Professor puts art before reading, sums

By STUART DYE

Young children's creativity is being stifled by the emphasis in schools on literacy and numeracy, says a British academic.

Professor Angela Anning says this emphasis is to the detriment of art - the mode in which young children express themselves and try to understand the world around them.

And it is a philosophy which limits the intellectual development of children, she says.

Professor Anning, emeritus professor of early childhood education at the University of Leeds, will present the results of a three-year study of children's drawings at the University of Auckland's faculty of education (formerly Auckland College of Education) today.

She concludes that educators and policy makers need to rethink the role of drawing in young children's meaning, communication and sense of identity.

"Often the most personal and passionate drawings were dismissed as a squiggle, but it is those pictures where the child is trying to explore and understand the world and their interests."

Professor Anning is one of only a handful of people in the world conducting research on the meaning of children's drawing.

She is in New Zealand to present her paper and to work with early childhood research teams at Auckland, Massey and Waikato universities

Her research looked at the work of seven children over three years.

Artwork they produced for a month at the beginning of nursery, then school, was collected, with drawings done at home.

The differences between the drawings were studied.

Professor Anning said that as children moved through the education system, their personalities and individual voices were lost as their drawings became shaped by the expectations of adults at the school.

"Drawing is a way of exploring different modes of communication, which becomes more important in a global economy, but we are failing to recognise that in education," she said.

"We are focusing on text and reading in a very narrow way which is limiting them intellectually."

Professor Anning said the New Zealand system offered more flexibility than the British education programme, but children needed more encouragement to think creatively.

Numeracy and literacy were vital for children to make their way in the world.

"But if we don't allow children to explore what really matters to them in an emotional and aesthetic way, we are cutting off an aspect of their growing and learning."