Children Should Be Seen and Also Heard

Children Should Be Seen and Also Heard

Spontaneous expressions of young children recorded over fifty years. Children’s literature is written by adults trying to get into the child’s mind. What if the children chose the subject and the treatment?

By Margery Baumgartner

A series of short books about and by children as authors.

The Children Speak

Three Young Poets

How Young Children Develop Understanding

The Young Child Experiences Life

The World Adventure

The World of Mankind

Emergent Literacy

In a newspaper column some years ago, Luis Rodriguez wrote: What is it about our society that de-appreciates the language arts, where the natural poetry in children is virtually lost? Hear how they connect ideas to things, to concepts, use metaphors. They do so because a major quality that distinguishes human beings from the rest of the animal world is our ability to be creative, expressive and to communicate. Yet soon after we begin our social obligations - school and work - few continue to be artists. In other cultures poetry is honored. What is it about our schools that take the poetry out of children?

From the 1962 Lecture of Nothrup Frye in The Educated Imagination (Indiana University Press): Poetry is the most direct means of expressing oneself in words, Prose is a less natural way. Listen to small children's chanting and singsong. Poetry is close to dance and song.

From Writing the Australian Crawl (University of Michigan Press): Poet William Safford was once asked "When did you decide to become a poet?" he said, "A person starts life by discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is - why did other people stop?"

"It's not hard to make poems. It's hard to get someone to listen to them."

Randall Jarrel, in The Bat Poet

THE CHILDREN SPEAK

Childhood is a fairly recent invention. As we see in paintings of royal families, children were dressed and treated as just small adults, to be seen and not heard. A couple of centuries ago a few people really started looking at them. And the art and science of child development was born.

Books for children are written by adults trying to get into the child's frame of mind. What if the subject and treatment were chosen by the target audience, the kids?

Children speak about what catches their interest. The more experience they have the more they have to talk about. Children in the country seem to have livelier perceptions than urban children, because they live closer to nature.

Creative language comes as naturally as speech. Children use simile, metaphor, repetition, personification, inversion, and onomatopoeia, unaware they are doing so. When they draw on their inner thoughts, expression may take on an innate sense of form, although the structure and climax are not deliberate. There is often a lilt, a lyrical cadence.

Here are the works of the very youngest, collected over 50 years by one person with a pencil at the ready. These expressions originated in direct experience, rarely "emotion recollected in tranquility." Some were dictated as stories, most were overheard during play.

In two graduate years at the Pennsylvania School of Social Work I learned to record interviews from memory after the fact. When I returned for another graduate year at the Bank Street College of Education my student teaching assignment was the Young Twos (the next group was the Old Twos.) I soon learned that 2 years 8 months requires a different curriculum than 2 years 3 months - they grow so fast !Now my new clients - "students" - not in the least embarrassed by the sight of a pencil. What a relief! I could now record verbatim on the spot. We were low tech in 1941; the tape recorder, even its predecessor, the wire recorder, was not in use; I was addicted to pencil and notebook and never changed.

The Charlestown Play House near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania was a rural preschool serving suburban and country children with access to woodland, fields and streams, where we could cut our Christmas tree in the woods and visit real farms with real animals. I had only to listen to children experiencing life.

Do today's urban children have vivid first-hand experiences? Is their language shaped by incessant input? Is imagination nurtured or stifled with Disney and television telling them exactly what Cinderella wore to the ball?

Unlike literature for children by adults, these expressions are all spontaneous reactions to their own interests, in their own vocabulary - and grammar.

People may think these were special children in a special situation. They came from west coast suburbia, Hell's Kitchen New York City, a research clinic, a university laboratory school, an experimental summer camp, a progressive private school and a country community cooperative. As a social worker, I had all remedial work. To work on the preventive side I turned to early childhood education, and that has made all the difference. Years ago, a teacher in England wrote: The children listen but they don’t hear. Background noises from the radio are now supplemented by background vision from the television. “They don’t hear” has become “they don’t see”. They are unaware of texture, shape, vibration. Their writing lacks the vigor which springs from intense observation.

Teachers need to be aware of the importance of the senses in the learning process. In 1941 the first assignment in Lucy Spraque Mitchell’s class at Bank Street College was to go out to look, listen, smell, taste and respond to kinesthetic sensations. When we began to focus attention, take time to concentrate on sense perceptions, the heightened responsiveness opened us to a new respect for the child’s freshness of vision.

Until the television age transmitted our uniform culture there was a genre called Sidewalk Games which scholars (the Opies) could collect and publish. Sad to say, these have been superseded by Disneyized literature that all of today’s children share, not necessarily richer than what they created themselves.

Children Are the Folk.

Folklore is often thought of as originating away back in time or away back in space, but there is a primitive group living right under our noses, if not under our feet, with a rich culture of song and speech, rhythmic and vivid, spontaneous and certainly untutored. That uncivilized tribe, the very young children, especially those too young to have absorbed our traditional clichés, have been creating their own vigorous chants, stories, songs, poems, along with the original turns of phrase characteristic of the folk everywhere.

