Playing with ….. Mirrors

Stores get it. Preschools get it. Dance and exercise studios get it. Some restaurants get it. Museums don’t seem to get it. Museums don’t quite seem to get how to use mirrors as tools for enhancing experiences for children and adults as they explore exhibits and environments.

Museums often have funny mirrors, mirrors in dress-up areas, mirrors for face-painting, and walk-in kaleidoscopes. The Exploratorium plays well with mirrors in its exhibits. It has developed large and small cylindrical mirrors, the anti-gravity mirror, and all the mirrors in the Reflections exhibit. Some art exhibits focus on mirrors like Mirror, Mirror Then and Now at The Art Gallery at the University of Sydney. Anish Kapoor’s public sculptures use mirrored surfaces to play with place and light. No doubt about it, there are lots of mirror exhibits and exhibit activities.

Mirrors often are the subject, or the what, of an exhibit. What about using mirrors for the how of exhibits?

Rarely, it seems, do museums employ mirrors as a kind of experiential and interpretive strategy to strengthen an exhibit experience or goal in targeted–and hard-to-get-at–ways. I’ve been interested in this for many years and have suggested possibilities countless times when visiting museums. Nevertheless, I can find few examples from museums to share. Among my photos of 96 museums, I have found about 5 examples of mirrors being used to extend, complete, or enrich the experience.

Personally I am fascinated by infinity boxes and kaleidoscopes; by angled mirrors and writing or drawing while looking into a mirror; with illusions like “shake hands with yourself”; and with the spherical mirror that reflects an upside-down image. I virtually always see children and adults highly engaged with these exhibits.

To the collection of mirror exhibits let me add some less recognized possibilities of mirrors as interpretive and experiential strategies. Mirrors can help accomplish exhibit goals, act on what developers and designers intend, what text writers would like to mention; or what a well-prepared and experienced facilitator might highlight on-the-spot. Mostly, they are very simple ideas.

New Perspectives

Mirrors bring a new perspective to a place or an activity. They catch a new angle or introduce a new view that hadn’t been obvious before. A mirror hanging above a building platform offers children who are stacking and arranging blocks to grow a tower, build a castle, or lay-out a design a very different sense of their structure and what it looks like. Children almost certainly will notice an overhead mirror; the novelty of the perspective will take it from there. No sign asking how this structure would look from above is needed, nor must a staff person or volunteer be stationed at the build platform.

An overhead mirror makes two types of views possible, a plan view and elevations. These views can be related to one another; features apparent in one view can inspire building choices. The overhead view might prompt a question about why a tower that grows taller floor-by-floor doesn’t look different in the overhead mirror but looks very different from the side?

Similarly, mirrors around the perimeter of a building area also offer new views. How does the city or structure look from straight on? From the back? From the side?

Many years ago I walked into a larger banquet room with my then 4-year old nephew. The room looked out from a bluff above a lake and a lakeshore drive filled with traffic. The room’s ceiling was covered with mirrors. Immediately on entering the room, Matthew said, “Wow! Cars driving on the ceiling!” He was thrilled and fascinated by this amazing view which held his attention; he looked down at the cars then up at the ceiling mesmerized and for far longer than he would have looked at only the cars on the drive below. 

Children at the sand and light table captured in the overhead mirror 

(Chicago Children's Museum)

 An overhead mirror hung in many locations would introduce a new, different, and interesting view and, by its very presence, invite observations, prompt questions, suggest possibilities for play, and make concepts accessible. Imagine a mirror hung over a light table, sand, or water tables, or over train tables, or bringing in the view from the street below the museum.                                                              
Completing the Experience

Years ago when I visited The Exploratorium, I climbed up on the giant chair as my husband photographed me sitting there. Several weeks later (i.e. pre-digital camera days) when the photo was developed, I finally could see how I looked as Goldilocks or Edith Ann. This March I was at the Science Museum of Minnesota to observe prototypes for the Math Moves exhibit. I sat in three chairs of different sizes–each with a mirror opposite it. Placement of the mirror completed the experience for me, giving me first-hand and immediate feedback about size relationships I couldn’t otherwise have. 

In the Earth World gallery at Minnesota Children’s Museum that magical moment of becoming the turtle just wouldn’t happen for a child without the mirror opposite so she can see herself as a turtle. It may be great to imagine this, but seeing your own face craning out of a giant turtle shell is there for others to see as well. 

