Analyzing Children's Creativity and Representation

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The creativity of children reaches its peak before the age of six and after which it begins to decline with the onset of formal schooling and development of the drive towards the community (Olson 2014). By the age of three, the children enter Piaget’s preoperational stage, the hallmark of which is the ability to use symbols and representational thoughts (Olson 2014). This essay will give a record of observations of children and will analyse her creative thinking skills. The activities children take part in will then be analysed on the light of the early childhood theories of Vygotsky, Bruner, Bruce, Piaget, Kress and the EYFS. The essay would give an idea of the various approaches and the strategies which can be adopted to keep the creative mind of these children active and flowing.

A consent letter has been attached as evidence of informed consent from the guardians of the child before carrying out the observations (Appendix 1). My Tutor has reviewed and signed the letter and in order to maintain confidentiality, only a redacted copy is attached.

To begin this case study, it is vital that the two driving words of this case study are defined. These words are Creativity and Representation.

Bruce, (2004) sees creative individuals as those who regularly solve the problems, define new questions or in a word, they are incredibly and uniquely adept at finding connections between different things. Creativity is a different way of perceiving in which there are no right or the wrong answers and could only be a range of possibilities (Olson 2014). Creativity in children assists them to develop in several domains of life. Through creative art, the children might be able to represent experiences that they cannot verbalize. A creative child represents her feelings or experiences in a creative way.

As for representation, according to Bruce (2015) is the way in which we manage to keep hold of the past experiences in an ordered way. For example, children who may not be enjoying their days during school, will build every bad experience they have of school allows them to work against this and depend on a better day in the future. Children represent their knowledge through different modes, for example during the Enactive mode.

According to Vygotsky, creativity in children arises from their activity that produces something new (Moll 2013). Vygotsky believed that the creative process is interconnected to both the lived and imagined experiences and is situated within the child’s play (Vygotsky, 1978.). In agreement, to this Sadoski and Paivio (2013) have stated that pretend play compels the child to construct and reconstruct the past experiences, which, in turn, facilitates the development of divergent thinking, which is an important aspect of cognitive development in the child. Although divergent thinking is not a symptom of creativity, it certainly plays an important part in the development of creativity in children. Literature over time had supported the fact that that divergent thinking is an important cognitive process that is related to pretend play and the fantasizing of the world.

Creativity and the representations are important for the development of children (Bruce, 2004). According to Duffy (2005) creativity helps to teach children and support them; it also helps to influence their imagination. Encouraging creativity within children allows their knowledge to be promoted so that they’re able to explore and comprehend their environment and gain new opportunities and experiences, as young children are naturally intrigued about the environment they live in. For example when children could be drawing and using their creative skills, they gain more understanding of the world around them as has been stated by Duffy (2005), through the iconic mode, children are able to use images or objects to represent their environment. Representation is important as it allows children to represent their experiences, their emotions and ideas, as they hold onto them and express to others the same. When we represent the reality, it is common to make an object or symbol, to stand out for something else, for example, a child referring to his/her teddy bear as a human. (Duffy 2005) The symbolic mode allows children to represent images or objects as embodiment of what they feel or perceive.

According to Bezemer and Kress (2015), a mode can be seen through a cultural lens or a socially shaped resource for expressing or representing something; example, watching a movie about dinosaurs drawing a picture of one, cutting it out and using it as prop during role play. Symbols are often used as modalities by the children to express their ideas or perceptions. As per Bruner’s symbolic stage, the information in the children is stored in the form of a code or as a language. Each of the symbols generally has a fixed relation to something that it represents.

According to Bruner (in Bruce 2015), the process of representation works in three interrelated process: through the enactive mode, through the iconic mode and through the symbolic mode.

The “enactive mode” is the representation of the knowledge through actions. This stage involves the encoding and the storage of the information (Sadoski and Paivio 2013). A direct manipulation of the objects without any internal representation of the object, occurs in this stage. For example, during the Enactive mode, the young infants might manipulate objects like using the pencil box as a mobile telephone and imitating to speak with somebody else over phone. This helps to build knowledge and proper understanding of the world around them. Unlike Brunner, Piaget had confirmed that the growth of the children acts in a network like process (Bretherton 2014).