The world has become so homogenized that an anthropologist can't find an untouched civilization, but here is a gold mine. As the bookseller said of the same old classics, "Ah yes; but the children are always new." They have new ways of expressing the same old experiences because they have not yet learned our culture's one and only right way. Still the experiences are essentially the same, and this gives their utterances the universality which enables us to identify with their feelings. They will sing of wonder, joy, fear, hurt, anger, loneliness - - the basic experiences of mankind. Their style will necessarily be simple and unsophisticated, and it will be direct and true.

Folk poetry is the kind you cannot imagine anyone sitting down to compose deliberately - - it springs to life of itself; often under conditions of extreme tribulation as in the trenches in World War I or in slavery - or among children.

Childhood approximates the conditions in which folk poetry began. No one understands how the ballad arose; the best the scholars can say is "The people speak." It must have been the expression of overpowering emotion, losing the barnacles as it was passed on, until, worn down like a pebble on the beach, it became elemental.

Fifty years among the youngest - - what joy! Karin, 4, visiting me, asked “Why is your house so neat?” I replied “It’s because I have no children.” She volunteered “I will be your children.” And they were.

THREE YOUNG POETS

(65 years since I first knew Wilma, I am still in touch with these three.)

The Little Duck

Wilma, 3

There was a duck swimming in the water.

He forgot about things that were hard to bite

And he bit some water. It didn’t taste so good.

It made him gurgle it up again.

He swim too far down, and cried and cried

Because he didn’t know how to swim up.

He was too little.

Along came the mother duck flying.

She flied up the water and took him home

And put some dry clothes on him.

It’s no good for a little duck

To stay down in the water

Waiting for his mother.

He get too cold.

Now he’s grown up; he’s as big as his mother.

He knows how to fly.

The Storm that Didn’t Come

Wilma, 3 yrs 1 mo.

Today we have a storm.

When the storm came and the rain came,

Why, there wasn’t any moon.

We had our orange juice and cereal,

We didn’t have any dinner

‘cause there was a storm.

We came down when it was all dark.

When the storm came we watched the storm

And it didn’t come.

And I saw some lightning out my winda.

I thought: that storm is coming in my winda.

But it wasn’t. And so I thought,

Well, goodness sakes,

The storm didn’t get in my winda.

And the storm went away again.

I was in the bedroom when the storm came.

I got up – went downstairs –

Storm wasn’t there any more.

Such Terrible Work to do

Wilma, 3 yrs 6 mo.

Oh, such terrible work to do:

I was up all morning doing work.

I clean my den all alone –

O, long, long time ago –

I clean it up again this morning . . . .

I have to wash my paint brushes . . .

It makes me trouble – tired . . .. . . . .

Oh gee, I wish you’d dress me.

My hands are getting chapped

‘cause I’ve been working with blocks

And working with trucks

And working with wagons

And those paintings

And those smocks

That’s why my hands are getting so chapped, see?

Chappedy chappedy chips

The Dark

Eva, 3

If it wasn’t sunny day, then it must be dark.

When the dark is coming, the dark we see.

The moon just moves like this; way down in the sky.

Faster it goes, to the dark, when it stops.

Slowly the moon does like this: just moves.

When we go in the house it’s really dark.

Yesterday there was the moon outside

And there were stars moving.

We were tired and we came home

And I tucked you in your little bed.

This is the night and this is the light.

And watch the dark.

Lover-poemer

Eva, 3 yrs 9 mo.

Poem of you, poem of you –

And will you love it and send it back?

And who will know that I said that?

I’m a lover-poemer.

Don’t run me out of poems.

Poems are little songs.

Stars, stay out there

And I’ll think of you in my dreams.

I’ll think of all my poems.

Faraway Mountains

Eva, 3

Look at that little bird there,

Just flying on his way.

It's nice to stand here and look

At the faraway mountains.

Look at those gray ones way way back.

You can’t see the houses, just bumps.

I see what looks like a king’s castle.

I love to go everywhere, travel near and far.

I want to go to the forest again,

I found a little man on the floor,

Big as a candle.

I found something else too,

A pretty flower.

Talk to the Animals

Eva, 3 yrs 10 mo.

Little bird, where are you going?

I’m going to fly over the sea.

I’m going to my eggs.

Little ducklings, where are you going?

I’m going to the pond where the beautiful things are.

Fireflies, go away! Will you come back then?

The butterfly flies over the forest.

Will you fly away, fly away?

I was born. I want to be a baby

And turn into a butterfly and fly away.

Could I turn into a butterfly when I’m born?

Fly all over the room, up above the top,

Or anywhere.

Frogs, jump away, jump away

And go somewhere

Where nobody can find you,

Where nobody can see you.

Frogs, play hide and seek for me

And I’ll try to find you.

Night Thoughts

Eva, 3 yrs 10 mo. & 4 yrs 2 mo.

Look, mama, the moon! Oh, the beauty moon –

The color of white.

The moon, the moon,

The shiny bright moon.

You know why the moon is full?

