The Spiritual Child
The art piece I created expresses the metaphor of child spirituality through a collage featuring two and three dimensional images. When creating this piece I wanted to make the child the focal point, so I used a shoe box to make the boy's face three-dimensional. I placed his head on top of piece of colorful wrapping paper and created a thought bubble with purple sparkly wash tape. I chose to use sparkly washi tape because I wanted to emphasize the sacredness of a child's spiritual development. Within the thought bubble are some metaphoric symbols for the different spiritual development stages. At the top right there is a black and white photo of a boy pondering something, I thought that represented cognitive development because one can see that the boy is taking his time to make an important decision. Next to the boy is an image of a father holding a teenage child, this represented emotional development because of the comfort expressed and the safety the child finds within their father's arms. Next, we see an image of a Russian town, this represents social because the town is filled with the buzz of community. Then we see an image of a mural from Cincinnati that says " Say Home" this represents creative development because it was made in a unique and colorful manner. I chose to put smile with teeth to represent moral to show the divine sacred joy that I often encounter when children want to show you how they are doing something awesome or something they know they are doing well at. Then we see some tree stumps which represent faith or belief because when you look at a tree stump, you see tree rings and can trace history and develop ideas based on what happened before. Lastly, there is an image of a girl that represents self-awarness, she puts off a very strong presence of confidence and sureness of her self through the image. I included a boy and a woman as three-dimensional images because I believe that children are sometimes forced to grow up to fast because of their environment and/or traumatic events, so I chose to show that through the complexity of growing up faster yet wanting to keep that child-like faith outlook.
Below are the observed Geisenberg spiritual development stages of a child.
Below are the observed Geisenberg spiritual development stages of a child.
Blog Post: Whole Child Living
I have been a youth worker for six years and am still surprised by the curiosity and joy that children have access to. Ruth Wilson explains in Developing the Whole Child: Celebrating the Spirit of Each Child that children are prone to experience deep spiritual aspects of life as they seek meaning and value, not to be confused with a religious experience. Children have a unique ability to see the essence of life. Joseph Clinton Pearce refers to this as “magical thinking” (Wilson, 2008). One "Aesthetic Mode of Knowing" I can employ is the art of writing and performing poetry. Poetry is a naturally therapeutic process that allows writers to process through learned experiences or perhaps even organize their thoughts. I can teach poetry in order to help youth cope with different issues in their community. In fact right now I am teaching a poetry therapy class that is particularly focused on the black lives matter movement and the act of writing poems to heal from traumatic violence that plagues many black communities and my community of Rainier Beach.
I have preserved my "Aesthetic Mode of Knowing" by challenging myself to read poems out loud when I felt shy but knew I wanted to cultivate the skill of being a strong passionate leader. I also pursued creative writing as an undergrad degree and when people gave me opportunities to teach, I took them. I fell in love with poetry at a young age and there's something about it that just makes me come together again. Nikki Giovanni called the process of poetry writing " breathing again". However, I have had to learn the healthy side of poetry writing and knowing that I did not have to cause myself to go into depression or experience something negative to write a poem of power was an ongoing battle for me when I was in my early 20s/late teens. Ernest Hemingway famously said, "There is nothing to writing, you simply sit down at they typewriter and bleed." While this mindset is true in the way that you want to communicate beautifully constructed images but to be in a state of constant pain or suffering is counter productive to creativity, in my experience. I think I can loose sight of this mode of knowing from time to time, but then I read something amazing or write something that gives me goosebumps and I swoon for poems all over again.
I enjoyed this idea from the article, " Both Froebel and Pestalozzi asserted that education must start with the child's nature rather than the teacher's preconceptions". This was of teaching should be applied more in our schools and community centers. It would be beautiful if scholars could become co-teachers and co-leaders of a classroom where they get to help develop and deliver curriculum that is based on their interests and research. I am involved in a program called Children's Defense Freedom Schools and it puts high expectations on scholars and allows them to interact with authors who write like they would write and be involved in community activism and personal cultural history. This type intentionality is unfortunately radical in comparison to our current school infrastructure, however as a poet, artist and educator, I want to learn to discipline myself to these high expectations in order to empower youth to live into high expectations as well. I've seen way too many teachers who either put up no expectations for youth or have super high expectations but are completely uninvolved in the scholar's academic and personal development. I determine to break the mold and make a new one, both for myself and the community I serve with.
References:
Wilson, D.R. (2008). Developing the Whole Child: Celebrating the Spirit of Each Child. Early Childhood News. Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=545.
I have preserved my "Aesthetic Mode of Knowing" by challenging myself to read poems out loud when I felt shy but knew I wanted to cultivate the skill of being a strong passionate leader. I also pursued creative writing as an undergrad degree and when people gave me opportunities to teach, I took them. I fell in love with poetry at a young age and there's something about it that just makes me come together again. Nikki Giovanni called the process of poetry writing " breathing again". However, I have had to learn the healthy side of poetry writing and knowing that I did not have to cause myself to go into depression or experience something negative to write a poem of power was an ongoing battle for me when I was in my early 20s/late teens. Ernest Hemingway famously said, "There is nothing to writing, you simply sit down at they typewriter and bleed." While this mindset is true in the way that you want to communicate beautifully constructed images but to be in a state of constant pain or suffering is counter productive to creativity, in my experience. I think I can loose sight of this mode of knowing from time to time, but then I read something amazing or write something that gives me goosebumps and I swoon for poems all over again.
I enjoyed this idea from the article, " Both Froebel and Pestalozzi asserted that education must start with the child's nature rather than the teacher's preconceptions". This was of teaching should be applied more in our schools and community centers. It would be beautiful if scholars could become co-teachers and co-leaders of a classroom where they get to help develop and deliver curriculum that is based on their interests and research. I am involved in a program called Children's Defense Freedom Schools and it puts high expectations on scholars and allows them to interact with authors who write like they would write and be involved in community activism and personal cultural history. This type intentionality is unfortunately radical in comparison to our current school infrastructure, however as a poet, artist and educator, I want to learn to discipline myself to these high expectations in order to empower youth to live into high expectations as well. I've seen way too many teachers who either put up no expectations for youth or have super high expectations but are completely uninvolved in the scholar's academic and personal development. I determine to break the mold and make a new one, both for myself and the community I serve with.
References:
Wilson, D.R. (2008). Developing the Whole Child: Celebrating the Spirit of Each Child. Early Childhood News. Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=545.