Education and Community Programs

Developmental Psychologist, Edith Ackermann

With their boundless curiosity, fertile imagination, and a natural mastery of the art of self-directed learning, children have much to teach adults about creativity and innovation. That’s perhaps even more true with today’s “digital natives,” says developmental psychologist Edith Ackermann, whose work explores—and exploits—the intersections of play, learning, design, and technology. An educator and researcher, Ackermann has consulted for LEGO and the LEGO Learning Institute for more than 20 years and worked under the direction of Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist renowned for his studies on children and play, at the Centre International d’Epistémologie Génétique. She has taught at Harvard, MIT, and other universities.

Part of the Designing Play program series, Edith Ackermann visits the Walker this spring to address the topic: Playful Inventions and Explorations: What’s to be learned from kids? (Thursday, April 22nd, 7 pm, Cinema, Free) Here’s a snippet of a  Q&A we exchanged over email…I’ll post more in the weeks leading up to her talk.

How would you summarize your professional relationship to play, children’s learning, and design?

Ever since I was a student, and started working with children, I have been wondering: why are children such good learners? How do they do it? And what are they learning about as they apparently “mindlessly” and playfully interact with their world?  Later in life, I shifted gears from studying how children act, think, and learn to designing environments for children to act, think and learn in. Two lessons I have learned:

1) Children may not have much experience or knowledge (at least not as much as grown-ups or older siblings) but they sure are born with a knack to do “the right thing” in order to get to know more about what they don’t know yet.

2) Children learn all the time and everywhere – in school, at home, on-line. And the best part, they learn a great deal even as they are playing! Alas, they learn especially well as they are playing. As the saying goes, play is a child’s most serious work!

Whose ideas/philosophies have been most influential to your work?

I owe much to my mentor Jean Piaget and his colleagues from the CIEG (Centre International d’Epistemologie Genetique) in Geneva who taught me to appreciate, understand, and elicit children’s ways of thinking (through a technique known as clinical exploration), and to create conditions that fuel their interests and leverage their potential through indirect teaching, or design.

I also learned from Seymour Papert and the Epistemology and Learning Group at the MIT Media Lab to emphasize the importance of situated and embodied cognition, and to explore the potential of digital technologies as a means to mediate and leverage children’s talents as self-directed learners and creative thinkers.

Above all, I seek collaborations with individuals and teams who take it as their task to rethink the links between curiosity, imagination and creative expression and who “walk the talk” by bringing delight and lightness into the should-driven world of educators or the humorless exposés by scholars of human creativity. Some heroes include designers and artists Bruno Munari, Toshi Iwai, Fischli und Weiss, poet and writer Gianni Rodari, The Reggio Emilia infant and toddler schools, and the Exploratorium Science Museum.

What has been one of your most memorable/favorite projects?

One of my favorite projects is happening right now, at the Exploratorium Science Museum in San Francisco, CA. As an Osher fellow, I have been able to spend significant chunks of time working with colleagues from the “playful inventions and explorations” group, also known as PIE.

While not intended exclusively for children, PIE tinkering activities are unique in their abilities to put imagination and playfulness at the service of knowledge and reasoning. The result is exquisite. You may enjoy a peek into some of the PIE projects, such as  “wind-powered wonders”, “light reflections”, and “scribbling machines” by visiting the website: http://www.exploratorium.edu/pie/ideas.html

In your mind, how is design like play?

Both design and play involve breaking loose from habitual ways of thinking, and making dreams come true! This, in turn, requires 1. an ability to imagine how things could be beyond merely describing or representing how things are (ask what if, do as if, inventing alternative ways); and 2. a desire to give form or expression to things imagined, by projecting them outward (thus making otherwise hidden ideas tangible and shareable). Both are about building and iterating. Messing around with materials, or giving the head a hand often sparks a maker’s imagination and sustains her interest and engagement: you get started and the ideas will come. You persevere and the ideas will fly.

