncing between the mirror andthe light source with dark scribbles (Figure 15). Light spillage from around thestructures was a recurring problem for the children who worked on the light tableand Stuart felt he had a solution.Figure 16. Stuarts drawing of a light trapAnton seemed to be thinking more about the light trapped within the hollowtowers. His drawing looked a bit more elaborate than Stuart’s drawing. While Stuartlaid down the foundational drawing he did more talking than Anton. Anton usedStuart’s initial drawing as a model and elaborated on it. Anton’s drawing showed twohollow towers where he has shaded one side of a tower giving it a three-dimensionaleffect (Figure 16). Anton suggested that if the drawbridge were also hollow then thelight would have to travel through it too. He reasoned that the light would then onlybe able to go up the tower, through the drawbridge and down the other tower. Therewould only be one path for the light to travel and it would not be able to go anywhereelse. This new plan seemed at first to make the mirror redundant. Stuart was reluc-tant to give up his idea of a mirror and suggested trying to incorporate the mirror inanother way. The two boys discussed the necessity of the mirror. Stuart insisted thatit was the mirror that made the light “bounce off” and “keep moving”. When Stuartmentioned “keep moving”, Anton paused and suddenly seemed to understand the

Figure 15. Stuarts drawing of a light trap

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purpose of the mirror. He realised that if they placed a mirror strategically at bothends of the drawbridge then the light would be trapped between the two mirrors andforced to travel backwards and forwards across the drawbridge indefinitely. Thiswould make a perfect light trap.Figure 17. Anton’s drawing of a light trapUnlike Ed’s drawing, these drawings did not clearly show the blocks that wouldmake up their structure. Stuart and Anton seemed much more interested in thepaths the light might travel and where to most effectively place the mirrors.Drawing, and the related discussion, helped them clarify their thinking about this.They were able to take some initial and tentative ideas about how to trap light andelaborate and extend these ideas through their drawing, talking and building.

Stuart and Anton managed to build a structure that seemed to them to not onlytrap the light but also keep the light moving indefinitely. Drawing was the leadingactivity that allowed the boys to more clearly formulate their thinking and move tonew levels of understanding. The two boys worked together to share their existingknowledge and in the process not only extended their individual knowledge butalso extended their collective knowledge. Their shared knowledge existed in aninterpersonal state through their drawings and they were able to work as co-constructors of new knowledge and understanding. The support each gave theother seemed to be well enough matched to allow transfer of information andconcepts. Their task was self-selected and provided the intrinsic motivation thathelped them persist in the face of difficulty. Revising their drawings after they hadbuilt their structure helped to transform new knowledge from an interpersonalstate to a more intrapersonal state as each was able to recall and retell the newknowledge they had acquired. In this case drawing helped the two boys externalisetheir ideas so that they could both problem solve, extend their thinking and under-standing and move from their initial spontaneous concepts to more elaboratedscientific concepts.

Figure 16. Anton’s drawing of a light trap

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In my descriptions of these children’s drawing processes I have demonstrated howdrawing can:

● engage the mind,● bring something more clearly into consciousness,● focus attention,● assist with the formation of ideas,● be a visual representation of a thought and/or idea,● allow ideas to be re-contextualised, revisited and revised,● mediate between a child’s spontaneous concept and a child’s scientific concept

and move them to higher levels of thinking (Vygotsky, 1962),● support visualisations that bridge the gap between perception-bound thinking and

more abstract, symbolical thinking,● produce visual representations of ideas that allow children to work at a metacog-

nitive level,● support the metavisual capabilities that have been identified as being critical to

scientific understanding (Gilbert, 2005), and● produce an external representation of a thought or idea so that it is then possible

to interact with the idea both at an interpersonal and intrapersonal level.

When we study the whole; drawing, thinking and meaning, within the socio-culturaland historical contexts of the production of drawing then we are able to see howchildren use drawing as a meaning-making tool.

Pedagogical Implications

In my narrative of children drawing in my classroom I have tried to paint a picture ofhow we can best support young children’s drawing in the everyday contexts of theirlearning. The pedagogical atmosphere in the room is one of mutual respect andsupport for emergent ideas. It is important that teachers value children’s drawing forthe information and ideas they contain rather than for replication of reality. I havetried to show how we can utilise drawing in every aspect of the curriculum and howdrawing can help children to explore their “big ideas” across place, time and rela-tion. When drawing is viewed as a tool that is part of a meaning-making repertoirethis should help teachers see drawing as part of a learning process rather than as aproduct that is indicative of a more rigid stage of development. When the drawingskills involved become part of the child’s struggle to articulate meaning then teacherscan work with the child to clarify the meaning with the assumption that it may takeseveral drawings to reach a desired level of understanding.

