Early Childhood & Interdisciplinary Challenge || The Role of Artistic Play in Problem Solving

National Art Education Association

The Role of Artistic Play in Problem SolvingAuthor(s): Eliza PitriSource: Art Education, Vol. 54, No. 3, Early Childhood & Interdisciplinary Challenge (May,2001), pp. 46-51Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193924 .

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I e *B*9 |f i S rt teacUh"-, as well as early child- AP MMI ^M Whood teac6ers, often encounter

i.. ... situations where they need to jus- t h t e use of artistic and playful experiences

X ."-' XIprograms for young children. As Eisner (1 | 990) points out, art and play, like imagina- tion and fantasy, are not regarded as a part of the "serious" business of schooling. I view play, and more specifically artistic play, as an essential learning medium. According to Sponseller (1974), this perspective is an affir- mation of the positive contribution that play

^^l^ m^^ offers to all stages of life and all areas of development. It is also a response to the emphasis on early academic learning, which causes the exclusion of play from the curriculum.

By the time children reach 4 years of age, they develop rapidly, without participating in any formalized learning programs. By that age and through play, they learn to walk, run, jump, hide, tease, talk, build, etc. Yet, about that time, when children show evidence of the vast amount of learning they have acquired, adults

look at them and say, 'You have played around long enough; now it's time to learn something," and the process of learning is denaturalized in the name of education. Should teachers value "work" in the classroom and relegate play to recess time only?

The purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of artistic play and its effects on children's thinking. I start with an attempt to define what artistic play is and continue with a description of how it contributes to the development of reasoning and problem solving. Although the focus here is on the cognitive developmental role of playful art activities, I would like to note that educators, such as Athey (1988), describe the contribution of play to all types of learning, including physical, social, and emotional learning.

Play is regarded as one of the characteristic features of childhood, but there is no single definition of what it really is. It is an obvious commonplace behavior and this may dampen the interest of investigating it. Because it takes place everywhere, it is obvious and there is no need to discover it. There is, however, a need to explain it. Historically, from Plato to Rousseau, Froebel, Dewey, Vygotsky, and Piaget, play has been considered a phenomenon stretching across a knowledge spectrum that includes biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Because of its multidimensionality, it requires explanations from multiple perspectives, including the perspective of art educators.

ART EDUCATION / MAY 2001

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What is artistic play and how can it be facilitated by the teacher?

A common perspective suggests that play is any activity that serves a recreational function. Pleasure and recreation are necessary but not defining characteristics of play. Play is spontaneous and voluntary. It is not obligatory but is freely chosen by the player. It has no extrinsic goals; its motivations are intrinsic. Fun itself is intrinsic, and the yield is confined to the player. Anyone or anything that intervenes between the player and the play interrupts the fun and distorts his or her performance. The validity of the play performance lies in the total commitment to the personal or group demands and rules of the activity. Players are concerned with the process of an activity more than its results. Goals are self-imposed, and existing rules can be modified. Play occurs with familiar objects, or it follows the exploration of unfamiliar objects. Children supply their own meanings to activities and control the situations themselves.

In classroom environments, teachers tend to emphasize the "seriousness" in play. Educational play is, indeed, serious in that the player is - ^ deeply absorbed in enjoyment. ? . ^ The role of the adult in children's , /. /'

play is not that of an instructor or .. :4

entertainer, but rather of a friend

By the time children reach 4 years of age... they learn to walk, run, jump, hide, tease, talk, build, etc. Yet, about that time, when children show evidence of the vast amount of learning they have acquired, adults look at them and say, "You have played around long enough; now it's time to learn something,"

whose presence will insure the quality and appropriateness of the experience. If the teacher manipulates the context of children's play without limiting their freedom of choice or controlling their spontaneity, then play can become educational and, as Sponseller (1978) calls it, a "medium" for learning. Sponseller's analysis of the meaning of the word "medium" provides further understanding of what educational play is: * A medium is a condition in which something may

function or flourish. Play is a condition in which the cognitive functions of the mind can be allowed to function optimally.

