Self-portrait from a mirror

Self Portrait - no aid



Self Portrait - using mirror
and teacher guidance

 One day, I noticed N, who is a girl and is nearly three years old, was concentrating on her drawing. I kept quiet and moved a bit closer to observe.  I could see that a girl was being drawn on her paper. After N finished her work, I pointed to her picture and asked her, “who is this?”, “That’s me!” she proudly answered. “Look at my dress, is it pretty?” The girl drawn was wearing a flowery dress, her eyes were different sizes and she was missing a nose. “Yes, I like the dress, but did you forget to draw something on your face?” I said pointing to the picture. She looked at her picture, and then looked up at me with a puzzled face. I decided to introduce mirror as a technology for N’s self portrait drawing. I went to the shelf and brought a mirror back. I then asked her to look at her reflection in the mirror and compare what she drew. “Is there anything different?” I asked. After comparing carefully, N realised that she forgot to draw a nose for herself in the picture. “N is not got a nose” she laughed, and quickly drew a nose for herself. We had a little discussion on her hair, eye colour and hair length. After this meaningful experience, I encouraged the children to use a mirror to look at while they drew their self-portraits. Once the children observed themselves in the mirror, their self-portraits were much more alike.

Teaching young children about technology from an early age is very important as technology is incorporated in their society, their world and it will rule their lives (Mulberg, 1992). As we are a Reggio Emilia inspired centre, I believe that the Reggio Emilia Approach is an important way to implement technology in early childhood settings in New Zealand. Facilitating the environment as the third teacher will help children’s learning, and will develop and expand their technological practice (Cadwell, 1997). The environment was set up to be the third teacher whereby, the child N was engaged with the surrounding and learnt from it. He was given lot of opportunities to explore himself whether through this self-portrait activity and the way he communicated with me and his peers. In N’s learning experience, I used open-ended questions to excite her interest and curiosity. As MacNaughton and Williams (2004) states, questioning is an important technique because it invites the children to discover something for themselves. To continue supporting N to be an independent learner, I applied a mirror in her environment to encourage her to observe herself carefully and think deeply, thus assist N’s development on self-awareness. As an early childhood educator, I believe that using several resources to facilitate children’s learning would help them achieve the goals easier (MacNaughton & Williams, 2004). After exploring the mirror, N then identified the problem with her portrait and found a possible solution.

In this self-portraiting activity, mirror is a technology and tool for children learn and observe themselves. Drawing is a skill that we practice daily with the children. We experience ourselves from the inside out, mirror gives us a brief glimpse of ourselves from the outside.As Pelo (2007) describes, a self-portrait is an intimate, bold declaration of identity. I realised that self-portraits are great way to have child look at themselves and think deeply about body awareness, help the children build their self-esteem and see themselves as unique individuals. During this self-portraiting from the mirror, the children are both the artist and the subject, self-portraits are expressions of how the children see themselves at the time. This is in line with Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aoteraroa/early childhood curriculum, “the arts are important to the growth of self-expression and to a sense of self-worth and enjoyment” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.94). Through the discussion, children developed “increasing understanding of their bodies and how they function” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.48).

Reference list:

Cadwell, L, B.(1997). Bring Reggio Emilia home: an innovative approach to early childhood education. New York: Teachers College Press.

MacNaughton, G., & Williams, G. (2004). Techniques for teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice. Frenchs Forrest NSW: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aoteraroa. Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Mulberg, C. (1992). Beyond the looking glass: Technological myths in education. In C, Budgett-Meakin (Ed.), Making the future work (p. 145-153). London: Longman.

Pelo, A. (2007). The language of art: Inquiry-based studio practices in early childhood settings. Yorkton, Canada: Redleaf Press.