To become the turtle, you must see yourself as the turtle (Minnesota Children's Museum)

Mirrors underneath showing the sewer system beneath the 
lake and nature area (Lakewood Nature Center)

Have you ever looked at an object, a beautiful bowl, for instance and wondered what it looked like from below or behind? I have seen that done only once–and wish I had a photo of it. It suggested the feeling of the volume and the fullness of the bowl. Thoughtful exhibit designers took something like that into account when they created a model to show how storm water gets to Wood Lake in Richfield, MN. A mirror underneath shows all the pipes and culverts that aren’t visible and provides information about the complex network of pipes that a sign never could convey.

Making Learning Visible

By their nature, mirrors make things visible, such as learning, developmental changes, and insights about others.

Friendly playmate? or Me? (Portland Children's Museum)

People often ask whether a baby knows that she’s looking at herself in the mirror. We often do see babies playing in front of mirrors in museums. In fact, a mirror can reveal an important shift in a child’s identity development. From 6 to 12 months, a baby looking at herself in a mirror simply sees another baby. At about 18 months a baby usually begins to recognize the reflection in the mirror as her own. This change can be observed by putting a dot of cream or lipstick on a baby’s nose. Babies younger than about 18 months will try to wipe the mark off the nose of the baby in the mirror. Six or so months later, recognizing that the baby in the mirror is “me” a baby will try to wipe the mark off her own nose. Besides being an engaging place for a toddler to play (see, point, pat, turn around, look at, etc.), playing in front of mirrors can make an important developmental milestone visible to parents, grandparents, and caregivers, as well as museum staff.

Getting to know children getting to know materials (Art Sparks)

Mirrors can also reveal insights about how someone goes about solving a problem, explores materials, or makes choices. Imagine a mirror placed along the back edge of a table, a work surface, or an activity station in an exhibit. Positioned this way, a mirror would reflect the face of a child or adult at the table to someone sitting behind. From there a parent or other adult can observe a child’s facial expression as she concentrates; does she stick out her tongue? Furrow her brow?  Is there a moment when she’s about to get frustrated when a helpful suggestion would be well-timed? Perhaps the child is approaching a completely new material. How does he go about it? Does he jump in or approach it cautiously? These are insights parents or a teacher would be eager to have about a child in order to be able to customize experiences, find challenges, remove obstacles, or just know and enjoy their child.

Looking Into Mirrors

Why does this use of mirrors feel so important? Exhibit planners have many worthy and often ambitious goals that can be difficult to accomplish especially through direct, first-person engagement. Too often, in the end, an unrealized concept is slapped with a text panel or, as available, a staff person at that spot on the exhibit floor.

Mirrors are a smart and simple way to increase exhibit resources and exhibits as resources. Mirrors are relatively inexpensive and are very versatile. They reveal views and introduce perspectives in countless ways. At the same time, they support intentions and beliefs museums value. They readily multiply interactions between people and objects, between objects and their settings, and among people. And, mirrors ensure that everyone will see themselves reflected in the museum. 

More to the story (Greenspoon Day Care)

Look into this.
• If you walked through your museum, where might you find places to put a mirror that would accomplish something you have been trying to do but couldn’t do well? Think about placing mirrors overhead and down low; change the view or the context with mirrors. Experiment with the location and size of the mirror and what you see and don’t see.

• Do you have any examples of mirrors being used in ways that extend and enrich an exhibit or program experience? Make something otherwise invisible visible? Complete an experience? Or another way in which mirrors help fulfill the intentions of exhibit planners rather than using text or facilitators? If so, please share and spread the word.

Nice + Necessary

 

 

                        +

In last week’s Museum Notes about InterActivity, the recent children’s museum conference in Houston, I highlighted a session, Nice to Necessary. Judging from the interest of the three presenters, Rhonda Kiest, Stepping Stones Museum for Children (SSMC), Julia Bland, Louisiana Children’s Museum (LCM), and Sarah Orleans, Portland Children’s Museum (PCM), the large turn-out, and the many comments afterwards, the topic addressed interesting and challenging territory many museums are trying to navigate.

Originally, the session title was longer, Children’s Museums Step Out: Moving From Nice To Necessary. Over the year it contracted to Nice To Necessary, and even N2N. More discussion with Rhonda, Sarah, and Julia and preparing our presentations took us to the heart of the issue. Museums must be nice and necessary. Museums must both align their missions with community priorities and remain welcoming, compelling, and delightful places to visit.