All full of love the moon is.

It has yellow from the sun.

The moon seems to be a crescent moon

Inside of the full moon.

I like it when you take me out at night

To see the moon and the star.

I think I see flashy stars already.

They look white in the nice black sky.

Black and white look nice together

And sometimes in the nighttime

I think in my dream

That the white is inside and outside

And the black in the middle.

I really like the moon

Whether it can be a full moon,

A round moon, a half moon

or a crescent moon.

Go to sleep, bunny rabbit

Go to sleep, little coyotes.

When the moon’s in the sky,

What about the Indians?

They must go to sleep

From working so hard.

Bumblebees stay all night up.

They know how to get all the honey.

They don’t have a school to study.

They use their tiny mind.

They don’t have much to think of –

their honey is their mind.

I had a dream.

I called to it gently in my sleep

and it came without waking you up.

It feeled warm inside and warm outside.

Inside it made me happy. So now you know

What made me to fall asleep.

Sun come up, sun come up. I love you so much.

Winter

Eva, 3 yrs 10 mo.

It’s getting to be winter, my dear. We’ll have to wear coats.

We’ll have to get all cuddly ‘cause you see the snow.

If you take a dip of it with your little hand

you see that the snow is very cold.

You play in the sleds, you close the windows up,

you put the heater in and take your coats off an you’re all warm.

Spring

Eva, 4

Little garden stay there. I’ll help you grow.

I’ll get some water and pour it in you.

Flower, why are you growing?

I’m growing ‘cause I love being big.

That’s why, that’s why, that’s why.

Little grass, grow and grow,

grow bigger and bigger and bigger

until I can fall down on you.

The Fireplace

Eva, 5

This is how the fire looked. I have it in my mind.

A little flame of orange fire behind the piece of wood,

the light coming out of the corner,

Smoke coming out of the side.

Work

Eva, 4 yrs 8 mo.

Mom works all the days

Dad works all the days

Eva sometimes works, sometimes plays.

Poems

Eva, 5

Sparkling eyes, sparkling feet,

sparkling everything, nice and neat.

Poems are little songs –

they sound like that.

Volcano

Eva, 10

From the window I could see

straight and tall and proud,

gift of snow on its head,

wise old Popo, mountain that erupts.

Necklace of clouds

around its snow-white collar –

who could it be but my friend,

Popocateptl?

Birds

Carl, 2 yrs 3 mo.

Birds fly up – jus’ lak a b’loon.

Curfew

Carl, 3 yrs 2 mo.

Sometimes I like to go to sleep

And then I only peep peep peep.

I put my jammies on and then

I like to go to sleep –

In the dark, dark darktime.

The night-night horns are up in the air.

I go to sleep and then they blow

And say – Good night, children.

The big children and the little children.

The grownups and those little growndowns.

Band Instruments

Carl, 3 yrs 2 mo.

I want to go to the parade again

And see the big loud noise—

All those trombones, those, tubas,

Those piccolos, and all those big drums.

I’ll show you how they banged

Real loud, beat beat.

And what are those little pans

That go up in the air and say Tchweess!

Short little pans with cute little holders on?

Dark

Carl 3 yr, 6 mo.

Dark, dark the night is dark.

Night, night, by moon it’s bright.

Oh, get up! The sun! I like the sun.

Autumn

Carl, 5 yrs 4 mo.

Leaves are falling here and there, here and there

Just like a rug. You only hear

Squish squash, squish squash—teeny spikes of mud.

Winter

Carl, 5

I’m going to shoot a big black bear

To keep me warm as warm

For when I tramp out in the winter cold,

The frosty winter,

When I walk out in the snow.

The Day That Jesus Was Born

Carl, 5 yrs 6 mos

I am the donkey

I let Mary sit on my back

And carried her far to Bethlehem

I saw the Kings. One had a crown

The shepherd came and brought a lamb

For baby Jesus.

We were lying down quietly, donkey and cow.

The cow and donkey are friends.

We talked with each other before we went to sleep at night time.

The hay was sticky-

Like pins and needles but not so sharp.

When I feeled my whole bunch of hay

It feeled smooth and good on my tummy.

I saw a great star and it was very shiny.

The star seemed like it really walked around.

It was showing everybody the way to baby Jesus.

The star started around the stable

And showed it was still silver and gold.

The star was all telling of baby Jesus.

HOW YOUNG CHILDREN DEVELOP UNDERSTANDING

Language is usually considered a tool of communication. Man can no longer live without communication, at least he thinks he can not. But language is also a tool of thought and understanding. It is possible that man cannot think at all without this tool.

Jonathan Leer, professor of philosophy, University of Chicago, speaks of playful inquiry “Children are born with no sense of the ideas that give life meaning and no language to formulate a thought. People are philosophizing from the age of three about the meaning of things, why things mean what they mean, what this world is about.”

Communication with oneself

Some forms of psychotherapy are based on holding up the mirror (or rather the sounding board) to let a person find out what he believes through hearing what he says. A tenet of pedagogy (probably suspect, since it discounts intuition) is that we do not really know what we know until we can put it into words.