* A medium is a means of conveying something, a channel of communication. Play is often the means by which children express their thoughts and feelings and facilitates understanding of these thoughts and feelings.

* A medium is a surrounding or enveloping substance. Children become completely enveloped in play. Almost every activity in which young children engage has elements of play behavior, such as spontaneity of physical and emotional expression.

* A medium is a material or technical means of active expression. For young children, active expression is vitally important, and sensorimotor activity is a major mode of behavior. Play is used by children as a technical means of actively expressing themselves. Sutton-Smith (1972) describes the different types of play as

imitation, exploration, testing, and world construction. There is a direct connection between Sutton-Smith's play categories and the process of art production. The process of artmaking for individuals of all ages is an inquiry activity of exploring and expressing ideas that reflect experiences. Divergent thinking, spontaneity, risk-taking, and experimental manipulation of media are significant artmaking behaviors. These behaviors can be facilitated by play. Monigham-Nourot et al. (1987), for example, stated that in constructive play children "manipulate objects to construct or create something" by modeling their constructions on the known and at the same time creating something uniquely their own. Artmaking is associated with the philosophy of creative play, which is based on the premise that the more our emotions are involved, the more sensory information we receive, and the more easily learning takes place.

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MAY 2001 / ART EDUCATION



The liberation of the art classrooms and development of play can be facilitated by creative, playful teachers who constantly invent teaching strategies to surprise their students and motivate them to participate in the learning process.

What makes artistic play distinct from other forms of educational play is the classroom context in which children function. The development of artistic play requires specific physical settings, materials, and teacher's actions, which are related to aesthetic expression and inquiry. As Van Horn et al. (1999) note, "the spontaneity with which children turn art into play does not mean that specific planning for art need not take place" (p. 109). Planning for artistic play requires flexibility and consideration of when the activities should be spontaneous, when they should be guided, and what the benefits are from each type. For facilitating artistic play, the whole school environment should be organized and structured towards freedom of choice, making a big variety of materials and tools available to the students.

When art instruction is planned around play, children can draw ideas from their own experiences instead of following the teacher's lead. They learn how to discover and plan for themselves. Artistic play requires no permanent commitment and offers opportunities of absorbing, examining, altering, restating, or even rejecting ideas. The liberation of the art classrooms and development of play can be facilitated by creative, playful teachers who constantly invent teaching strategies to surprise their students and motivate them to participate in the learning process.

The preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, are examples of art-based programs that allow children to learn through play (Edwards, Gandini, Forman, 1998). The child is viewed as

Children who are allowed to make choices can recall past experiences and make present experiences more meaningful.

competent and full of potential and active in constructing his or her own knowledge, through interactions with peers, adults and the environment. Every year each school delineates a series of projects and themes that serve as the main structural support of the learning process. It is, however, up to the children and the course of events to determine the daily activities. The goal is to allow the children to make choices, communicate their choices through their play, and receive feedback from others. This sociocultural perspective of play is rooted in Vygotsky's (1978) larger psychological theory that gives a key role to culture and to its transmission through social interaction and communication, in the formation of mind. Vygotsky (1976) saw play as contributing significantly to cognitive development, rather than simply reflecting it.

"Princess in the Rainy Forest" Project I taught in a preschool where the children used to collect

found objects, such as empty boxes, plastic bottles, and old newspapers, and they would bring them to school to use them in their three-dimensional artworks. They organized the objects themselves according to shape, size, or color. Once, during the morning group activities, I introduced a princess puppet to the children and told them a story about her walking in a forest when suddenly it started to rain. The children were given the task of creating something that would protect the princess from the rain. Those who wanted to participate in the activity had the choice of working individually or in groups and using any of the available art tools and materials. It did not




take them more than 10 seconds to have their first ideas. Each idea was immediately either rejected or considered as a possible solution to the problem, and small groups were formed.