The Importance of And

Abandoning the mutually exclusive nice or necessary option was a giant and productive break-through for us. Museums in general and children’s museums, in particular, are no strangers to the false and time-consuming dichotomies of “fun or educational” I know. I was preoccupied by this for some time. I was relieved when someone pointed out that a pencil can be long and red. It is no less long because it is red and no less red because it is long. Museums are no less fun because they are educational, and no less educational because they are fun. They are no less necessary because they are nice and no less nice because they are necessary.

They must, however, do an outstanding job of both.

Being Nice

Basically museums are very nice. They are pleasant places. Their concern is expressed by their missions and they are careful with resources. Children and families, and school and community groups, visit museums, have a really good time, and want to return.

Children celebrate their birthdays at their children’s museum. Teachers bring their students for a field trip that they know will go smoothly and will sync with the curriculum. Children rejoice at their accomplishments in an exhibit and at showing their parents what they can do.  Parents discover something new about their child, perhaps a new interest. Families come to celebrate a not-so-spooky Halloween or other traditions; they feel good about being together as a family. Parents count on signing their children up for museum summer camps. Families bring friends and relatives who visit to the museum for a special occasion.

Museums offer all of these experiences and more. Museums are–and should be–unwilling to let go of being nice.

Being Necessary

Being necessary is more challenging. Its meaning is harder to pin down than being nice. But our planning and their museums’ work points to a few factors that are basic to being necessary.

Oriented to the Community’s Priorities

What’s necessary is relevant to each community. A museum may not be necessary in the way a fire department is, but it can address community priorities in recognized and valued ways. When a foundation reported that a lack of continuing professional development for educators was a major factor in the decline of quality education in Oregon education, the Portland Children’s Museum established the Center for Children’s Learning (CCL). The CCL conducts research documenting children at play at the museum and in Opal School, the Museum’s K-5 public charter school. CCL also establishes best practices for organizations serving young children and makes research, recommendations, and best practices available through workshops, symposia, and publications.   

Not only is the meaning of being relevant specific to each community, but it can and does change over time reflecting changes in a region, city, town, or neighborhood. The LCM board committed to a major initiative for family well-being in the weeks before Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  In the months after the hurricane, the true magnitude of need for support for young children and their families in the Greater New Orleans area became starkly apparent. From that new perspective, LCM developed the concept of the Early Learning Village, a comprehensive project supported by an extensive network of long-term committed partners to change life outcomes for children.

Demonstrating that a museum is necessary takes time and a disciplined, sustained focus. Stepping Stones Museum for Children has been committed to being a steward of its community since its 2000 opening. In its first decade, SSMC grew its understanding of its community and audience and contributed to collaborative efforts in Norwalk, CT. The Museum has acted deliberately to become necessary on several fronts. It has been working with a network of community leaders and organizations to proactively identify and resolve issues that prevent a child’s growing up healthy, safe, smart, and successful at home, school, and in the community. Forty organizations have aligned and organized to work towards three strategic outcomes focusing on a scorecard that tracks indicators; each organization defines its unique contribution to supporting outcomes.

A Leader of Some Capacity

A museum that is at the table occasionally is nice. A museum that is called to the table or that convenes others at the table is necessary. A museum must be a leader in some capacity to be necessary. In the examples above is evidence of how each of the three museums has shaped a leadership role for itself among other institutions to serve community priorities. With the Center for Children’s Learning, PCM has positioned itself in a leadership role around understanding how children play, learn, create, explore, and interact. The Center’s documentation panels offer insights into children’s natural learning strategies and invite inquiry into their thinking and predictions about effective teaching and exhibit planning.  In developing and sharing this research approach with teachers, researchers, museum educators, parents, and other education experts, PCM through its Center is a national and, increasingly, international resource on children’s learning.

LCM’s Early Learning Village is an on-site network of resources for children and families including museum exhibits and programs. It has cultivated long-term strategic partnerships with existing organizations who have recognized expertise and are successful in related areas child and family development. With LCM's vision, long-running literacy and well-being initiatives, the Museum is, in fact, the convener of major organizations such as Tulane University’s Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and Louisiana State University’s AgCenter.

SSMC’s leadership role in the partnership, Norwalk ACTS, emerged from clarity about its role as a community steward, extensive experience in various networks, and an understanding of outcome-driven models. A member of the network’s strategic planning team, SSMC leads in shaping a nimble, aligned network with a strong focus on three outcomes and supporting indicators.  

