Photo *Heart* Fridays – Learning about Culture

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What does Singapore’s culture mean to a 5-6 year old?

From our heritage walks of Arab Street, Chinatown, Little India and Dec 2012 visit to the Peranakan Museum, the children have learnt that the country they live in is a melting pot of diverse cultures and languages.

Amongst the 4 cultures that the kids experienced from our walkabouts of the ethnic areas in Singapore, we didn’t get to complete our walkabout for the Peranankan area. Our plans for a Katong/Joo Chiat walkabout was thwarted by heavy rains that particular day after the visit to the Peranakan Museum.

The Peranakan Museum was an intriguing place for the kids to learn more about the Peranakan culture, with its artifacts, intricate beadwork and collection of Peranakan objects.

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To complete my series on The Accidental Tourists (Singapore), I will be doing walkabouts in the next few weeks exploring the ethnic enclave of Peranakan culture, the Katong/Joo Chiat area. Which incidentally, is the stretch of road that I travel at least twice daily, sending K to and fro school in the mornings and evenings.

Look out for my upcoming series of posts; The Accidental Tourist (me lah!) takes a Peranakan tour in Katong and Joo Chiat.

 



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Guest Post – Our Children next time how?

This is the first guest post on my blog, and I have been hoping to get this person to break his silence on the blogosphere for some time.

It is none other than my dearest hubby, Keith. Keith has a knack for expressing situations alot better than I can, providing his personal insights.  As a couple, we share many similar views in bringing up children, here’s his take on education on bringing up Kyle.

“Now cannot study, next time drive taxi lor…” When these words escape our lips, they are often dismissed as a corny remark along with a spate of nervous laughter. That reaction, of course, is natural. Now, do not get the wrong idea, being a taxi driver is a perfectly honest way to make a living and I personally have 2 family members belonging to that profession. However, in the context of this post, which parent can claim to envision marshalling a taxi to be the eventually choice of making a living for their child?

Screen Shot 2012 05 28 at 11 56 20 AMPhoto from http://thecitizenobserver.wordpress.com/

“Mummy ~ Daddy, I score the highest in class!” Now, that is a statement we mentally envision our child saying one day, perhaps in front of audience consisting of family, friends or both, where we will then have an opportunity to avoid exploding with pride and exercise our self-control while we put on a straight face and respond modestly, probably mumbling  something along the lines of keeping it up and not getting too complacent  along the way….

Now come the questions I want to table. What are our expectations for our child? How successful do we envision helping our child to be? How do we plan on executing that vision? My personal opinion is strongly tied-in with an examination of this society we co-exist in, children are constantly being pressured to perform against an academic counter.

In the course of their schooling career, character building, health focus and mental balance (amongst other things) often play second fiddle to academic achievement. That is very understandable, after all, is it not untrue that getting a place in the primary school near home is no longer adequate. It is no longer just getting a place in school but also it is excruciatingly crucial to land a spot in a branded highly ranked primary school to give your child the best start in life possible. (not even going to start on the recent trend of branded pre and prep schools)

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So,  does the success my wife and I envision for our son, Kyle, primarily involve only programming the ability to beat down the competition in school into him? It is of course the desire of this parent that I would prefer my child to be astute in all aspects of his life. Unfortunately, in reality, we humans, though top of our food chain, have our limitations too. Not everyone can be a genius, a savant or a MP…

As parents, we frequently ponder what we should emphasize more of, how we can teach and guide him more effectively to succeed in life. Should we consider tuition, home-schooling, etc? We worry about how Kyle will grow up to handle an increasingly challenging world out there? Will he be adequately equipped? Are we guiding him correctly? So many more questions arise.

We then realize that we need only look at our own day to day lives to find the answer. As we face our own challenges, some seemingly insurmountable, we find that as long as we trust in God, we can survive even the meanest of situations thrown at us. So as the teachers of our child, Rachel and I have a rather laid-back style of teaching Kyle, preferring more to encourage his knowledge and dependence on God.

So what if this non-academic approach backfires? Rachel and I often get opportunities to observe Kyle’s successes and failures.  There were times when we thanked God as he displayed intelligence, picking up pretty quickly on certain things, or the times when we exchange mortified looks as he struggled with basic homework (we have even discovered IQ tests being snuck in here and there). Unavoidably, we undoubtedly feel the apprehension that follows the realization that our child has his limitations in some areas.

However, compared to drilling Kyle academically, Rachel and I know that if we can instill in him trust God, he will then be much better equipped to manage difficult situations in his life down the road. As we concentrate on guiding his young walk with God, Rachel and I worry much less about how he stacks up against others in his age group but instead find joy in teaching him how to take his weaknesses and failures in his stride. Dependence on God and having a full spirit will counter any of the many bankruptcies life can throw at a person.

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As Kyle grows too quickly day by day not unlike a mutant mushroom on steroids, we are fully aware that he may not end up being the next big thing. He may even have to struggle with the various challenges that life throws at him like other average Joes. But I think with emphasis on our walk with God as a family, the 3 of us will be alright.

