"THE CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT WORKSHOP"-ADAPTED FROM "THE WORKSHOP WAY OF LEARNING" BY EARL C. KELLEY

WHAT IS A WORKSHOP?

A Creative Environment Workshop is a teaching program to help effect change in education. It is part of a teaching philosophy that demonstrates, with adults, what we feel about children. Adults, as well as children, learn by doing, by discovery, by trial and error, and by having success with a personal vision. When a person can experience success by seeing his "vision-idea" take shape, that person will have the confidence in himself to continue to grow and change. A Creative Environment Workshop is a classroom for adults concerned with educating young children. Adults are teachers, aides, parents, student-teachers and supervisors. A classroom is any place where materials and people are brought together to learn. With the help of Facilitators, participants work with basic substances in much the same way as would children in a healthy learning situation. Wood, cloth, plastic, cardboard, metal, paint, etc. are provided. Tools, resource materials such as pamphlets, books, 35mm. slides, and films are made available when needed.

We place many things in the workshop that are not usually a part of an adult's past learning experiences. We arrange things around centers of interest allowing people to choose from amongst a number of possibilities. We encourage the investigation of open-ended materials. These are materials that can be used in a variety of ways. Exploring "stuff" and eventually making something from the "stuff", helps adults working with young children gain a deeper understanding of the way children learn.

After her first experience in a workshop, one teacher remarked, "I think I found out why one of my boys wanders around the classroom. He can't decide what to do. I had the same problem today. I went from one thing to another, I just couldn't decide what to do."

We think this kind of experience will help parents and teachers gain a deeper understanding of the learning style of youngsters. Workshop experiences where people are free to make something from a variety of choices is often difficult at first. However, the more time people spend in a creative setting the more comfortable they feel, and the more opportunity they have to satisfy their own needs and interests.

WHY HAVE A WORKSHOP?

The workshop approach to learning is essential to the education of adults working with young children. Much of our own education has not prepared us to understand the kind of learning environment that is needed in a rapidly changing and mobile society. Adaptation is now the key, adapting to new experiences, new people, and new products is more important than learning a limited set of static facts. We adults were not taught adaptive principles. We did not play an active part in planning, directing, or judging our own education. We were told what to learn, when, and how to learn it, and whether we had learned successfully. Our own experiences make it difficult for us to let youngsters take part in planning, directing, and judging their own learning. Without experiences of our own,

it is difficult for us to create settings for learning that allow adaptation and a variety of choices. The workshop gives adults a setting where they can plan, direct, and value their own work.

Second, instead of working with real things to learn basic ideas, adults learned primarily by studying basic ideas in an abstract way. In other words, we learned by words alone-not by doing. Most of us feel uncomfortable using materials to explain an idea. We have had little practice in creating our own learning materials and deciding what equipment and materials are best for our own setting. We have been given things that have already been developed. We have been taught to use materials in a special, limited way. It is difficult for us to shape settings for young children that will meet their needs and interests. The workshop gives people a chance to make things to put into the learning environment. Talking about what we have made and how children can use our materials, makes it easier to use these materials with children. Adults can take a more important role in shaping learning environments.

A Headstart teacher made four cardboard geometric cutouts, large enough for four-year olds to pass through. These were in the shape of a triangle, a rectangle, a square, and a circle. She explained that she wanted the children to "get the feel" of the different shapes by running and jumping through them. A few weeks later this teacher told a group of her workshop friends that she used the cutouts and that her kids knew a square from a rectangle.

HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A CREATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOP?

We have found that a workshop needs three or four Facilitators for twenty to twenty-five participants. These leaders are responsible for the overall operation and planning of the workshop. They have to provide materials for the birth of ideas, materials that are exciting and worthwhile for both adults and the children with whom they work.

The Facilitators are teachers. They act in the same way that we hope teachers will act in classrooms or parent-teachers will act at home. In planning and conducting the workshop, the leaders make the same two kinds of decisions that teachers must make if they are to develop a healthy learning environment. First, they decide what materials and learning situations to prepare in the workshop environment. Second, they determine whether, when and how to intervene in the learning of the workshop participant. In describing the teacher's role, Frances Hawkins, in her book The Logic of Action, has described the roles of the workshop Facilitators :

"In order to learn about children, a teacher must choose at two levels: first, in the selection of materials to be provided and then, more subtly at the level of teaching. A teacher must make choices as to whether, when, and how to intervene in the learning process, when it is not going well and when it is going very well indeed." P. 26.

The workshop leaders decide what to put into the learning environment. They provide initial materials from which the workshop participants make choices.

They observe and participate, picking up clues as to what to do next, whether to offer a suggestion, ask a question or say nothing. The Facilitators and participants plan for the kinds of materials that are needed or should be available for the next session.

A mother working at the workshop decided to make a gadget board for her young son. Since we had switches, bulbs, and batteries, she varnished a piece of board and fastened the items so that the switch turned on the light. The Facilitator asked what else could be placed on the board and suggested that she think of gadgets that were common in a house. The mother decided on a chain latch, hook latch, a zipper, and a window latch. The Facilitator made sure that these items were purchased for the next time that the mother came.

HOW ARE WORKSHOPS ORGANIZED?

We believe that healthy growth takes place over an extended period of time. The behavior that forms our personality took years to develop and will take years to change. A one or two day workshop may make most people happy because it is "righter" than the sum total of their mis-education. But, it only whets the appetite. It does not provide the materials, equipment, personnel, and space for adults to continue in this kind of learning atmosphere. We, therefore, use the one or two day workshop as an introduction to an on-going program. Most participants use the workshop once a week throughout the year, missing sessions based on their own priorities.

The workshop is set up in a space large enough to house a variety of activities. A room the size of a regular classroom helps to serve as a model for those who want to provide a variety of activities for their students. The room is arranged to store materials so that participants can easily choose something that can make their "vision-idea" real. Different interest areas are set up according to the plans of the Facilitators and participants. Areas in arts and crafts, science, wodworking, and cardboard carpentry, mathematics, music and movement, language development, photography, and sewing are seen in workshops throughout the country. Most often, a workshop will have three or four activity areas operating at the same time. A good workshop will add or drop areas as new interests are expressed by the participants.

Most of the workshops that we have coordinated have session for children. Headstart, elementary, and secondary youngsters are "turned on" in a workshop center. However, since our focus is to encourage parents and teachers to set up workshop atmospheres at home and at school, we have described the program using the words, "adults" and "teachers."

WHO DEVELOPS WORKSHOPS?

The workshop approach to learning can become an integral part of an institution's educational program for teaching adults to work with young children. We have acted as coordinators to help institutions and agencies develop workshops. As university professors, we have developed workshops as an integral part of teacher education and career development programs. College students can experience the kind of learning environment that they will be expected to develop with children. They can work alongside parents, teachers, and administrators exploring materials and using them in visionary ways. The effects of the workshop approach to learning in a college situation has been a liberalizing one for the traditional teacher of teachers. Pacific Oaks College, Compton Junior College,