Accountable to Long-term Outcomes

Intending to make a difference is nice. Being able to show that a museum has made a difference in the lives of children, families, and the community is being necessary. Achieving and measuring results is an extremely challenging part of the work. It is also where participants in the InterActivity conference session had questions not all of which were easy to answer. 

Each of the three museums recognizes the importance of being accountable to long-term outcomes and is working diligently in that direction. Each is doing so in its own way and, understandably, at different rates. All, however, are progressing along similar paths. Each has connected a community priority with outcome areas where it hopes to make a contribution: improving the futures of children in the community, contributing to a continuum for support for children, or providing insights into children’s thinking to guide teachers and exhibit designers, etc. They are identifying what is relevant and can be measured, defining measures of success, and finding methods of assessment and evaluation capable of assessing the changes. To build capacity in relatively new areas of museum practice, the museums are also are working with partners, including colleges and universities.

This is an area of continuing, interesting, and important work

Finding the Right Mix

As important as being necessary is, it is essential that the joy not drain from the experiences offered at the museum, presented in the community, or available in schools. Bubbles, birthday parties, face-painting, and teddy bear picnics should not disappear from children’s museums. Rat basketball should not be nixed from science centers. Nor should Halloween haunted houses be abandoned. Every museum must bring its passion creativity, and, yes, understanding of its community to uncovering their mix of nice + necessary. 

A tool for exploring the nice - necessary dynamic is posted at the right of this page as is another related resource, Connecting the Dots. Check out a previous blog entry, Public Value: From Good Intentions to Good Work which includes additional resources.

Museum Conference and Car Parade: In the Rear-view Mirror

The Museum Car: Mapping Houston's museums

I just returned from InterActivity 2011, the children’s museum conference, in Houston this year. The Association of Children’s Museum’s annual gathering of about 800 people began for me on Wednesday at the emerging museums pre-conference and ended with watching Houston’s art car parade on Sunday. (Technically, it ended with a delayed flight, mechanical difficulties, cancellation, an extra stay-over, and a detour to Minneapolis through Cincinnati.)

Like many others, I’m processing the conference and all its attendant possibilities. I expect I’ll be doing so over the next year. To push my processing forward, I skim my notes, sift through sessions and conversations, and share with others what stands out for me.

Emerging Museums Conference

Launching the Collective Vision Toolkit was a highlight of the annual pre-conference. (Look for a link on the ACM website s-o-o-n.) This on-line resource will make the exciting, life-changing, often attenuated process of opening a museum if not easier, at least less mysterious. Having worked on this resource for starting, or strengthening, a museum with John Noonan, Executive Director of The Great Lakes Children’s Museum and Mary Maher, editor of Hand To Hand and Collective Vision, I know it’s really strong in the basic steps and areas for opening a museum. It also draws on the real-life experiences of many museums that have planned and navigated passions, realities, challenges, and opportunities. The templates included are really helpful and as are links to a wide range of resources. One smart suggestion I heard was to use the toolkit as the structure and core material for next year’s emerging museums conference in Portland, OR.

 A Community of Learners

Many of my friends and professional contacts from outside children’s museums have often noted that our network is unusually strong and connected. They’re right. Every year, these qualities are a tonic for me as I meet and connect with others from distant towns, cities, and countries; keep up over many years; and listen in on new and interesting work. In a few short days, I am able to catch up on the start-up efforts of museums in Oslo and Sonoma County; learn about new projects and satisfying accomplishments; continue conversations started previous years, perhaps on the bus to an evening event; and meet people, like Elizabeth Merritt, whose thinking challenges me. It’s almost too much to absorb in such a short period of time, but I don’t want to miss it.

 Food for Thought

Ideas from several sessions and speakers seemed particularly relevant and intriguing. I anticipate following them as they engage with other ideas, intersect with interests, and raise new questions, probably writing about them on Museum Notes.

•                   Early in the conference Nice to Necessary generated thoughts and questions pertinent to discussions that surfaced in later sessions. Exploring how museums align their missions with community priorities while remaining welcoming, compelling, and delightful places to visit, three museum leaders, Rhonda Kiest, Stepping Stones Museum forChildren, Julia Bland, Louisiana Children’s Museum, and Sarah Orleans, Portland Children’s Museum shared their museums’ progress from nice to necessary. A downloadable tool for exploring the nice to necessary dynamic is posted at the right on this page.

