The future: what's in it for our kids?
If you’ve got seven and a half minutes to spare, watch this - and if you can get your kids to sit with you then bring them along - this will inspire questions and conversations about the future world of work.
What’s great to see in this is that the soft skills such as creativity, caring and connection top the list as key to enabling fulfilled teams, meaningful work and career prospects, and nurturing future leaders.
Our engagement and activation sessions are community-based, child-led and built on a foundation of creativity and playfulness. What floats your creative boat?
Here’s a summary video that may inspire conversations with our children and young people about what the future holds in terms of work. Creativity, caring and connection sit firmly at the top!
Pass the creativity along!
Pass the creativity along
#passthecreativityalong
So, times are challenging right now.
However, that doesn’t mean we can’t keep ourselves moving forward and creating!
It’s a great time to get into those unfinished projects and pick up those arty skills you’ve been meaning to hone. We had a think about ways we could not only keep our creativity going, but how we could keep connected with our participants and other creatives… We thought, what if we could “pass the creativity along”?
Do you recall the Act Belong Commit -supported phenomenon called “Pass the song along”?
Back in 2017 the Spirit of the Streets Choir in Perth came together on World Singing Day to “Pass the song along”. The choir was part of the growing legacy of singing groups and people whose aim it was to pass the song along. And what was the song you ask? A simple and catchy karaoke-style song set up for Act-Belong-Commit through Sing For Health. You can check out the song on YouTube (why not kick it into action for yourself and pass the song along!) …even in Mandarin!
So, in these times of social distancing and self-isolation, we need not hide ourselves under the covers! Why not take up the idea of passing the song along and join us to “pass the creativity along”?
The connecting power of play streets
Marg and Kat discuss the emergence of a local play street project in inner city Perth, Western Australia. During the four years of play street they have learnt much about the power of reclaiming spaces for play in local neighbourhoods where children can get to know the place they call home. Here’s what they had to say…
We started talking about things like, “how do we encourage our kids to get to know the place in which they live? What do our kids do after school? Do they really need to go to after school activities; it would be great if they could just hang out and play.
“The idea of play street really is to recreate what we had when we were kids. We were told to go outside after school and not come back until dinner time. We might have come across some situations that had a little bit of inherent risk. Where we played on empty building sites or rode down the hill a bit too fast on our bikes, but had to make those decisions independently. Our children really don’t have those same opportunities so much anymore. Most of their play provisions are in activities or in organised play dates with one or two kids that are usually their age and often their gender.”
Twelve year old Zadie tells of her play street experience and how mixing with different ages is really fun.
“During play street we play with both the boys and the girls, all different ages. At lunch and recess at my school, the girls all sit together and the boys all sit together and we play very different things.”
We know that play builds brains and play is really important and by playing together with this bigger range of children, where they’re practicing to get along together and practicing sorting out difficulties. They’re really practicing becoming better citizens.
Tim Gill says that “children are an indicator species for cities. The visible presence of children and youth of different ages and backgrounds, with or without their parents in numbers, is a sign of the health of human habitats. Just as the presence of salmon in a river is a sign of the health of that habitat”.
The biggest inhibitors to play now is that we are finding perceptions of risk that started with the Council’s fear of something happening on the street and litigation. We found that so many of our kids were not allowed to go past the front gate because something might happen to them. We’re so afraid of our kids going out and being abducted, or we’re drumming this idea of stranger danger into them. We’re not allowing them build the skills of assessing risks. We’re almost creating a generation of kids that isn’t able to cope with those life situations.
A national “1000 play streets projects” is underway funded by Sports Australia in partnership with Play Australia and Play Streets Australia. Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia all have trial sites that enable local residents to try out a play street, work with local council to establish guidelines and embed the play street concept into their ongoing community development strategies.
Play Australia partnered with LaTrobe University to develop and evidence review report on the benefits of play streets. The review was released in June 2020.
According to Kat’s experience as a parent:
I feel so much more comfortable knowing that I think my kids are going to be okay. They’re learning so much through play streets and playing with their friends. They’re learning to stick together. They know their neighbourhood so much better. They know they can pop into the corner store. They know the storekeeper. They know people around them.
By giving our children the freedom to move around their neighbourhood independently, we’re building their confidence and their trust in themselves to make the right decisions and be able to assess risks.
So we started Rae Street Play Street by an email conversation just to get a bit of a feel that the idea was a fit for our area with our friends and those we knew already in the neighbourhood. Then the next step was a call to Council. The City of Vincent are quite a proactive council, particular around social inclusion and community development work. Council encouraged us at that point to just have a go. They have since developed an Open Streets policy.
Things that we pushed over the course of the play street project included riding of bikes, scooters and skateboards, with some bike tinkering sessions. Some of the older children and some of the adults have come along and done repair work and shown people how to maintain their bikes. That’s a nice flow-on effect from the play itself. It shows a bit of role modelling and a bit of modelling between the older children and the younger children.