Language then is needed not only for communication with others but also with communication with ourselves. Some form of language is essential to the development of the human mind. Simians are handicapped by the lack of it. Being the last medium of expression to develop, it is the highest and most complex.

Language and concepts develop

The infant must develop both understanding and language, and not only simultaneously but connectedly. When he wants food the sight of the bottle is reassuring only because he has learned it is the symbol for food. The next step in concept formation is a difficult one; since the bottle itself is only a symbol, the word “bottle” is a symbol of a symbol!! Meanings must be defined gradually as experience progresses.

An unanticipated emergency arose: After the sudden shock of Pearl Harbor in 1941, it was feared New York might be blitzed like London, where parents were sending their children to the country or even overseas to live with American families for the duration of the war. An attempt was made to determine how group care of preschoolers out of the city could be arranged if evacuation proved necessary.

I worked with four two- year- olds at “Bank Street in the country”. What was learned from this summer experiment that had not been observed in the English children translated separately to selected American homes? Our children thrived because they were moved as a whole school with their own teachers and classmates and familiar procedures. All they needed to get used to was a new (and delightful) environment and 24-hr days away from family except the family of their known peer group. London children who slept in the subway with their mothers seemed less traumatized than some who escaped bombing but endured separation and changed relationships and culture.

How concepts are formed and refined

The characters: two Young Two’s, Scott and Craig, both 2 yrs 3 months, and two Old Two’s, Dick and Lee, both 2 yrs 10 months. The scene: the country- although to the boys, the country was synonymous with the outdoors. After nap Dick would say “I want to go out in the country.” The two little boys became great friends, calling each other Baby and kissing each other’s hurts.

They were much impressed with the animals. Lee knew animals from picture books, but strictly as second-hand. I heard him say at nap time, “What does the cow say? Moo/or galloping? No, the horsie says galloping.”

Dick as a toddler had called all animals ‘goggies’. Later he noticed that some feathered, clucked, two-legged dogs can be differentiated, that his parents called these chickens and roosters. Thenceforth, birds and fowls were “goosters” and the term dog was reserved for horses and other mammals. Vocabulary and concepts are interdependent, growing together as the child learns to distinguish the specific from the generic, until at a surprisingly young age he is able to identify more planes and cars than his parents, if his interests and training leaned in this direction.

For some reason frogs were the most fascinating to my four angels and Dick referred to all miscellaneous small beasties as frogs – even ants. He always referred to the cats as “my friend’.

Scott, lying on his cot, scooped imaginary frogs from the floor. When I tucked him under one arm to carry him off, face down, arms and legs flying, he chuckled, “Frog me!” Craig, who called to flies, “Chase fly away” and to robins, “come back again” often clamored, “Go see frog.” Scott joined the chorus, “Frog see” On the uneven terrain in the woods Craig chanted, “running down, running up, running down” as if muscles, thought, and speech were all one. Scott, chunky and coordinated, ran down the hill chortling, “Frog see!”

On seeing the bear’s picture in Ask Mr. Bear, he asked intensely, “Pig? Frog?? Elk??” He had seen Lee, the picture book sophisticate, playing elk by running around with his sweater on backwards and arms outstretched.

Lee said his favorite animal was the atterbatic that lives in the woods. Of the sheep he said prosaically, “He opens his mouth wide and makes noise.” “We don’t like maa goats, we just like baa sheeps.” He handed Craig the toy calf and said, “Here’s your lamb.” Craig looked at it and said “Dat’s s’eep.” After getting acquainted with real horse and dog Craig identified pictures, “Like a Muggins. Like a shep.”

Scott called catfish fishcat and nosedrops dropnose. In the woods he tested the texture of the leaves and the ferns without comment. Craig liked to see motion rings in the water. “Make a bubbles” he said, throwing pebbles into the lake. “Soap, soap” cried Craig on discovering foam at the water’s edge on a windy day. I said, “Listen! The wind.” He asked, “Where is it?” Teacher: “You can’t see it.” Lee: “You can only hear it.” Teacher: “You can see what it does. Look.” The boys looked in silence at the grass and trees bowing to the wind. A little later Lee said, “What makes the wind go blowy every day? The wind is far away, higher than the t’under.” Then he looked in the fireplace and asked “What makes the fire come?” He blew on it and said “Fire doesn’t go out, it makes the fire too burny.”

Organizing knowledge - relating to previous concepts

Lee was organizing his knowledge while crossing a bridge:

“That’s where the boats swim

and there’s where the fish swim

and here’s boards like a bridge.

No – the boats float,

and the fish swim underneath –

underneath the water.”

Craig listened, then nodded and said, “Boats can fim in the water. It floats. Yes.” To him both words were acceptable, while Lee had already edited one out as not specific enough. Craig then inquired serially whether horses, cows, dogs, cars go in the water, and rehearsed this information as if memorizing a lesson.

