Upending Our Aesthetic: Unbeautiful Play.

A few days ago, two neighborhood children, a brother and sister, visited our land in the country. We are slowly but surely renovating the place, and their father was our roofer. As happens to any early childhood professional when there are children present, I was very quickly engaged with them. Did they want to color? No. To look at a book? No.

“Oh! I know what could be fun,” the little boy said, perking up suddenly. “Let’s build a fort!”

“Yeah! A fort!” his sister agreed.

“A fort…” I replied, thinking for a moment. And while, of course, I had no qualms against a fort, I wasn’t sure how we’d manage to make one with what i perceived to be a paucity of space and materials.

However, I trusted that the children would find a way—perhaps even one I couldn’t imagine.

And so, we set off. Before long we had a sheet hanging high above us from a couple of patient evergreens. Old paint trays became a new cozy bed for a stuffed lamb. for a stuffed lamb. A few chips of wood for a garden bed, an old pipe for a sewage system, and an old oven rack for a grill. The ingenuity was astounding, and what made it even more special was that all of the pieces that the children used to create the space were old construction materials that have been on the property even before it was ours.

As the children dove deeper into their world created by imagination, loose parts, and mutual cooperation, I stood back, amazed. In and out, in and out, I dipped into the play to facilitate and participate as needed, and once the flow was restored I stepped back out and marveled.

This was not beautiful

Of course, the children’s play was beautiful. The cooperation and imagination were beautiful. The ingenuity and depths of knowledge they revealed repeatedly as I watched were all beautiful, yes. But the physical space to my own adult eyes was not beautiful. Could a few closeup shots and some warm tones made it seem magical and nostalgic? Yes. And it felt that way, truly.

But.

And this is a big but.

It was not beautiful.

—and this is fine!

One of the things that continues to strike me in my work with children is how, at certain times,  children upend my own sense of aesthetic. A sense intensely honed by my reading, my observation, my participation and facilitation of play and imaginative activities. A sense reinforced by conversations and professional development and, yes, the endless scroll. In my earlier years teaching I would resist this—what about the provocation I had worked to hard to set up? What about the delicate staging of dramatic play? The arrangement of the atelier?

Now, although my sensibilities on this topic can hardly be said to be settled, and while I do believe a powerfully aesthetic experience is often a starting point for some of the greatest moments of flow a child can have in play and creation, when a child is seriously set upon creating a new world through play, the aesthetics of the experience quickly fall into last place among their consideration.

Children don’t have adult eyes, and the beauty and worth of an experience is in the process of creating and creation. 

Should children’s spaces be pleasing to the eye? Should they be filled with materials that inspire a deep respect and reverence? Absolutely!

But, when a child choose to create a world that goes against, at least to our adult eyes, these principles, we must remember that it is not our role to “correct”, but to give space. Space to allow ourselves to be impressed and amazed and to fall more deeply in love with the people that our children are.

Happy creating!