During play street days, children will investigate the verges, and climb the trees. You’ll see the children initiate play with the inclusion of loose parts, such as cardboard boxes, tubing, materials, blankets, and there’s lots of cubby building, for example.
Sometimes the question put to us as we developed play street was, “why not just go down to the park and play?”
Thinking about the way in which you have to get to a park, you have to navigate your environment and know your place if you do want to go down to the park and have a play.
In our adult brains we often categorise off “this is a place for play”, “this is a place to catch up”, but we tend to forget that places like our streets are our connecting membranes. They are the arteries. They are not just car-oriented arteries in our neighbourhoods. We have to reclaim them again as our community avenues as well.
Play street has really activated our use of the street. As well as our community in coming together to be empowered to claim back that bit of space and hold that space for our children to play.
Ten year old Felix says play streets has been fun, enabling him and his friends to get out more and enjoy the local neighbourhood.
“It’s really brought out the community. I’ve felt safer ever since this was made. Just coming up and riding around the streets and having a go at random stuff. I’ve made a lot of new friends. It’s really fun.”
The experience of being out on the street with our children has given us as parents more confidence to talk with our children about this being our place, and being your place and you can have a great deal of ownership about what happens here.
Marg O’Connell and Katharina Popp
15 November 2019
Interviewer: Lauchlan Gillett
Survival skills for the future (one palette knife at a time)
Tools like palette knives, whittling knives, lino carving tools, drills and saws can be dangerous if used incorrectly. But they also give a great sense of agency to children who, through their creative projects, are empowered to make a mark in and on their world.
Art is not always pretty… Take a creative risk…
This post struck a chord with many on our socials. For us it was about sharing a series of creative sessions that excited and engaged boys as well as girls to be curious and achieve physical mastery of a different tool for artist expression - palette knives.
It reflects current trends in empowering children to be wild and adventurous and take risks while retaining an instagrammable aesthetic. We know that in order for children to analyse risks and develop reasoning skills, as well as build their agility and dexterity, they need to encounter (in a supportive environment) real problems and experiences such as fire, carving tools, knives, saws and drills and messy lamp black ink.
In order to develop grit and tenacity children need their curiosity awakened and to be challenged with projects that seem difficult, dangerous and worthwhile. And in order to develop confidence in exploring, connecting and loving their natural world they should also be supported to collect scrapes, bruises, muddy feet, dirty hands and grass in their hair. Being curious and adventurous in the creative process on their own terms means allowing space and time for exploring where materials, art techniques and ideas take them… and that is not always where our adult aesthetic and perspective has intended. We find ourselves led by our own needs and intentions rather than the child’s needs for play and playful creating.
Art is not always pretty. But after a creative studio session where your child has been exposed to new art materials, ways of working and ways of thinking about the creative process, they will always come home having learnt a lot of things which may or may not look like a beautiful piece of art.
Art and the creative process are about communication, exploring and understanding your world and growing and expressing ideas. With three active, boisterous and sporty boys between us we are always looking for projects and processes that spark both boys’ and girls’ creativity. Tools like palette knives, whittling knives, lino carving tools, drills and saws can be dangerous if used incorrectly - but they also give a great sense of agency to children who, through their creative projects, are empowered to make a mark in and on their world.
Having a go at something new, using an unfamiliar tool and giving visual expression to thoughts and ideas means taking emotional and physical risks. Parents and pedagogues around the world are recognising that learning how to cut with knives, manage a fire and use a range of tools are skills which can be safely taught, enabling children to assess and manage risks.
“This is scary fun”
It’s empowering for a child to feel the kind of agency that comes with the trust placed in them to learn to use a real tool for the purpose it was intended. And even more so when they can transfer such skills to bigger and more wicked problems as they grow into adults.
Creativity is about more than imagination. It’s not an easy feat to whittle a stick to become a functional pen nib. It takes dexterity, grit, tenacity and the discipline to refine your work and finish the job. These are the skills we value as parents and as a community, but don’t often see them nurtured and prioritised. Claxton and colleagues identified 5 ‘habits of mind’ as indicators of creativity:
“1. Inquisitive: wondering and questioning; exploring and investigating; challenging assumptions.
2. Persistent: tolerating uncertainty; sticking with difficulty; daring to be different.
3. Imaginative: playing with possibilities; making connections; using intuition.
4. Disciplined: crafting and improving; developing techniques; reflecting critically.
5. Collaborative: cooperating appropriately; giving and receiving feedback; sharing the creative ‘product’.”
There is a growing understanding of the skills our children need in a world that is rapidly changing, in which environmental issues are becoming critical and digitalisation, AI and automation are growing exponentially. There are wicked economical, ecological and social problems which just cannot be fixed by humans who have followed instructions and coloured inside the lines.
““Demand for higher cognitive skills such as creativity, critical thinking and decision making, and complex information processing, will grow through 2030 at cumulative double-digit rates. The growing need for creativity is seen in many activities, including developing high-quality marketing strategies...”