What are the pitfalls of designing for kids (i.e. toys, play environments)?

Nothing is harder than to design environments for other people to design in. And the reason for this is that bells and whistles, ease of use, or age appropriate-ness alone won’t make for meaningful interactions. In order to grab a child’s attention and sustain her interest, a toy needs to have “holding power”, a term introduced by Papert to describe its ability to grow with the child (I grow with my toys and my toys grow with me). Favorite playthings – or playground – can be many things. Yet to hold active engagement, they should be: open enough to let you in; intriguing enough to capture your imagination; safe enough to let you enact otherwise risky ideas; and generous enough to always give you a second chance. While guidelines such as these are useful, they offer no warranty for success:  the children may still ignore a toy especially designed for them—and what’s a hit for one kid may leave another cold.

Kids Play Space in the Walker's Local Artist Gift Mart, Target Gallery, December 6, 2009. Photo: Gene Pittman

This post is the first in an on-going series, in which guest artist-instructors involved with our various Raising Creative Kids programs reflect upon their teaching experience.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Last Saturday (Nov. 14^th) I had the pleasure of working with the Walker to develop and teach MyNet: Google SketchUp, a course designed to introduce the amazing world of 3d computer modeling to both kids and their parents (as well as older siblings and mentors). Computer modeling and rendering has long been a staple of architectural education and practice, but the software involved was, more often than not, exorbitantly expensive and frustratingly difficult to learn. The combination of these two factors ensured that such amazing technology was only accessible to those at the advanced stages of their design education or those already working in the field.

Then came SketchUp…

With its simple interface and simple tools, SketchUp was an instant hit. It was intuitive and inexpensive, making it accessible to just about anyone. While this was certainly a great development for grad students and professionals, its greatest potential lies with the introduction of this software as an educational tool for K-12 children!

That belief was validated and solidified by our class on Saturday. Students and parents not only learned the basics of the software, but also got the opportunity to apply this new knowledge to an actual project of their own design. The focus of the class was to design an ideal “fort” or “hang-out.” Before we jumped into SketchUp, though, everyone first made physical, scale “study models.” This hands-on process, allowed everyone to first focus on the design of the project before getting caught up in the excitement of trying to learn how to use a new computer program.

Building a prototype together

By using this process, students and parents were actually following the real-life, organic process used by designers of all disciplines! Once everyone had tested out their ideas with scale models, we then moved into the digital world and covered the basics of SketchUp. Thanks to its simple, user friendly interface, most were able to pick it up right away! We then shifted focus back to the forts and hang-outs, learning how to translate from the miniature scale models everyone had made to full scale digital models in SketchUp that allowed them to “get inside” their projects.

Adam Jarvi leading a family through the 3D modeling process

I was absolutely amazed by everyone’s work! Not only were the original models recreated in SketchUp with remarkable accuracy, they were also edited, refined, and personalized with colors, materials, people, and even furniture. The sense of ownership, engagement, and empowerment that comes along with the ability to create something that is uniquely your own was clear for all to see. As a designer myself, seeing others become engaged by the same things that excite me was extremely rewarding!

A final SketchUp project: one family's hideout

Thanks to all who attended! And thanks to the Walker for making this event possible!

Adam Jarvi

Designer and Assistant Director at DEMO, a non-profit focused on spreading the power of design to K-12 students and teachers throughout the Twin Cities.

I happened upon filmmaker Astra Taylor and her documentary Examined Life at the Women with Vision festival last spring and found myself a huge fan of the film, and I became intrigued by her bio, particularly the fact that she was unschooled until age 13. From what I know about unschooling, it’s very similar to the artist’s life. You wake up each day guided by the question ‘what do I want to learn today?’ You’re not told by a boss or teacher what to do, when to do it, and how to get it done, rather your own curiosities lead the way.