The “Iconic mode” involves the internal representation in the form of a mental image. For example, the child drawing an image of a tree or thinking of the image of a tree would be the representative of this mode. In the symbolic mode, the information remains stored in the form of a symbol or a code like language (Bruce, 2004). Each of the symbols has a fixed relation to something in particular. For example, the symbol of tree is represented as the symbol of greenery in the child or the representation of water becomes the symbol of liquid. These are the three modes that help us to interpret how the children represent their experiences through these modes (Sawyer, 2013).

The “Symbolic mode” happens when the information are stored in the form of the symbols or language. This can be considered as the most adaptable form of representation and the actions and the images have a fixed relation to what they represent. Bruce, (2012) has mentioned that children as players relate their knowledge of the play or the game to a reality. As mentioned by Cecchin (2013) Gregory Bateson’s theory of play and fantasy connects the communication to play and points out that the signals are adapted in the play to reveal the information regarding whether the action could be imaginary or real.

In the Iconic mode, the information is stored visually in the form of images, although this mode cannot be found in any of the activities of Holly, but is common in many children between 1-6 years. Traditionally, children keep the images in their mind by using picture books, photographs and interest tables. For example, after a child has visited the pond for collecting frog spawn, the interest table might be completed with photographs of the events (Oakley, 2004).

A symbolic representation and imitation in Holly might be due to the pre-existing schema of a telephone that she or her mother actually uses to contact his father, as shown in Appendix 2. According to Piaget, the representation process develops quickly from the toddlers’ time up to the beginning of the statutory schooling which is around the age of six to seven.

In Appendix 3, Holly shows us her engagement, in the tea party she and her Mollie, were hosting, Holly would talk to the Bear as if they were both human, as it was her best friend. According to (Vygotsky, 1978), all types of play and activities consist of imagination with children (Moll 2013). Creativity is an important part of children’s development as it helps to promote their wellbeing. (Russ 2013)

According to Piaget (Lisa Oakley 2004) Schema is a form of cognitive representation of exercise or material. When a new born baby is brought into the world, it will have natural schema for sucking and as the baby grows his/ her nutrition will change. Schemas are behaviours that the children might display when they are exploring the world and are trying to find out the ways how things work. Moore (2017) stated that there are several strategies for extending the schema. "Connecting ", where children might join something to form tracks or set them apart. Positioning is another sort of schema development that can be seen in Holly as she was lining her Barbie dolls one after another. Another common schema that can be seen in the child is creation of the shapes involving the lines or the circles, which can also be easily identified in case of Holly's activity; she was creating lines in front of the Barbie dolls like the one which is used in sprints. In Appendix 4, Holly is seen to be displaying different types of movement and schematic behaviours, by lining her Barbie dolls for a sprint run together.

It has been found that literacy activities which are found to be effective in the improvement and the development of the literacy skills involve shared reading, selection of the appropriate books, use of the appropriate reading styles, recitation of the nursery rhymes, singing of the songs and using of a variety of interactive literary games. In Appendix 6, Holly shows us her literacy skills through being fluent with the rhymes, Holly has stored information from the Rhyme ‘Humpty Dumpty’ through the symbolic mode, which is why she is familiar with the book (Bruce 2012). It is evident from observation 5, that Holly, had been trying proactively to read her rhymes alone, without seeking help from any other person.

Within an active play-based learning environment; the children will have several ways for representing their feelings and thoughts. When the children realize that marks can be used to carry meanings symbolically, they would begin to use marks. However, mark making develops concepts of suitable distances, sizes among children. Holly displays representation through mark making in appendix 7 where Holly draws different shapes and colours them to represent how she feels. According to Mithen (2003), people are able to plan and draw pictures due to the representation of the brain, as Holly, already knew what she wanted to draw in her mind and displayed this on paper, by drawing shapes and colouring them in, as to how she is feeling.