This is how young children cut out their own daily assignments and work on them. No one knows better than the questioning child himself how much he has to learn about the world every day. One child will ask, “Why don’t the fog horns come and blow the fog away?” While another explains to himself, hopefully, a frog jumped into the sky and that’s why it’s a “froggy day”.

Craig had taken in more than he could assimilate when he prayed, “Now I lay me down to sleep, wing awound a wosie. Pray the lord. Amen.” Craig’s prayer, unconsciously, invokes the very plea for prayer that was actually used during medieval plagues: “rosy” was a symptom, “pocket full of posies”, a remedy, “all fall down” an outcome.

Inside

Eva, 3 yrs, 10 mo.

There’s something wiggling inside of me

And I don’t know what it is – way back.

If I lived inside of myself

I could see what it was.

But I don’t want to be made of bones and blood.

I’m made of myself.

Babies

Eva, 5

Somebody’s baby is born today – somebody’s tomorrow.

And after that, and after that, the life goes on like that.

The longer it goes, the farther the world goes.

All kinds of babies turn out to be

And they pick out what they want to do.

I want to be in an orchestra

And play a harp.

Wondering

Eva, 5

Little girls wonder about things. I wonder everything.

But God doesn’t. God knows everything.

I wonder how it feels to know everything!

I wonder about God a lot.

God knows that He’s inside of everything that’s alive.

When the wind comes, the leaves move by theirself.

God moves too ‘cause He’s inside of the trees.

God’s inside of the washing machine

‘cause the handle moves all by itself.

That’s funny! Is that right?

God’s inside the refrigerator,

It tells when it’s out of motor.

It’s funny, but it’s true.

I wonder if God’s inside of teeth:

They move by theirself when they’re loose enough.

Life knows everything.

Thinking

Carl 4 yr, 10 mo.

I know my eyes weren’t sewed; how were they made?

How did I get started? First some blood was running,

Then a seed popped out of the blood and that was I.

How is a seed planted to make something like me?

Carl, 6

Sing that song at my mind.

I saw a very nice picture.

Sometimes I throw pictures out of my mind.

But they’re hard to get away.

I thought I had one long enough.

It didn’t look good to me then…

There isn’t a pull –

There’s a wave around the earth that lock us in.

The sky isn’t attached to the earth,

It’s up above the earth.

I still think the sky holds you in.

In the age when the world was started,

Gravity was started.

And as many years passed

It grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

And the world never ends.

And all the world stays alive.

The Story of Evolution

Carl, age 7 years 4 mo.

The Greeks would say that a god emptied his pocket and then he took a tiny little bit of mud and made it stay together. He held it in his hands for a while. Then he took his jackknife and cut a little hole down to where Gravity is and took it to a pond and filled it up with water. He flew out, way into space. He formed his hands into a cup and put it into the little cup he’d made, then he dropped it lightly down and noticed that it whirled around in space very fast.

This is our way: One day God decided that He should put somebody on the earth. He thought and he thought, for one whole week, and then he said, “I got it, I got it, I got it!” as he was jumping up and down and He started - - with dinosaurs. He let that go for two thousand years. He didn’t start Man till they were through. Then He put down mammals. He let them go for three hundred years. Then - - He put down Man.

And this is how Man kept himself alive:

At first Man had to find a house, and the closest thing to one was a cave. Next he needed light. “Now this is hard,” he said to himself. The first way to do it was when a lightening storm came, he would keep light from some lightning for a long time. After a while he found that flint and steel chipped together would make light too. After that he learned that rubbing sticks together very fast will make light.

And especially he needed food. Well. One day Man was walking around outside, and he all of a sudden found a strange black sort of rock. He snatched a rock that was nearby, and wrote on it, you might say, and discovered it was lead. After a while he made a shape like an arrow and discovered he could cut it with another stone. How could he make string by spearing a deer and twisting its hide, when he was making his first weapon? He took some bark of a tree and twisted it to make a string - - took a straight piece of wood, and with the arrowhead he had made, tied it onto it. He wanted to see how it would work. He hid behind a bush and when a bear went by he threw it at him and hit the bear. He ran closer to him and saw that he was dead. Now that he knew it was sharp, he made a knife the same way to skin it with. After he skinned it he of course ate it.

What else would he need? He skinned one of his deerskins and made himself a kind of clothing out of it. He might get cold sometimes. In the night it would be really chilly. And this happened in the century Blank Blank Blank. The End.

P.S. I guess this is how Man really started. There was a cell. Thousands of cells piled onto each other, lightly, and after a while it was washed up on land, and God gave it life to move for itself and think for itself.

Space

Carl 9 yr, 9 mo.

I understand now the reason for everlasting space.

To mortal minds it must be that it goes on- and a wall;

On and a wall, and on and on. But then there would have

To be an end, we think. But then there can’t be;

With all those walls, what would be beyond?

There would have to be more nothingness - - more space!

So that’s the reason.

Five year olds – Working outdoors

This is God’s world. We’re making it beautiful.

From here it looks as if the sky is round –

But where’s the other half?