This anarchist approach to education has been fundamental to Taylor’s D.I.Y. attitude towards learning, creativity, and pedagogy. As one interviewer wrote, ‘Her non-traditional upbringing, or as she calls it, her “super weirdo hippy background,” stood her in good stead, providing a strong sense of confidence and an affirmation in her own abilities and artistic vision.’ Thinking about Astra’s unconventional past, I began to wonder how education and the way we’re taught to learn can hinder or support our creative development.

Luckily, Astra will be back to the Walker next Thursday night (talk and gallery admission are free) to speak about how her personal experiences of growing up home-schooled without a curriculum or schedule have shaped her personal philosophy and development as an artist. If you need a primer, check out this great interview she did with CitizenShift or you can get a better idea of Astra’s influences by her recommended reads:

* * * *

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer

A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde

* * * *

Other Suggestions:

“Against School” by John Taylor Gatto in Harpers Magazine, September 2003

How Children Learn by John Holt

How Children Fail by John Holt

Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School & Get a Real Life & Education by Grace Llewellyn

As if family life isn’t challenging enough, Manhattanite Colin Beavan takes it to the ultimate test when he decides to embark on an experiment to see if leading a life with zero environmental impact affects happiness. To make it work, however, his coffee- and shopping-addicted wife and their toddler have to join his quest. The film, which screens at the Walker September 16th (did I mention it’s FREE?!) follows this life-changing adventure as the family adapts to their new lifestyle, the couple struggles with their marriage, and the criticisms fly after Beavan’s many media appearances.

Co-director of No Impact Man, Laura Gabbert graciously answered some questions about the making of the film while visiting with family in Minneapolis.

What got you interested in this project?

Colin’s wife, Michelle Conlin is an old friend I grew up with in Minneapolis. I knew Colin was embarking on this experience early on so my filmmaking partners and I asked him if we could make a film about it.

What made you think this would be a good documentary?

Colin’s project was interesting to me as a filmmaker because it was a character-driven, solution-based approach to the environmental crisis. As we embarked on the filmmaking, we were excited by the immediacy and the intimacy of observing one family attempting to make these changes in their lives.

How did you convince Michelle and Colin to let you make a documentary film of No Impact Man (NIM)?

Michelle was game from the beginning. She’s a journalist and knew it would be good for the project. Colin was leary of a documentary crew following him around and observing his family life, but eventually he agreed that a documentary film could explore different dimensions of the project than his book.

When did the filming begin and can you give a sense of how much time you spent with the family over the year?

NIM began in November 2006, and we started filming about one week into the project. Justin Schein (co-director/cinematographer), who is based in Brooklyn, was there twice a week for shooting. I made regular visits to New York (from L.A.) 6 to 7 times over the year, and I slept on Michelle and Colin’s sofa each time so that I could shoot them late at night or first thing in the morning. We followed the Beavan/Conlins for the entire year and for about six months after the project ended.

Can you explain how you and Justin adapted your filmmaking to reduce your footprint?

Colin requested we make as green a film as possible. Documentary filmmaking already has less environmental impact than a Hollywood production. I had to reduce my air travel in half. Since the film was shot in NY and edited in LA we used the internet to send cuts back and forth. In NY no cars or lights were used, and all tracking shots of the Beavans riding a bicycle were done from a bike. The filming was all local since the Beavans didn’t travel. Justin decided to use the old DV camera he had instead of purchasing a new HD one, and he used 4 rechargeable batteries all year long. Six months into the project when the Beavans turned off their electricity, we shot only with natural light. We went with a grainy look as our subjects lived by candlelight.

Do you think you’ll try to incorporate these practices into future projects?

Definitely. There are new environmental codes for fiction and nonfiction filmmaking and technology is making it much easier to be green.

Did you ever think Colin and Michelle would reach a breaking point?