•                   Jeri Robinson VP of Early Childhood and Family Learning at Boston Children’sMuseum extended an invitation to explore The Future of Early Childhood in Children’s Museums. Over 80 participants engaged in discussing a set of questions on how children’s museums can be stronger by working collaboratively with children’s museums in other communities to become recognized voices for early childhood locally. Jeri and I will be following up with participants on their responses to these questions and tracking their interests and opportunities.

•                   I was impressed with the thoughtful, honest exchange about risk-taking in museums in a session using an innovative (and somewhat risky) fish-bowl format. Museum leaders from a variety of museums–start-up, expanding, established, poised for change, recently opened–moved in-and-out of the fish bowl to share, reflect, question, and rethink professional and organizational risks. Nearly all session participants actively engaged in sharing how taking risks has stimulated growth and innovation. Facilitator Kathy Gustafson Hilton of Hands On! knew when to let the exchanges take their course.

•                   Education Nation author, Milton Chen, offered a promising idea in response to a question after his keynote address. He was asked how museums might deepen and extend their relationships with children and families to increase their impact in ways libraries and schools do. Along with several general comments, Chen suggested that projects that are bigger than your own museum might be provide the cumulative contact and continuity. I’m not at all sure where this idea will lead. I think, however, it has the potential to leverage museums’ assets and existing collaborative efforts to more fully engage members of the community in exploring, thinking, learning, and taking action and, consequently, expanding museums' impact.

A Night at the Museum

The big party, Texas BIG, was at The Children’s Museum of Houston.  For many, this event was also the first visit to the Museum since its major expansion which added 39,000 square feet of exhibits and workshop space (designed by Argyle Design, Inc) and opened in March 2009.  Party-goers were especially mesmerized by FlowWorks and the giant cauldron that fills, and fills, fills with water until it spills, spills, spills. 

Museum representatives from Jordan, Norway, Russia, China and friends

An International Gathering

The growth of children’s museums around the world was 
more apparent than ever at the conference this year. The
presence and interests of these museums was reflected at the Saturday morning “regional” breakfasts. In spite of a very short time together, the group recognized some shared interests specific to their museums: managing rapid growth, building capacity in their regions, growing philanthropy, and getting royal endorsements.

 

Art Car Parade

Last, but by no means least, was the Art Car Parade Sunday afternoon, an annual Orange Show event. Just about everything covered in InterActivity was represented in car art at the parade: recycled and re-purposed materials, creativity and imagination, health and healthy kids, literacy, science, art, schools, simple machines, marine biology (sort of), people working together, making things, fun, and then some. 

My Great Thanks

Many people and organizations work for months to make InterActivity a successful mix of new thinkers, core ideas, and a great get together. My great thanks go to the staff at the Association of Children’s Museum, the ACM Program Committee, and, of course, The Children’s Museum of Houston.

Now, mark your calendars for the next children’s museum conference: May 10-12, 2012 in Portland, OR.

Environmental Autobiographies: Remembering Childhood Places

Even now when I get together with my brothers and sisters who are in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s we often talk about the places we played when we were children.

The backyard woods was our everyday play place and a world in itself. Unlike the surrounding backyards, this ¼ acre on our lot had been left as it was when it had been farmland. Here we created imaginary worlds under the Mayapples, named landmarks in the woods, and left notes in the hole of the Burr Oak tree. We built and rebuilt forts and each earned its own story. When spring snow melt filled the low area at the woods’ edge, ducks nested there and raised families. Enthralled, we conducted our own kind of duck and bird count annually.

Our memories of the woods and our other places, like the nature area at the school, are abundant and vivid. They are just the kind of memories of childhood and its places that an environmental autobiography often evokes. This exploration is a written and mapped memoir of significant places in one's own life with an emphasis on environmental and sensory aspects.

I first learned about environmental autobiographies as I explored the new behavior-environment paradigm in the 70’s. Clare Cooper Marcus was associated with this as were others. I also found similar work being done in teacher centers and through Prospect Archives in the early 80’s. The interest was similar: to tap into what people know about where and how they learn and play.

