Jennifer Bautista

21 October 2015
ART 133 A.M
Unit Paper 4
The big idea for this weeks unit is focused on play in the art room and in a childs life in
general. In 2011, George Szekely describes in his paper Testing the World through Play and
Art how children become aware of what kind of play they are into and how they discover how
to play in the atmosphere that surrounds them. Children seek various places to see the world in
new ways he states (pg.66) as he begins to talk about about how children tend to be active
learners in the world. We engaged ourselves in free play during our studio and had the ability to
let our minds wonder and paint, draw, cut, and design whatever we felt need be. The studio
brought back nostalgic memories of doing this in elementary school; it really is a freeing
moment. And I believe that is what Szekelys message is in his article when he says Art is
encouraging freedom in expression and allowing a reprieve from standard fashion rules and adult
dictates such as matching appropriate colors (pg. 70).
As adults, we push to the back of our minds what it was like to be a child and instead
focus on what we think is important. As future educators to the new young generations to come,
we need to remember what it was like to be a child at play again. We need to teach the youth that
it is okay to be silly and draw whatever they feel like during their art classes. We need to show
them how art is beneficial to the mind and not just the typical STEM classes that society focuses
on. We need to execute this in the classrooms by showing how art can transform something
ordinary into something extraordinary.
References
Szekely, G. (2011). Testing the world through play and art. In D. B. Jaquith & N. E. Hathaway
(Eds.), The learner directed classroom: Developing creative thinking skills through art
(pp. 64-76). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.