Children's Art: Process vs. Product

The paper plates say it all - A universe apart!

 

Each of these 'plate' projects was created by a four year old at school. Which is Art? Which is craft? What difference does it make? Which opportunity (art vs. craft, process vs. product) do you offer the children that you serve? Each equally? One more than the other? Do you have a solid rationale for which experience you use and when and WHY?

 

 

Process
It's all about the engagement, the exploration, the experiment. The moment at hand. The immediate feedback. Process, by its very definition is an 'open-ended' experience. It's literally go with the flow + see what happens. It's quite possibly messy. Even TOTALLY messy! It's very often exciting. It's inherantly personal: process.

Product
It's all about the parents, the grandparents, the refrigerator. It's pretty typically cute and gets the response, "Oh you made a ______." There's a preconcieved idea. There's a pattern. We need to march along and get the steps in order. Teacher has counted out the parts. Teacher has pre-cut the tricky bits. First this. Then that. This goes here. That goes there. Add some of these. Teacher adds a magnet. Voila. It's usually pretty difficult to tell yours from your friends. Sometimes impossible in fact.

Every one of these students has had access to the same colors of construction paper and yet every one of their finished pieces is totally unique. Individual. Personal. Some artists proceeded to tear their torn pieces into HUGE clumps, others are teeny-tiny miniscule, but all of the artists are indeed engaged in the process. These children know which is their work. You might even have a good guess at which one your child created..... even without looking at the handwriting on the attached reports.

 

 

 

What do you think about these 16 penguins? They were born on the same day, of the same parents on the same ice burg, and have eaten the same thing every day of their cloned existence? In my mind, its like a science experiment gone wrong. If you were the parent volunteer for the afternoon, would you be able to guess which antarctic creature your child had created? 

 This teacher has been very busy. Those children had the opportunity to learn about gluing. Don't get me wrong, there is something to be learned from gluing. There is no room for individuality and self-expression. Allow children the opportunity to use their innate child-like capabilities of original and novel thought-processing just as long as possible. The world will be banging down the door soon enough with demands of product + productivity. Let's let the kids be immersed in their childhood for as long as possible. Let's give them every possible opportunity to explore, create, sparkle with individuality and show us what THEY've got -- show us what's inside -- show us their process.