Drawing as a language: A way of knowing others to exchange one’s ideas and thoughts
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Abstract
In this article, I argue that drawing should be considered as a language to communicate with others in an early childhood educational setting. Rethinking children’s drawing as more than the completion towards the final product or an activity that they do alone, my focus is that listening to children’s drawing pedagogically supports our practice, particularly when we pay attention to small moments and the action of drawing to search for a collective inquiry in our continuous pedagogical journey. Understanding children’s drawing is valuable not only for a simple representation of objects, but also as a communicative way of knowing something that the drawers have not yet known. Children draw to tell special stories, exchange personal ideas, and construct unique theories in multiple ways with others to open and re-open new possibilities in their meaning-making process. Drawing perhaps is no longer a simple art-making practice that children do unaccompanied in an educational setting, but rather children, adults, materials, and the environment co-exist in a classroom and interdependently construct new knowledge. This social and cultural practice, drawing, is a process of artistic engagement, educational movement, communicative event, and a way of knowing and encountering the new. Educators actively join this convivial learning journey with children to arrange situations for fresh thoughts, insightful investigations, and dynamic actions to generate. Drawing goes beyond art activities solely to reveal children’s artistic skills; it is a compelling language and a way of knowing self, others, and the world around us.
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