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Visitors to downtown Claremont's venerable Some Crust Bakery were treated to a special exhibit with their tea and treats last month: artwork by students of The Children's School at Claremont McKenna College, which lined the adjoining café's walls in a riot of colors, ideas, media, and approaches.
Substitute teacher Elizabeth Tulac was admiring other pieces in the Some Crust gallery one afternoon (the bakery window and café walls frequently showcase local artistry), when the idea for a student art show struck. "Children's art is as valuable an expression as many of the very expensive pieces that have hung in the gallery at Some Crust," Tulac explains. "It brings a freshness of approach and unrestricted expression."
A former high school chemistry teacher whose animated conversation about teaching and learning is peppered with references to physicist Richard Feynman, Tulac is adventurous when it comes to creative expression. "I think it's important to expose children to different media and processes that they can choose to use in the way they like."
And what better way to create art than with tools already familiar to youngsters? With a dash of imagination and a few words of encouragement, freezing paints in Dixie cups, melting crayons, and blowing bubbles across paper landscapes suddenly became new doors to creative expression for some of the participants.
Tulac, acting as curator, was happy to step back and observe reactions to the resulting achievements. "We live in a very adult-thinking world," she says. "I watched with delight as people came into the café and looked at the children's art. It wakes people up to see things from an uninhibited perspective."
Pablo Picasso famously said that it took him four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. Janet Dreyer, director of The Children's School, hangs this quotation in her classroom when children are working on art projects. Artistic expression through painting, music, and other media is an essential element of the school's child-centered and child-directed curriculum.
Beyond any single curricular aspect, the school seeks to create a rich environment where children can thrive, learning to balance inquiry, fairness, initiative, and responsibility to oneself and others. For Dreyer, this takes a form that is practically and theoretically congruent with the mission of CMC.
"Even with our smallest children, and certainly with our older children," she says, "there is a concern with learning to listen, think, problem-solve, and be responsible to other people. Those are the qualities of an effective leader."
At The Children's School, the leaders in the making aren't just the 5-and-under set. They're also the young adults working, studying, and perhaps even playing at the school, as many CMC students spend time there as volunteers, interns, work-study participants, and in supervised research. "The purpose of being here is for college students as well," says Dreyer. "It's an important place for young adults to learn about and interact with young children in a positive and constructive way. You see our college students brighten when they work with children. "
Watching children at work and play is a source of joy for the staff, parents, and teachers at The Children's School. "I've often thought that any time any CMCer wanted a break," says Tulac, "they should come by here and visit. To see children at play is a great way to lower your blood pressure and get inspired. There is a freshness that comes from having children around."
Tulac says she tried to capture and distill some of that in the exhibition, hoping to inspire adults to take children's art seriously as expression, while showcasing the innovative and experiential curriculum of The Children's School.
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