So sometimes when the kiasu side of us surfaces and Rachel asks me what we can do about his struggles with certain academic aspects, I look at her and say: “Now cannot study, next time drive taxi lor!”

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Open ended art – Exploration with Water-colours

K was introduced to water-colour paints for our next open-ended art activity.

When he first dip his brush into the watercolor palette and applied the brush on the drawing paper, he frowned at what he saw, and told me that he did not like water-colours. As the paint colors could hardly be seen (we have been using tempera paints, and the color pigments on paper is a lot darker)

I had to spend some time explaining to him that watercolors are usually very light and transparent. Did a sample creation of my own artwork with watercolors to demonstrate that watercolors have a very different outcome on paper, compared to the tempera and poster color paints that he was used to.

After he was convinced that watercolors were different and not so bad after all, he went on to paint an ‘abstract’ creation of gradation shades of green and orange. Then he ran into his room and came back to the hall with a pack of markers, and started adding on to his artwork.

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Again, all I saw was stick people, differentiated in groups of different colors, with speech bubbles coming out of their heads and lots of numbers. Sure looks like his usual style of drawing, I thought. But boy, was I blown away when I asked him what was this artwork all about.

He told me to write all that he will dictate to me. As this dictation will be a write-up for his ‘Masterpiece’ (in his own words), next to his drawing. Very much like how art museums always have a short explanation of the artwork displayed next the artwork itself.

“It is in Japan because of the flag, the Japanese people (referring to the stick people in blue) are looking at the art piece in the museum. And the tourists too, the American guy cut his leg when he was kicking the sign (the stick people drawn with a pencil). The Turkey people (the ones in red) just love the art, they are saying, “Is this a good artist? But if you don’t see and don’t make this, you are a bad artist.” The ones in orange are from Malaysia, they just love cupcakes and they think that this is a extinct cupcake.

But actually the sign says that it is extinct guns and weapons and extinct volcanoes too, and some extinct dead people. The art is made in 1963. The purple numbers means that the people can be any age to look at the art piece. 5 and 6 years olds can also look at it. There is a TV on top so that the 5, 6 year olds can watch the TV and be distracted away from the violent art piece.

The statue has extinct buildings and houses and dinosaurs too. The house is 700,000 years old and they are extinct and crushed. The blocks inside the art piece (I think he meant apartment blocks) has the numbers 65 and 75. There are extinct animals and people. When the people are 100 years old, they die, but the animals only die when they are 200 years old.

Outside the museum there is a sign that says, the museum opens at 7 o’clock. And the outside of the door says ‘Open and Close at 7 o’clock’. The museum advertises robots fighting but the robots will explode in 1963.’

Then he loudly exclaimed, “That’s it. This is my masterpiece and I am an artist today – not an author and illustrator, so you have to write for me.”

I was quite amused by what he said. The word ‘tourist’ was explained to him two days ago when we spent an afternoon at Sentosa. Hearing the story that he created behind this art piece gave a good glimpse into the things that he tends to spend a lot more time thinking about. While others were learnt through new picture books that we read the last 1 month. From dinosaurs, weapons, volcanoes, dead people, people from different countries, violence in art, signs, time and year, and advertising.

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What I learnt from this experience :

– There were facts addressed in his story that did not correlate with the facts that he learnt; i.e, about buildings and people being extinct, but I made a point not to correct him. This activity was meant to encourage higher level of abstract thinking through his creations (thinking out-of-the-box) and not correctly answer factual information.

– This demonstrated how art can help with a child’s self-expression, create opportunities for problem solving and creative stories behind the art work. There have been research studies done to prove that art therapy works in children to bring out suppressed emotions to the surface, where parents/teacher can help address them.

– It proves that parents should never under-estimate the simplicity of symbolism used in open-ended art. Free-expression can be encouraged in open-ended art, and children can be given the freedom to add any symbols that they want in their creations; words, numbers or anything abstract. Most importantly, ask open-ended questions after the child have finished the artwork and encourage the dictation of the stories behind their creations.

– Visiting art museums can be beneficial for children. Children exhibits may be beneficial as it gives children the avenue to play and interact with the displays that are set up, but I think what is more beneficial is for the child to experience the regular art exhibits in the museum.

Screen Shot 2012 05 09 at 3 38 43 AMfrom Roubs Production Flick

Visiting the art museum is a wonderful way to encourage your child’s appreciation and understanding of the arts. But do let them enjoy the art themselves. By all means, read the description of the art piece, the interpretation of the work by the artist. But let them enjoy the art, taking in the colors, the emotions behind each creation and the artist’s inspiration. Don’t feel pressured that you will need to interpret everything for them and have to ask them plenty of questions on each piece.

After experiencing such interesting outcomes and watching the process from our home-learning art lessons, I am so motivated to pursue more art experiences moving forward. K is not the only one who is learning from his art experiences, I am learning just as much from these art experiences too!

Do give this method a try with your next open-ended art experience with your child, and I am sure your child will delight you with their little interesting stories behind their art creations.

An edited version of this article was published on myplayschool.net

And here is how I incorporated open ended outcomes to a structured art experience.

 

 

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