Children should be encouraged to revisit, re-contextualise and revise their drawings.Drawings should be allowed to develop over time. Therefore, individual children’sdrawings should be easily accessible and carefully dated and stored in the classroom.When young children take their drawings home each day we not only loose the abilityto revisit and revise, we also lose important records of the growth and developmentof their ideas. Children need to be encouraged to elaborate or modify their drawings

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and even redraw them. When children are able to carry their drawings from one contextto another they are able to see for themselves how concepts can be transferred.

It is important to provide the time and space for children to discuss and reviewdrawings. This can be done with individuals as well as small and large groups. Somedrawings might be worked on over several days or even weeks.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have shown that drawing can help children make their ideas visible. Itis through drawing that we can bring something more clearly into consciousness.Drawing can assist young children in the exploration of their ideas and questionsabout the world in which they live. When drawing is one of the modes of exchange ina classroom then drawings can be preserved as a record of children’s thinking thatcan be reviewed and revisited by both teacher and child while also serving as a vehi-cle of exchange within the wider learning community.

Drawings like those I have just described provide valuable insights into children’sscientific thinking as well as provide records of children’s cognitive growth and devel-opment. If we think of drawing involving many steps and perhaps many drawings inthe pursuit of an idea, this opens possibilities for children using drawing over again inmany different ways and contexts. The qualities of drawing are the generative anddivergent possibilities created.

One of the great strengths of drawing lies in its ability to immediately reflect backto the person drawing the ideas that are revealed. This is perhaps why young childrenfind drawing such an attractive and powerful tool for learning. It is immediately holis-tic and interactive in ways that writing is not. The examples used in this paper havedemonstrated that children are able to represent complex ideas in their drawings. Ithas also demonstrated that children are able to absorb information from the contextsin which they work and to assimilate and transform new ideas through their drawings.However, the support, time and opportunity for children to pursue complexity intheir drawing also have to be part of the teaching and learning environment.

Drawing can assist young children’s interactions and competencies with spatialvisualisations, interpretations, orientations and relations. When young children areable to create visual representations of their ideas they are more able to work at ametacognitive level.

A Vygotskian theoretical framework has helped us to look at drawing as muchmore than recreation and decoration. It has helped us understand how meaning andunderstanding can be facilitated through drawing and that drawing can play a signif-icant role in the growth and development of young children’s thinking and education.

References

Athey, C. (1990). Extending thought in young children. London: Paul Chapman.Barratt-Pugh, C., & Rohl, M. (2000). Literacy learning in the early years. NSW, Australia: Allen &

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Brooks, M. (2002). Drawing to learn. Ph.D. thesis, University of Alberta.Cox, M.V. (1991). The child’s point of view (2nd ed.). London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Eisner, E.W. (1972). Educating artistic vision. New York: Macmillan.Gifford, S. (1997). When should they start doing sums? A critical consideration of the

emergent mathematics approach. In I. Thompson (Ed.), Teaching and learning early number(pp. 178–183). Buckingham: Open University Press.

Gilbert, J.K. (Ed.). (2005). Visualisation in science education. Dordrecht: Springer.Kellogg, R. (1969). Analyzing children’s art. Palo Alto, CA: National Books Press.Klein, P.D. (2006). The challenges of scientific literacy: From the viewpoint of second generation

cognitive science. International Journal of Science Education, 28(2), 143–178.Lauquet, G.H. (1927). Le dessin enfantin. Paris: Alcan.Lowenfeld, V. (1975). Your child and his art. New York: Macmillan.Matthews, J. (1999). The art of childhood and adolescence: The construction of meaning. London:

Falmer Press.Piaget, J. (1956). The child’s conception of space. New York: Macmillan.Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R.W. Rieber & A.S. Carton (Eds.); N. Minick

(Trans.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 1): Problems of general psychology(pp. 39–285). New York: Plenum Press.

Wertsch, J. (2000). Vygotsky’s two minds on the nature of meaning. In C.D. Lee & P. Smagorinsky(Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives on literary research: Constructing meaning through collaborativeinquiry. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wink, J., & Putney, L. (2002). A vision of Vygotsky. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

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Documents

Drawing, Visualisation and Young Children’s Exploration of “Big Ideas”