The publicity explosion around the experiment was the most challenging thing for Colin and Michelle, especially after the NY Times article came out (“The Year Without Toilet Paper” March 2007). Colin was inundated with requests by the press and this started getting in the way of the experiment. Colin was thrust into the position of being a spokesperson for the environmental movement and this was a surprise and challenge for him at first. (Although since the NIM year, he’s become a prolific educator and public speaker.) Colin and Michelle each had their ups and downs during the course of the year. Half way through the year Michelle had what she calls a “conversion experience” and began to feel more motivated politically as she began to see the positive effects the experiment was having on her health and her family.

How did you see the Beavan/Conlin family evolve over the course of the year?

By stripping away things like shopping and entertainment they got back to the basics of spending time with one another, they rediscovered things they had lost. It was the Walden side of the experiment. It made them healthier and happier. They focused inward a little more. Paradoxically, they also became more engaged in environmental issues in their community. They became more engaged politically.

One of the ideas behind the Walker’s Raising Creative Kids initiative is that parents are key models in developing their children’s creativity. Certainly the NIM year must have forced Colin and Michelle to think outside the box when it came to parenting. Can you comment on the creative aspect of their family life during NIM?

They spent a lot more time together as a family and a lot more time out exploring the city. Because they had no light or electricity in their apartment, it forced them outside and they embraced the city in ways they hadn’t previously. They biked everywhere in the summer and spent evenings along the Hudson River and in their community garden. Because one of the rules of the experiment was “not buying anything new”, in order to buy their three year old daughter Christmas presents, they shopped at their local consignment and second-hand children’s stores. There was a great post in Colin’s NIM blog related to this idea of what to do without TV.

Colin and Isabella at Market, photo courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories

How has NIM changed you and your family’s lifestyle?

A lot of this stuff just makes sense to kids–composting, for example. When Colin challenged us to make changes in our own lives, this was something my family adopted. My kids (an 8 yr. old and a 5 yr. old) intuitively understood composting and they got a kick out of it. If someone at our house tries to throw vegetable scraps in the garbage, my kids are there to correct them. We’ve started a vegetable garden, and the kids enjoy seeing where their vegetables come from and harvesting and eating their own produce. We do our best to carpool, which is challenging in L.A., and we participate in local environmental organizations such as Tree People’s tree plantings around the city.

Do Colin, Michelle, and Isabella continue to live according to the same rules of the NIM year? Have any allowances been made for the sake of convenience?

They’re low impact now as opposed to no impact. There’s still no air conditioning, but air travel is allowed, and they share a plot at the community garden. Their main mode of transportation is their bicycles, but if it’s raining or snowing, they’ll take the subway. They’re not nearly as strict, but definitely more mindful about their choices. NIM was a full-time job…to make your own bread every week and do your laundry by hand only works if one adult in the family doesn’t need to be at the office from 9–5 (Michelle maintained her job at BusinessWeek throughout NIM). What they learned is that it’s pretty easy to reduce your impact by 75%, but it’s the last 25% that’s really hard.

What’s your next project?

There are several. Habeas at the Gate, a narrative film based on a friendship between a Guatanamo detainee and his Park Avenue lawyer, and The F Word, a documentary about the state of feminism today.

Thanks Laura. I can’t wait to see No Impact Man when it screens at the Walker!

I’m excited the Walker is screening it. I actually took art and dance classes at the Walker when I was a child.

No Impact Man makes its Minneapolis premiere at the Walker’s Cinema on Wednesday, September 16, 7:30 pm before opening at the Lagoon Cinema on October 2nd. The Walker screening is free and will be introduced by co-director, Laura Gabbert. Colin Beavan’s book, No Impact Man The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process hits shelves in September and you can read his daily posts on the No Impact Man blog.

The weather outside was frightful last night (tornado hits Minneapolis!), but inside the Walker, the art and food were delightful as the Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans, artist Seexeng Lee, and the Walker co-presented an art workshop and dinner to celebrate community, family, and cultural exchange. Asian American and Pacific Islander families along with members of the Walker’s Parent Advisory Group and their families came together to create a tiled mural filled with symbols and words inspired by Hmong culture, the Walker Art Center, and each individual’s creativity. The result: a powerful, colorful sum of parts.