Alongside creativity, humans of the future will need highly developed visual language and visual literacy - not only to make sense of an increasingly visual world on their devices but to navigate the treacherous landscape of advertising to make good decisions based on knowledge and understanding rather than being sucked in to clever marketing campaigns and enticing ads.
Creativity, communication and critical and divergent thinking are not soft skills. They are survival skills for an uncertain future. Too often they are sidelined in curriculum and school planning, and there is little time and space to practice them in the busy schedules of well organised contemporary households.
We are constantly reflecting on our practices and have realised that our children already have skills that we need to build our own trust in, to know that these developing skills will serve them well into a future that is not-yet-defined. We wish in our children to kindle creative souls who are their best self now and have the skills to survive in their world when we are no longer holding their hands in which they will become key decision makers and leaders.
Kindling creative spaces provide a kindling pile of stuff and space and time ensuring children’s skills have space to grow and develop. And aprons and a washable, serviceable concrete floor.
For us as artists and makers, and for the adults who book a Kindling Creative catch-up with us, it’s also a reminder to give yourself permission to lose yourself in the flow of some creative play - and be curious about what you might discover.
Links:
World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/the-3-skill-sets-workers-need-to-develop-between-now-and-2030/
A me•mor•able father's day
It’s almost father’s day. The kids want to go ‘father’s day shopping’. Apparently that’s what you do. 7 years ago at this time, I was trying to find a father’s day present that was meaningful, unique, connecting and affordable - and I wanted it to come from our three year old son as much as anything, because it was all about being a father and building the father-child connection.
I wanted our son to feel like the present was from him and it was a special thought for dad, celebrating everything he was as a dad. My own childhood memories were of making presents ourselves. I guess there probably wasn’t the money to give to each of the four kids to buy something from the shop, but the result was that we grew up believing that handmade gifts created with love, care and effort were more special. Now, I wish for my children to grow up as capable individuals who are problem solvers and who feel capable and confident in their ideas and capacity to acquire skills. That they have the ability to make and create. And you don’t need to go to a shop for everything.
Playing games, turn taking, learning rules, cognitive capacity building and brain training… are so much a focus for young children. I was always looking for opportunities for my partner to connect with his son between long hours at work and probably not having grown up in a house full of kids where family play time was a priority. Memory is one of those games that is easy to get in to at any age, the rules are simple and you can increase or decrease the number of matching pairs to suit the age and ability of the players. It’s one of the first games I remember playing with my parents, and one of the first games I played with my own.
I collected any pictures I had two copies of - the extra passport photos (Felix’s first!), the leftover birth notices and birthday invitations, the photos I had printed off to send to grandmothers and aunties, multiple postcards I bought on trips and never sent, tickets to the Playschool show we had been to see. I printed off a few extra pictures of Felix and his dad - the things they had discovered and done together. And I got Felix to make some drawings on cards directly - the two copies turned out similar enough to be recognised as a pair! This manual process of making was probably what cemented the concept of matching pairs for him.
We played a lot of memory that week and talked about the memory on each of the cards as we turned them over.
Then the game was lost for a few years in the growing pile of games… until I pulled it out again when we started the Kindling creative journey and were brainstorming prompts to #makespacetocreate and build capacity and confidence in children and families to slow down, share creative experiences and the process of making and creating by hand. We were looking to ‘kindle creative sparks’ in lives full of screens, scheduled activities and commercial and packaged (plastic wrapped) entertainment.
We played the old memory game over and over that day - the kids giggling over how small they were and the parents reminiscing. It was like a playable family photo album, or the family slide night with the added sting of competitive strategising.
And that was the start of the me•mor•able DIY memory game. We’ve made it as a creative spark for you, to be personalised and played or gifted with love.
And I think this year the kids can make a me•mor•able extension set. They think memory games are too easy. I wonder how many game pieces can fit on our table ;). Visual - spacial perception training is apparently also important for better Naplan results. And their dad turned fifty this year. He needs memory training. It’s been proven to keep braincells from deteriorating and delay the onset of Alzheimers.
It’s a no-brainer :)
me•mor•able
A memory game crafted by you, played for fun and shared with everyone!
My Story My Home
Awesome Arts Festival 2017, 'My Story, My Home', Art Gallery of WA
In October 2017, we put our building hats on and moved into the Art Gallery space, albeit temporarily!
We were invited to run some children's workshop in conjunction with the My Story My Home exhibition, designed and produced by World Press Photo Perth.
We learnt a good deal about engagement.
We learnt something about play.
We thought about our ways of working!
We had a lot of 'stuff'! But in terms of play and making, 'stuff' becomes something else. It is given life and meaning by those who manipulate it to create a new use for it.
A play space created by kids, for 'My Story, My Home' AGWA exhibition, 2017
And boy, can Perth kids play! It was such a fun weekend! Thank you AGWA and World Press Photo Perth for including us in this amazing activity!