Our World

Blair, 6

I know we started with streams and lakes, then came the moon and sun, stars and clouds, dry earth and one seed. After we planted that first seed, a flower sparkled and shined and filled the land with other seeds, for this flower had the magic and the strength to create the world.

Then it tapped the moon and told it when to come out at night and tapped the sun and told him to come out in the day. He told the stars too. He told the clouds he would put power in them to rain sometimes. He told the whole world how to live and hunt. He put everything in their place.

But now we came along and took away this beautiful island. We didn’t let this beautiful flower grow. And now look what we’ve done to this world. The birds go with the skies but we’ve taken the skies away from the birds with airplanes and pollution, not treated like things were.

Why did we come here? It was a beautiful place until we did.

Living

Blair, 6

I like to be me, because I was made to be me,

And I don’t want to change. It’d be too much trouble.

You have your own feelings.

People know themselves so well,

They can’t change to another person.

Some people are hardly ever in a good mood.

It wouldn’t be good to be happy all the time –

Or mad all the time.

After I had a fit for a few days of thinking

I don’t want to die,

I thought animals might have feelings too.

They might be people that are dead.

I started feeling sad for the animals

and didn’t eat my meat for a few nights.

Four and Five year olds.

If I die someone has to take you to the doctor.

The doctor can’t help you;

Your whole life will be over.

Will God make you all over again?

You already lived. You only get one chance.

Jesus didn’t get only one chance!

Dana, under age 4

As long as you’re learning you’re alive,

and when you don’t you must be dead.

I finally figured out your bones and all

those things you don’t need any more go into the ground,

and the good feelings are what go to heaven.

Roots of Things

Arlen, 5

I’d like to be an ant ‘cause I like to go underground.

I would keep working like ants do.

I wouldn’t eat bugs but I’d take what people give me.

I’d like to see what it looks like underground.

And see the root of things.

Left Alone

6 yr old

When I lose someone I love it’s a strange time for me – a very special feeling. I don’t have them anymore. I felt left alone. I was ready to cry. Being very, very sad doesn’t feel very, very comfortable. Whenever I think or talk about him it makes me feel that very special, sad feeling. It feels like you’re going to melt away quickly too. I had him for a very long time and I enjoyed him while I had. I felt good about him. Never in my life will I forget him. When you go up to heaven, your heart is dead, but your spirit is alive.

THE LISTENING EAR

Learning to observe accurately and develop a scientific attitude is a science experience for children in a true sense; and the expression of ideas and feelings in a pleasing form has elements of art. The crude but apt works of that primitive, the young child, can have directness and honesty, spontaneity and rhythm, grace and power.

The child’s natural speech has some of the elements of poetry: imagination, pattern, imagery of the senses, play of sound, rhythm, cadence, repetition, metaphor, and above all the sense of wonder which is the true essence of poetry.

Often the expression is so meaningful as to make the adult wonder, “Why didn’t I think of saying it that way?” It is easy for children, because they are not handicapped by trying. Adults think it is necessary to shift into another gear to compose a poem. We have grown up with the idea that poetry is something special – about the stars. The child simply observes in his own way. This is what makes artists, said Sir Osbert Sitwell in a television interview, “The artist begins his work almost at birth.” But all children are “born” artists and all must see the world at first through their own eyes; the culture cannot be transmitted fast enough to stifle all originality of vision (commonly labeled “mistakes”). It seems creativeness is progressively lost as education is gained.

The importance of a child’s utterances lies less in the validity of the product than in the values the child has experienced in the effort to understand and express his feelings and ideas. Adults are not equipped to interpret the sayings or paintings of children, but anyone can appreciate and enjoy them, make an effort to understand what the children are saying, and take the cues they offer.

We may err on the side of seeing in children’s compositions more than they have said. This is better than not hearing or understanding. We interpret Shakespeare in ways that might surprise him. Robert Frost said that a poet is entitled to any meaning the reader can find in his work. The psychologist is expected to understand the significance of the child’s words and feeling, better then he does himself.

The happy phrase, like the flowing cadence, comes naturally to the very young, because their vision is fresh and new, unobscured by our accustomed clichés of thought and expression. The infant sees everything for the first time, it is always the dawn of history as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

It is not the vocabulary which is striking. Children use ordinary words to express big ideas. To the hearer “an old sleigh for years and years” has a more interesting history then one which is merely many years old. To say the water is deep, conveys information, but not feeling; there is mystery and fascination in three year old Peter’s description “Down deep was the water - - a big tall swimming place.”

In the atmosphere of appreciation children bring forth what is in them, sometimes of a depth and beauty we would not have believed. They take us for a moment into their world, a world we adults have lost. In the permissive and loving atmosphere I worked in they were free to develop the curriculum which was suggested by the exceptionally rich and free environment.

If one person can pick up this much while teaching a group, what could a research team with no responsibilities but observation hear? But perhaps some of these things would not happen if one were not in there participating at the strategic moment.

Since children are not handicapped by the “right” way to do and say things, they are still able to think freshly for themselves without clichés. They use original locutions - - “creative mistakes” - - which you can hear at any time by training yourself to listen.