Audio-visual aids can be helpful in children who are visual learners and might display their creativity in visual arts. It has been noticed that the babies babble and enjoy engaging in the vocal play (Sadoski and Paivio 2013). Again, infants enjoy listening to the music and are sensitive to melodic intervals, alert to some of the properties of the harmony and also demonstrate certain musical preferences

My child care setting provides many different opportunities and services to the child in order to ensure a physical and cognitive development of a child. The caregivers and the practitioner’s have experience dealing with children with proper certificates. It is ensured, that a collaborative partnership is done with the families and the communities to ensure activities that are culturally sensitive and age appropriate. Family participation in early childhood setting is an important aspect which needs to be followed (Copple and Bredekamp, 2009). The setting ensures that families participate in childcare activities along with the children. Children are allowed take part in both indoor and outdoor activities. Lots of equipment are provided to assist the children explore their creative sides. The classroom and the teaching conducted are based on the Reggio Emilia approach which values each and every child as strong, resilient and capable. It has to be remembered that each child brings potential and curiosity and this innate curiosity motivates them to understand their world and flourish within it (Cecchin 2013). The practitioners develop special bonds with children who allow them to express their thoughts, feelings and the ideas. It is made sure that the basic rights of the children are maintained, such as giving autonomy to the children in play activities, eating and toileting activities, ensuring privacy and confidentiality. In my child care centre, I have noticed that children feel more relaxed, when they interact with the practitioner, who are familiar to them and their families are also able to trust the key person more as the needs are being met. As per the EYFS guidelines, the role of the educator is to modify the environment of the child care service according to the needs of the children, to understand the nursery ambience and develop a trustworthy relationship with the child (Elango et al. 2015).

It is ensured that the children are absolutely comfortable with the staff and with the ambience of the early childcare setting. In order to maintain a constant contact with the practitioners and the parents, meetings and workshops are being conducted on a regular basis. It has been found that parental involvement in early childhood learning enables children to learn better (Hedefalk, Almqvist and Östman, 2015). The parental involvement helps to extend the teaching outside the classroom and helps to create a more positive experience for the children. We are trying to make this institute accessible to all those who are promoting equality in terms of education.

The friendly group of the educators and the caregivers helps the children to adapt more quickly to the environment. The curriculum and the activities are selected as per the age and according to the EYFS framework, the children in our setting ages in between 0-2.5 are fully supported as they are not as developed as children ages 3-6, so they do not take part in activities that may require much strength or may be of danger, planting outdoors. They are given the opportunity to go on a trip outdoors but in a buggy, as not a lot of them are fully able to walk. They spend most of their time developing their movement skills (Roskos, 2017).

Children ages 3-6 are given more of an opportunity to explore their environment in extended area, such as through outdoor play, allowing them to come in touch with nature and their outdoor surrounding. According to Vygotsky, the curriculum and the activities chosen has to be developmentally appropriate for the children in order to make the connectedness between child and the real world (Gillen and Hall 2013).

The activities must be planned such that it encompasses not only what the children are capable of doing on their own, but also what they can understand with the help of others. Instructions have to be planned to provide practice in the zone of proximal development (Moll 2013). The centre provides child-centred education and care and ensures that all the grievances of the child are addressed. One of the important aspects of this setting is that the curriculum followed the classroom supported inclusive education, thus expanding the hands of help for children with the special needs (Au 2013). Developing an inclusive classroom not only assists the children with disability but also helps to foster the sense of responsibility in the ones without any special needs. In this setting, it is ensured that the educator to children ratio is as per the EYFS guidelines. There are provisions, where in some classes the toddlers are allowed to mix with the infants and also to access their toys.

As has been obtained from EYFS guidelines, some of the child educational settings chose to mix their reception classes with the infants, children under the age of 1.5 in our setting are not able to mix, however they have various activities to do as they’re still developing their fine and gross motor skills. In the nursery, introducing STEM for the children aged in between 2-6 years involves storytelling activities and role playing, ensured development of new schema and cognitive learning (Bruce, 2004). Each of the children is given the right to express him/herself and develop his/ her physical and emotional development babies are given the chance to move, do develop their physical development, babies tend to also show their emotions through either crying, laughing or smiling. According to Bruner, every child is able to grasp complex information, if the ideas are channelized in a simple form. Initially the concept should be made to understand in a simpler form followed by the complex concepts, as the child grows.

Conclusion

Creativity and symbolic representation are important characteristics of young children. I had observed how a child, named Holly, represented her creative thinking skills by suitable symbolic representations, in order to explore this, some of the aspects like literacy skills, musicality and secondary symbols, mark making and imaginative behaviours had to be observed . All the observations have been linked with early childhood theories which have helped me to understand how the development process of children occurs through various modes and social processes. The observations focused on the development of different schema in my focus child Holly through evidences of different activities. Furthermore, the paper also gave an account of how the environment of a childcare setting influences the physical and the intellectual growth of a child.

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