Seexeng, who’s a practicing artist and teacher at South H.S., developed the overarching design on a series of 50 small square canvas tiles and asked participants to select a tile that spoke to them, and fill it with their own symbols. Once the paintings were complete the families helped themselves to a delicious buffet of food from Mango Thai, while Seexeng speedily dried and assembled the paintings onto a large plywood frame behind closed doors so that the unveiling was, to quote Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, “the best prize of all, a SURPRISE!”

Families hard at play

Calvin Her, PaYong Xiong, Missy Her, Mysister Her

The spread, courtesy Mango Thai Restaurant in St. Paul

Voila! The culminating masterpiece

Detail of mural

What images and symbols can you find?

In anticipation of the Walker’s ‘Fantastic Fourth‘ free event taking place in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden on Saturday, July 4th, indie singer-songwriter Haley Bonar and hip-hop artist M.anifest share their thoughts about the upcoming holiday.

Haley Bonar, Photo by Cameron Wittig

M.anifest, Photo courtesy the artist

Favorite 4^th of July memory?

HB: Watching the fireworks from Star Village in Rapid City, SD with my sisters on a blanket drinking coke.

Favorite type of firework?

HB: The ones that feel like they’re getting really close as they grow bigger.

M: The type that goes ka-boom and sends colorful sparks sky high. You can tell I’m no expert in fireworks nomenclature :)

Sparklers or Snaps?

HB: Sparklers are more magical!

Best lawn game?

HB: Lying down and reading a book.

M: Football (or soccer as called in these parts)

Best grill food?

HB: Summer squash and sweet potato

M: Chicken and plantains. My friend Mandla in Brooklyn Park makes the best barbeque grilled chicken in Minnesota. I stand by it!

What’s this country mean to you?

HB: Except for the littering of chain restaurants and stores across the land, it is one of the most beautiful countries around. I love the Black Hills, Oregon, Wisconsin, the UP (Upper Peninsula, MI), Montana, Northern Minnesota, boundary waters… so many awesome places to see.

M: It means a lot of opportunities as well as many contradictions. The land of the free you know. It means the epicenter of world political power. It means diversity in a beautifully strange way. You can find just about any kind of person in America: black, white, broke-as-hell, rich-as-well, liberal, neo-nazi, preacher, organic food eating, gun toting libertarians, and the list goes on. Lastly it means a good part of my adult life and music life thus far.

What song do you associate with 4^th of July?

HB: Born in the USA (even though I wasn’t!)

What song do you associate with independence?

M: “God bless our homeland Ghana.” I do dig the star spangled banner though…nice melody. I’m about to check Wikipedia to find out who wrote it.

What are you most looking forward to about spending your holiday at the Walker?

HB: Singing for you fine people.

M: Looking forward to seeing lots of people all coming out to have a good time. Good vibes and merry-making. We can forget about the recession for a day I suppose.

Where will you be watching fireworks on Saturday night?

HB: Not sure but hopefully somewhere with all my best friends and family.

M: Not quite sure yet, but I’ll be trying somewhere different this year. Preferably a less crowded location

A free outdoor Independence Day concert will be kicked off by Sumunar Gamelan Ensemble at 11 am, followed by Haley Bonar at 1 pm, and M.anifest at 2 pm near the Spoonbridge and Cherry.