I grew up knowing a child who (when such objects were still in use) called a handkerchief “honkondix” and petticoat “gobbydub” (she got the rhythm right). Washcloth was wofclof and the bananas were bernaners. Four year olds gave me “I’m all sparry” (perspiring) and the useful “plain ol”, as in strawberry, chocolate, and plain ol’. (So many things can be plain ol’).

Teachers are accustomed to watching for creativity in painting, dance, blocks, woodwork, clay, finger painting, collage, use of instruments, original songs, or any plastic medium. Even those children who do not express themselves so easily in the more fluid media may come up with an apt epithet now and then in ordinary conversation. Children kindergarten age say:

“You know how the sun goes down? It squeezes.”

“Does this seashell have any hear in it?”

“A big bouquet, from arm to arm.”

“The Dragonfly is as blue as a match.”

Adults dip into memory rather than imagination for their figures of speech, and said what has been said before. A new generation’s vision is new. There are even new experiences to be had in the present age, and the universal experiences happen for the first time in each person’s life. The adult with sensitive ears may find again the reality we have lost through familiarity.

It is disturbing to adults to find children having dark thoughts and feelings which our culture seeks to deny. The sense of tragedy is a tabooed emotion in America. But the repressed feelings do not cease to exist by being removed from sight. Verbal expression helps the child gain control of his impulses by making him conscious of what his feelings are, enabling him not only to drain them off but to enrich his emotional life by accepting and expressing experiences. If the parent can bear to help him admit what he is experiencing, the need to carry impulses over into action will be lessened.

Three year old Gavrick was whispering to himself on his cot about something pursuing him. Carefully protected from gross fears of monsters, his free floating anxiety had attached itself to a fierce butterfly!

The creative individual affirms emotion. The value of an emotion is determined by the degree to which one accepts it as a part of oneself. By learning to feel what he feels, when he feels it, the child gains the courage of himself.

Language is first used for pleasure, for the sheer joy of sound, before it is used for understanding. We tend to ignore children’s talk as meaningless because we are looking for purpose and meaning.

Listen without criticism. We do not say to a child, observe this, but what do you observe? We don’t ask what are you going to paint? So we shouldn’t ask what is your story going to be about? Avoid even tactful criticism. Flora Arnstein in her book Adventure into Poetry (Standford Press) says children are only too quick to agree that what they have done is no good. Fear because of previous failure can keep even three-year-olds from talking. Shared experience like taking a listening walk can give individuals something to talk about.

It is not the educator’s task to “teach” the child who comes up with a story to tell, but to listen with acceptance and encourage the expression.

Seeing a cattail for the first time a three-year-old asked “Is it asparagus? Are there bones inside?” Allowed to tear it apart, he inspected the inside and said “Oh - - lettuce!” – satisfied. That was as much information as he needed at that lesson. Children must not only amass information, they have to decide where to file it away.

The adult guide’s role is to facilitate children’s initiating their own activities. We can provide them with materials to add further experience to enrich their concepts and associations, revitalize lagging interest, encourage exploration, and then follow through with related activities until they have drained all the good from an experience. Once we try to bring out what is in the child there is no harm in adding enrichment. Lucky is the child who finds an adult to share the enchantment in life.

Much of what we hear now may be derivative. My observations were made in the Twentieth Century. In the Twenty-first, when television has killed conversation and the cell phone has killed letter writing, children have so much input with no output expected that it’s a surprise if they still have something to communicate.

Parents, teachers, anyone who is with young children can learn to listen, keep a sensitive ear to catch literature in the making.

Creative learning and creative teaching are easy. All it takes is: inward aliveness, awareness, insight, responsiveness, imagination, sensitivity, sympathy, liveliness, energy, flexibility, initiative, serenity, cheerfulness, courage, judgment, a sense of form and beauty………

THE BIRDS

Language is our indispensable means of communication, as we learn at birth, or soon after. We concentrate on perfecting this convenient vehicle for the transmission of information and rarely (unless we are poets) think of any other use for language.

Young children, however, know a wonderful secret that we have forgotten: Language is a medium of art. It is in fact the only one which is entirely available to all. The very young, who still have their own way of seeing and their own way of expressing what they see, have something to teach us about improving even the communication aspect through a truly free and vivid kind of speech.

Outside the kindergarten door, a nest has been under daily observation and discussion. "The baby birds were pink, but now they're big they really are black. Their eyes are open and they have feathers. They have hair on -- fuzz. Their tails are woolier than their bodies. On their heads they don't got any fur, just a little."

We should have been satisfied with the word feathers, but the children who went on to call those quasi-feathers hair, fuzz, wool, and fur really convey the picture more adequately.

Five-year-old Freddy was considered a "slow learner", but how competent he is in his own field of expertise! "Every place I look now I see a pheasant. One day I took a walk and I saw 800 pheasants. They all flew out of the hay field. They went quok quok. They had two points up in the air on the side of their heads -- pieces of hair. They have green hair on their faces, yellow all around their wings, and a blue tail. And this is how the story hooks on to the story about the pheasants, about a peacock. His color is green and his neck is blue, toward his head. He has a beak on his head. When they say a funny noise they squeak. They put their feathers up. It looks as if he's going to an evening party. It goes from one side of his pen to the other side. He broke some of his feathers. He knocked them against the screen. I didn't like the back of him. He has ugly-looking feet. He can't fly."