For over 30 years, I have used environmental autobiographies in professional development, design, and planning work. Whether I have used this with infant and toddler caregivers, museum administrators, board and staff planning teams, elementary teachers, or staff development specialists, this simple exercise has been a powerful force for tapping into details of long ago places, playmates’ names, the smell of soil, vague secrets, and a color of light that were seemingly left behind for decades. The experience produces the rewarding sense of a self-discovery and a bit of the fun of party game. But it is also valuable in bringing children's perspectives and feelings about the places they inhabit to the center of planning. It is rich in generating useful ideas for environments and exhibits for children. More and more it makes me think about the power of place and play in the lives of children.

Think of a Place

In this exercise, adults are asked to reenter a childhood environment and related experiences. They are asked to think of a place where they spent time when they were young that they liked or went to frequently. Calling this place to mind and walking through it mentally, they are asked to think about it both objectively and subjectively.

As they revisit this place, they are asked to capture and record it in some way. Using basic materials–paper and pencil or pen–they might draw a simple map of it and add labels and notes. They might write a narrative description. They can work at a small or large scale. Whatever is comfortable and productive works. In thinking of a place, they might:

•  Describe it objectively thinking about:

– Where it was

– How old they were

– What it looked like

– How big it was; what its surfaces were made of

– Who else was there - human and animal

– What they did there

– What they could see and hear from there

•  Describe the place and the experience of being there subjectively:

– What were its smells? Colors? Textures?

– How did it feel to be there?

– What qualities of that place were strongest?

– What feelings, positive or negative, do they recall about the place?

– What strong memories do they have about that place?

– Did they have a name for it? What did they call it?

A favorite childhood place can come to mind quickly for some while finding it can take a bit of wandering for others. As they work on their environmental autobiographies, people are intent and quiet. Some memories arrive unbidden, some need to be tugged at a bit, and some emerge very slowly. There’s no definite stopping point. Turning attention from being in that childhood place to the present day and to a group of colleagues is a bit like returning from a far country. Each person tells about the place they remember and revisited. Following an initial description of the place and how old they were, strong, specific sensory memories emerge along with the significance of the experiences the place afforded and lots of details.

Small, Tucked in Nature, Invisible to Adults

While every environmental autobiography is unique, patterns do emerge. Over the years I have found natural clusters among the nature of the places, the activities and the play that were important then and are remembered so now.

•                  Recollections of childhood places are very positive. Many are joyous. Often there is a sense of the profound centrality of those places in the lives of the children; “That’s where we learned everything!” Even though many memories touch on risks that were taken, memories surprisingly do not end with, “well, we all got into trouble,” “we shouldn’t have been there,” or “he fell and broke his arm.”

•                   Outdoor settings and natural areas are recalled often and vividly. They may be truly wild places or just brushy abandoned spots within more manicured areas. In any case, children are attracted to unstructured areas that are often unruly and unclaimed by others. Even corners of the barn or the basement are just slightly outside the rules and control of the house and adults lives.

•                  Particular locations within a place are specified and these distinctions are significant. In citing a barn for instance, the haymow (or hay loft) is an important designation. In a wooded area, it is “where the trees were down.” In the park, it is among the crab apple trees. 

•                  Precise sensory content and detail persist across time. Even after 4, 5 and 6 decades, people access amazing detail in recalling their childhood places: the feel of the concrete water trough, the smell of hay at a certain time of the summer, or where the stream was narrowest.

•                  Some amount of control over the places is often expressed. It may be physical, but not always. Children gravitate towards small spaces, a degree of enclosure that provides some concealment, an out-of-the-way place under adult radar, or a high place that offers a vantage point. These attributes provide a kind of ownership, independence, or invisibility; sometimes under the radar is a fort under the table or on the floor of the linen closet.

•                  Childhood play places shelter an incredibly rich variety of activities. Every significant childhood activity I can think of has been mentioned over the years: making up games with rules some games extending over months; climbing trees, balancing on logs; running and chasing; building and changing the area with sticks, found lumber, car parts and furniture; gathering flowers, fruit, leaves and seeds; digging up clay and molding it; creating objects from found and natural materials; making up stories, poems and plays; and developing friendships.

•                   A strong sense of personal relationships comes through. The significance of the place and the experiences there flow through personal relationships: “It was our family home for centuries;” “I loved being with granddad;” “the three sisters always played there together.”

An Enduring Impact

Listening to individual environmental autobiographies and memories is fascinating. There is always something for everyone to take away personally and for the work they do such as planning experiences for children. It usually wakes up some dormant memory of my own childhood places as well. Just as important, however, is what these memories reveal about the value of play, the importance of compelling environments, and of childhood itself.