Need an antidote to the recession blues? Wondering what to do on your summer stay-cation? Look no further than the Walker and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden where free-wheelin’ fun times await you on the 4th of July. From 10 am to 3 pm enjoy free gallery admission, a daylong outdoor concert, an art bike parade and contest, art-making activities, hula-hooping workshops, and a Wolfgang Puck garden grill to get your independent spirit soaring-all part of a special holiday edition of Free First Saturday, called “Fantastic Fourth!” Be sure to decorate your bike at home in red, white, and blue flair, and bring it with you to enter the bike parade that kicks off at noon near the Spoonbridge and Cherry. Winners will be announced at 1 pm at the main stage. All ages are welcome! In case that’s not a clear enough case for why the Walker should be your holiday destination, check out my top ten list of reasons why to take advantage of the all-access pass to summer fun:

1. You missed Rock the Garden? Catch another amazing musical line-up for FREE: Sumunar Gamelan Ensemble (11 am), Haley Bonar (1 pm), and M.anifest (2 pm)

2. This is way easier than a week-end camping trip up north

3. Rumor has it there may be dippin’ dots at the Garden Grill by Wolfgang Puck

4. Ever tried making spin art with a salad spinner? (Nope, we haven’t either, but we’re hoping this DIY project works out.)

5. Where else can you get a 1,200 pound cherry in the backdrop of your family snapshot?

6.  Can’t afford air conditioning, come inside the building and enjoy ours (wow, and there’s art too!)

7. See Grandma hula-hoop like nobody’s business

8. There’s about 12 hours to kill before the fireworks go off

9. Discover the magic of aluminum foil: bike decor by day, grill grate cover by night

10. Because we’re the only art center in town holding a party just for you!

Courtesy the Duffalo family archives

Families were enchanted at last week-end’s Free First Saturday by the marvelous ways artists explore time and space using science, sound, and technology in the exhibition The Quick and the Dead. The day was entitled ‘Magical Mysteries’ and was highlighted by a series of explorations led by the Science Museum of Minnesota, an instrument-making activity surrounded by cool sound stations designed by L.A.-based musician/artists Sarah RaRa and Luke Fischbeck (part of sound duo Lucky Dragons and the drawing collective, Sumi Ink Club), a magic show by G Sparks, and a dance sampler with New World Dance: New York.

This past week-end drew a great crowd to Free First Saturday. The Family Photobooth was a perfect addition to the days’ events, which were focused on portraiture, painting, and the exhibition Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton. In case you’re wondering about the backdrop in the photos, this is not a replacement for Takashi Murakami’s wallpaper, but a fabulously printed fabric called “Leo” put out by Alexander Henry Fabrics that’s available at Crafty Planet in Northeast Minneapolis.

Just because Jody Williams‘ books are small doesn’t mean they aren’t a huge undertaking. Each year this Minneapolis-based book artist devotes time to one large-scale project, in addition to smaller projects, and her teaching commitments at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The Walker is showing her 1998 piece, In Here / Out There as part of the Text/Messages: Books by Artists exhibition, and she was kind enough to stop by last week-end’s Free First Saturday to show families mock-ups of this book as well as another one, called Word for Word inspired by one of my favorite word games, Scrabble.

In Here / Out There 3" x 2 1/4" x 1 1/2" edition 65, out of print , 1998

Here are some interesting tidbits about Jody’s work:

• She likened In Here / Out There to our experience of living in Minnesota during winter…you want to go outside but you can’t because of the cold, but staying inside and in your head for so long can be a dangerous thing.
• The ladder made of linen thread was glued together and held between 2 wax sheets of paper while it adhered together.
• In Here / Out There was reproduced 65 times over, to produce an edition. Similar to printmakers, book artists make multiples so they can sell their work and make it accessible to a larger number of people.
• Sometimes Jody makes her own paper and prints her own designs onto paper before using it to make a book (which makes the value go up). The black designs on the red paper in In Here / Out There were printed using a technique called linoleum block printing.
• Despite the fact that Jody’s books are usually contained within a box, she admitted to not liking her college architecture class because there were “too many rules.” She prefers to make her own rules!
• Her Scrabble-inspired book Word for Word is meant to be used as you play the game. She made her own letter-pieces for this project. How are they different from the ones you use to play with?

Word for Word 2 1/2" x 2 3/4" edition of 100, 2001