All the kindergarten children were pitilessly naturalistic. "Baby squabs are real little. They have a long neck, a real little head and little black eyes. You can see their ears: they stick out a little, just like they're cut out, and their noses go up in a little hump. They still have yellow hair on them. You can see their skin. Their heads have the most yellow when they're getting big." This description is by Johnnie, who was mentioned in Claudia Lewis' book, Writing for Young Children, as being disturbed when a teacher told him he had sharp eyes. "My eyes don't have points on them!" he protested. His observation was sharp, and so was his use of language -- precise as a scientist's, and as literal. Figures of speech mean nothing to him. But with his basic English vocabulary he communicates the naked birdlings with their humped noses.

Exposition has a social value when a story is offered for its effect on the group. As the kindergarten year progresses, the children learn to talk to and for one another and not just to the teacher. The growing ability to listen opens up the possibility of conversation with real give-and-take, and a sufficiently sensational tale finds a ready audience.

Spippee Bird

Peggy, 5

We saw a little spippee bird, brown and black. It has a long sharp bill in him. Lice gets in our little spippee's nest. Rats sleep in it at night. Little round nest, just squeeze. Mommy took it down, got all the little pieces of hay out, then she put it back, and they come in it every day. Tweet-a-tweet: little robins come and talk to 'em.

Within the intellectual function of language is an important use mentioned by Shakespeare in The Tempest: "Before I gave thee words thou hadst no thoughts." We use words to talk out our problems in order to find out what we really think. As children develop their concepts, they use words to work out what they are learning and to organize knowledge into relationships they can grasp. Two-year-old Carl sitting in his bath suddenly said, "Birds fly up -- jus' lak a b'loon." You could hear the wheels go around as Don, almost four years old, on his first visit to a henhouse said:

"The chickens make eggs inside 'em

and they lay them in them round holes.

We got some eggs, but not from chickens.

We got them at the store…

You get everything from somebody."

Although the adult may remember only the intellectual, utilitarian values of language, the creative values are the first to be discovered by the child, who begins by enjoying sound for its own sake before he can articulate our words. The toddler makes his own joyful chants, and with a proper appreciation of the place of fantasy he uses language in the development of imagination.

A young two-year-old, peering into an overturned crate, said "Bird in there." Billy trotted over, just turning two years old and so earnest that I feared he would be disappointed to find it was only make-believe. He looked in, straightened up and nodded gravely, "Two bird."

The kindergarten child who tells this story knows that nonsense has its own sense; “Once there was a little duck. He saw some flowers and picked them all up. He took them to his house and his mother said, "Good little duck! You are going to be a little duck for years and years till you are a big man."

In the following example, three-year-old Philip identifies himself with the little creatures of his concern and develops passionate convictions about their protection. A live bird had been caught by a teacher and he wanted to be sure it had not been shot:

"These birds don't have to get all shooten up an' eat! Darn good bird, that little bird! Little birds won't get eaten. And no rabbits. No little baby rabbits. And no birds what are just little baby and can't fly. All the little birds go in so they won't get cold -- so they won't get rained on. And all the big birds stay out."

He Danced So Merrily

4-year-old group

One day,

That crow that I saw,

He took our paintbrush, put it in his mouth,

Flew up in the air and then he dropped it.

He opened his mouth and it fell out --

And then he flied away.

He danced so merrily --

He went up the tree and crawled up another branch

And got on a leaf.

Billy put some wooded sticks so it would hold him.

That's how he danced, on the wooden sticks.

He looked shiny black.

He has two yellow bands on his foot --

Has to have bands or he won't come back.

Even he almost burst in a hole in two of those trees

But he couldn't get in -- it was too tight.

He made a hole with his paws.

He lived in it and closed the door.

When he was on the tree he looked big.

Sometimes he went on the bars and things.

I climbed on a ladder -- he flew to the trees.

He just came very close to my leg.

He walked around, and looked around.

He made a sound -- he said Caw, caw.

Margaret, a motherless four-year-old raised by her grandmother in New York City's Hell's Kitchen, went to the country for two weeks with her settlement play group. When a letter came from home she would not have it read to her, but instead kept it under her pillow. Too tough to cry, she expressed her feelings in play, chanting to herself:

Homesick Song

Margaret, 4

Bird, bird, bird, bird,

Pidge, pidge, pigeon, pidge,

He's in the cage, he's in the cage,

And maybe he's going to climb out.

Oh, I don't care, he's shut.

Birds, birds, birds, birds,

All the birds have real eyes:

Teeny teeny teeny beady ones.

They got teeny teeny teeny little nose

And teeny teeny teeny little tail.

Bird, bird, bird,

He's - in - the cage.

I think he's chopped up.

I don't know is he ch