A young girl, who decided to work alone, worked with the three-dimensional shapes that we used the previous day for a different activity, and created a castle for the princess. (See Figure 1.) A group of three other children worked with empty boxes, paper, glue, and paint and built a jeep so that she could quickly drive away from the forest. They were even considerate enough to provide her with a spare tire! When the same activity took place in a different classroom, a group of four children disassembled an old round chair, covered the parts with newspaper and painted it to look like a giant mushroom that would provide shelter for the princess. (See Figure 2.) All children chose to conclude the process with related dramatic play, which helped them evaluate their work.

The "Princess in the Rainy Forest" project is an example of motivating the children and proving them with resources to engage in artistic play. The teacher manipulated only the context of learning (tools, materials, settings), and the students freely chose to participate in a playful process that involved reasoning and problem solving.

Bretherton' s (1984) research on the symbolic play of children gives evidence of great strides in reasoning ability. I am not suggesting that art teachers should guide students towards strict logico-mathematical reasoning, which proceeds

L Figure 2. Artistic play provides children with opportunities for explorations, creativity, and

* . self-evaluation.

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step by step according to predefined rules. Reasoning in the art classroom can be "interpersonal," for example, through verbal interaction. As Noddings (1991) adds, this type of reasoning is open, flexible, responsive, and is marked by attachment and connection rather than separation and abstraction. The children who participated in the "Princess in the Rainy Forest" activity were engaged in symbolic play. They had to decode the visual symbol of the puppet to perceive it as a princess and also respond to the

language symbol of the rainy forest. Within certain limits, children's reasoning was involved in the following ways:

(a) Prediction of events, e.g. thinking about what can be found in a forest or what would happen if the princess had a car. (b) Estimation of probabilities, e.g. drawing the conclusion that a princess would likely live in a castle rather than any other type of building. (c) Reasoning about cause and effect, e.g. making assumptions about what would happen if the princess stayed in the rain and why she need protection. (d) Drawing conclusions about the nature of things, e.g. the round form of the chair can be associated with the shape of other round things, such as a mushroom. After children encounter a problem, they form and test

hypotheses. Hypothesis testing, an ability often tied to scientific thinking, in reality occurs in all forms of thought. Isaacs (1966) relates the ability to construct fruitful hypotheses directly to the ability to reconstruct past events in play and continues that sometimes, lack of experience or misinterpreted experiences may lead to invalid hypotheses. A group of children that participated in the "Princess in the Rainy Forest" project, for example, had previous experiences with mushrooms and were familiar with their stylized shape. Therefore, they were able to hypothesize that a round chair could be transformed into a mushroom. On the other hand, a different group misinterpreted their experiences concerning




Artistic play is facilitated

Figure 3. Students freely choose to participate in a playful process that involves reasor and problem solving.

convertible vehicles in natural environments and hypothesized that such a vehicle could protect the princess from the rain. (See Figure 3.) Athey (1988) emphasizes the importance of social context in formulating and testing hypotheses. Play is a vital ingredient of this context because the child is playing with ideas that are roughly at the level at which they can be assimilated. New evidence provided through play leads children to proceed with problem solving by either rejecting and rethinking their hypotheses, or accepting them.

Adult artists deal with technical, aesthetic, stylistic, expressive, and conceptual problems. Young children's artistic play involves technical or practical, representational, and interpersonal problems. (See Figure 4.) Technical or practical problems are related to materials and their physical properties. They are rooted in children's initial difficulty in using the materials due to undeveloped sensory/motor skills or unfamiliarity with new objects and situations. The child who tried to disassemble the chair during the "Princess in the Rainy Forest" project, for example, did not have the physical strength for the task. Practical problems can be as simple as choosing materials, deciding how to spread paint on a printing tool, how to cut paper, how to clean up a paint spill, or how to make a stable base for a paper structure. During artistic play, children also impose representational problems when they

by environments that are rich in carefully chosen

/ and well-maintained k / materials and by teachers

who are convinced that such play is vital throughout the school

B I curriculum.

