dear jinan,

sounds interesting - needs research.
my wife is left-handed - she can read (and write with both hands), forward and back and upside-down. It's a party trick of no great significance. It upsets officials when she can read their documents upsidedown; it fascinates her students when she can mark their work upsidedown (reading and writing). She is stronger in maths than language. So what?

cheers
keith



> On 6 Jun 2014, at 4:32 pm, "Jinan K B" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hello
> We at the sadhana school have initiated research on drawing.
> 
> We are exploring drawing as a cognitive tool - both as a tool to
> enhance observation (content) and also as tool to develop internal
> ability of abstraction.
> We have created a space or condition that allow total spontaneousread
> activity from children and after three years of observation and
> documentation e have found very interesting possibilities. Drawing,
> being clubbed with art, self expression etc has masked its real
> potential.
> 
> As a tool for enhancing observation
> Observation drawing is an important activity to make children see
> things around them in detail. It helps to root ourselves to the three
> dimensionality of the world and this rooting would help us when we
> occupy ourselves with the conceptual world.
> As a tool for describing
> As a tool for reflection
> As a tools for abstraction
> Drawing also enables abstraction from three dimension to two
> dimension. Converting the three dimensional object in to two dimension
> is a very important cognitive act. The abstraction that happens is
> quite remarkable and this is very difficult for the educated person to
> accomplish. It seems that children before they are caught by the
> rational framework are able to see without the need for thought to
> interpret what they are seeing. They are able to just observe and
> draw. The educated goes through three steps. They see, think and draw
> and quite often they are not able to draw where as children are able
> to draw quite easily.
> As a tool for developing pre writing skill
> As a tool for imagination
> As a tool for thinking
> 
> when we started this initiative in june (2011) , the third day I came
> across an event that totally challenged the way we deal with children.
> As we had ‘let’ children do what they felt like that is what all the
> children were doing. Some were playing, some were drawing, some were
> reading etc.
> One child was drawing in a drawing book and after few minutes another
> child came in and started drawing along with her and then yet another
> child joined and also started drawing in the same drawing. And in few
> minutes the one who started the drawing left and the other two
> continued.
> We learned several lessons from that event. Foremost is that children
> by nature are co- operative, are not possessive about ‘their’ drawing,
> is able to accommodate others, one can also draw upside down (that is
> what the second girl was doing because she sat on the opposite side of
> the first child). Respect for autonomy is evident from the fact there
> was no objection either to join the drawing or to leave. May be ‘self-
> expression’ is yet another invention of the adults. They were least
> bothers about any ones approval and individual ownership. They were
> not keen to put them up on the notice board and even having their
> names written on the drawing. I wonder then how do we end up becoming
> so possessive, individualistic (my personal space) and selfish. Being
> here and now was what mattered to children. They were fully involved
> in the act yet detached.
> We also noticed that children were drawing anywhere and everywhere and
> was using anything they could find. They were drawing on the floor,
> wall, ground, table, slate, paper and were using their own finger,
> water, chalk, stick, pencil, paint, powder made by crushing chalk or
> the readymade colour used for doing rangoli etc.  So we consciously
> began to make several changes to the ‘class room’ and to our rigid
> minds. We replaced the black board and painted lower half of the walls
> black and this enabled children to draw large pictures. Children were
> any way using the ground for drawing and hence the black board also
> found place on the ground. That act was a symbolic act of removal of
> authority from our school. As we did not have rigid periods and time
> table children were having opportunity for total freedom, self-
> initiative and autonomy.
> One this is clear that children know clearly what they are drawing and
> there is always a concrete topic/ subject that they draw. They will
> tell you clearly what they are drawing. One day we saw two children
> were moving around and drawing on the floor, all over the class. They
> were telling other children that they are drawing water flowing from
> the water tap.
> Yet another incident was of a girl sitting on the floor and drawing
> with a chalk on the floor. As she was drawing a big picture she was
> using her both hands. Even though she was using her right hand most of
> the time when the drawing went over to the left side she would
> immediately use her left hand.
> may be this will help children to be ambidextrous which was always
> the case among non literate cultures.
> I am yet to compile the videos and drawings. But if any one is
> interested in collaborating with us to study this further you are
> welcome.
> jinan
> www.sadhanavillageschool.org
> 
> 
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