First, along with an appreciation of the value of rich and accessible play places and experiences is a concern for their absence in the lives of so many children today. I can’t help but wonder what the future environmental autobiographies of children today will be. There are many urban children and busy suburban children playing indoors, on teams, or perhaps not all. Rural children have greater access to open spaces.

For all children, there are, fortunately, still sofa cushions to stack and make caves; blankets to drape across chairs; and out-of-the way places such as under the steps. Children’s museums, parks, and nature centers add something to this variety. But I am extending my gentle plea for more varied environments. But children also need unstructured time to discover, shape, and become attached to these places and make them their own.

I am also struck by the enduring impact of early experiences and environments. After a Head Start director told about the empty lot she played in and how it was under the flight path of the airport so airplanes figured in their play, she announced, “And today I am a pilot.” This inspired me to follow up with questions about the presence of these places and experiences in adult lives. Identifying connections between childhood places and activities in their adults lives has needed little prompting. I have heard, “I now raise animals on a small farm;” “I count things for a living;” “I make toys for a living.” “I’m a scientist.” 

Writing Your Environmental Autobiography

Have you  tried something like an environmental autobiography? What was useful and interesting about it? Did you discover a connection to what you do now as an adult? Please let us know if you have done one tried one after reading this. You might also be interested in:

•  Children’s Special Places by David Sobel (2002); Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

•  Secret Spaces of Childhood by Elizabeth Goodenough (Ed.) (2003). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

• Getting to Know City Kids: Understanding Their Thinking, Imagining, and Socializing by Sally Middlebrooks. (1998). New York: Teacher College Press.

Local & Happening Now

Seed Bearers (Photo by Bruce Silcox)

Maybe because winter lasts so very long in Minnesota, we relish the celebrations that say a final farewell to winter. This year, especially, winter has stepped aside oh-so reluctantly for spring. 

Sunday May 1^st crowds braved chilly 30-degree temperatures and a fierce wind to watch the 37^th annual May Day Parade sponsored by the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater (HOBT). In spite of this year's wintry weather, this is a local tradition to welcome  spring. The mile long parade down Bloomington Avenue in Minneapolis ends in a pageant in Powderhorn Park where a larger-than-life puppet representing the Tree of Life emerges from the darkness of winter, this year represented by a crow. 

From the crow...

... the Tree of Life emerges. (Photos by Liz Welch)

Clearly, this seasonal celebration is not bound by the calendar that says spring arrives March 21^st. That’s the

point. We share a celebration of  Earth Day across the country on April 22^nd. But some celebrations like Arbor Day–celebrated in January in Florida and in May in Alaska–are seasonally timed. This decidedly local quality interests me.

The Parade is produced by neighbors, school groups, community organizations, friends, and artists in a way that also manages the long wait for spring in these high latitudes. Preparations begin months in advance. Groups and individuals, newcomers and veterans come together regularly in the social and creative environments of the HOBT workshops. Here, they transform cardboard, paper bags, found and natural objects, and, of course, duct tape, into the masks and costumes for the parade. They help construct 20-foot puppets and floats that punctuate the parade and star in the pageant. Finally, neighbors, friends, and students become the celebration of spring, dancing down the street, pounding on tambourines, walking on stilts, pushing carts, and carrying floats.

The sun carriers

Considering the unspring-like weather this year, crowds were surprisingly strong. People appreciate and want to be part of what the celebration represents, even if the weather doesn't deliver.

Not all local celebrations must be big, take months to put together, or use multiple colors of duct tape to be meaningful. Sometimes the most touching ones happen at a very personal scale and on the next block.

Old Man Winter is put to bed.

A celebration of spring was also held last week. Preschool-aged children at the Greenspoon Day Care down the street put Old Man Winter to bed. In a May ritual that has evolved over many years, a dozen young children rushed out from the corner of the house to find Old Man Winter (an obliging husband). Waving their hands to make ribbons flutter at their wrists, they covered Old Man with a quilt. 

Standing over him, they let out great cheers and joyfully tossed seeds into the air. They then moved to claim their winter’s projects to take home: soft dolls they had patiently created  over several months. Very local, very small, and tailored to the audience of appreciative parents, grandparents, neighbors, and day care alums. 

In fact, this celebration almost didn’t happen; some of the littlest children just weren’t sure they could face Old Man Winter. That’s how happening now this event was

Dolls created over the winter are now ready to go home.