are trying to decide how to create visual representations and symbols of concepts. Finally, interpersonal problems are related to everyday relationships, whether the children are

ning trying to draw the teacher's attention or participate in peer culture. All types of problems are interrelated, and a single

situation may require parallel solution of multiple problems. Problem solving is enhanced through play because, as

Garvey (1990) points out, play facilitates cognitive flexibility, serves symbolic function, and leads to problem finding. Play allows for diverse interpretations of situations and multiple use of materials and therefore encourages cognitive flexibility in the solution of problems. Playful art activities offer children the opportunity to manipulate actual objects, act out the problem, and develop diverse solutions. For children, play can serve the same symbolic function in solving a problem as thinking or talking through a problem does for adults. For example, for children who repetitiously work through a problem, play is an attempt to assimilate information that is imperfectly understood. At the same time, if children choose to work in groups, they can talk their problems over with others, construct relationships, and develop a plan as a group. Play also leads to the discovery and even the generation of new problems. The problem-solving attitude leads to sensitivity to problems and problem finding, which can be more important than the actual problem-solving process. Play stimulates intrinsic motivation forces of exploration and curiosity. These forces, as Athey (1988) notes, drive children to seek novel stimulation and increase the chances of recognizing new problems. Sensitivity to problems is one of the important components of creative thinking.




Conclusion The kinds of activities that promote cognitive development

are those that fascinate children, allow them to control their own efforts, and are genuinely experimental. According to Van Horn et. al. (1999), the arts can be indispensable to a successful curriculum because "children spontaneously turn art into play, and play is the young child's principal matrix for learning" (p. 108). At the same time, play, discovery, diverse thinking, questioning, experimenting, and risk taking are means of pursuing ideas for art production, and they deserve considerable attention as ways of working during classroom artmaking. Artistic play is facilitated by environments that are rich in carefully chosen and well-maintained materials and by teachers who are convinced that such play is vital throughout the school curriculum. Meaningful playful experiences with artmaking help children develop abilities in reasoning, hypothesis testing, and problem solving-attributes espoused for effective learners.

Eliza Pitri is a doctoral student in the Department of Art Education at The Ohio State University. E-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Athey, I. (1988). The relationship of play to cognitive, language and moral

development. In D. Bergen (Ed.). Play as a medium for learning and development. A handbook of theory and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Bretherton, I. (Ed.). (1984). Symbolic play: The development of social understanding. New York: Academic Press.

Edwards, C., Gandini, L. and Forman, G. (Eds.). (1998). The hundred languages of children. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Eisner, E. (1990). The role of art and play in children's cognitive development. In E. Klugman and S. Smilansky (Eds.), Children's play and learning: Perspectives and policy implications. New York: Teachers College Press.

Garvey, C. (1990). Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Isaacs, S. (1966). Intellectual growth in young children. New York:

Schocken. Moninghan-Nourot, P., et al. (1987). Looking at children's play: The bridge

from theory to practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Noddings, N. (1991). Stories in dialogue. In C. Withrell & N. Noddings

(Eds.), Stories lives tell. Narrative and dialogue in education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Sponseller, D. (1974). Play as a learning medium. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Sutton-Smith, B. (1972). The playful ways of knowing. In G. Engstrom (Ed.), Play: The child strives toward self-realization. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Van Horn, J., Scales, B., Nourot, P. M., and Alward, K. R (1999). Play at the center of the curriculum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1976). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. In J. S. Bruner, A. Jolly, and K. Sylva (Eds.). Play and its role in development and evolution. New York: Basic Books.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Figure 4. Children working individually or in small groups during playful art production deal with technical or practical, representational, and interpersonal problems.




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Early Childhood & Interdisciplinary Challenge || The Role of Artistic Play in Problem Solving