The Art of Hand-Built Pottery
Non-fiction Picture Book for Children
In developing the book, The Art of Hand-Built Pottery, my
research questions addressed how and why children learn to be creative
through interacting with non-fiction picture books. What kind of
picture books help children to recognize and practice their creative
potential? How and why is this creativity accomplished? With these
questions and concerns as my guidelines, I conducted an applied
My participant was a six-year-old boy, who had already begun to
construct and build pieces of clay. I worked with my participant
over a period of six weeks, and built pottery along with him, developing
a piece from each method of building. These methods are:
1- The Pinch method
2- Coil method
3- Slab method
I made observations of my participant once a week for one hour.
I collected data, then analyzed and interpreted this data. I observed
my participant with the following considerations in mind. In what
manner does the participant recognize the relationship between his
artistic creation and his creative process? What does this recognition
mean in terms of his thinking and his learning development processes?
I tried to understand the relationships between his creativity,
his active intellectual and emotional involvement, and his learning
development. I looked at the challenges that my participant pursued
as a learner—challenges and pursuits that enhanced his awareness
of his learning progression.
I show in the book how, through constructing his own pieces of
art, the child came to recognize his potential by reflecting on
his own experiences when working with clay. I present digital photos
of the final clay pieces he created.
I believe that a similar experience awaits other children who use
the book with the aid of a facilitator. My hope is that this book,
will demonstrate to the reader how working with clay, with the aid
of a facilitator, can bring about creativity, meta-cognition and
greater self-esteem in young children.
The Relationship between Creativity, Acts
of Creation & Reflection, and the Learning Development Process
The book, The Art of Hand-Built Pottery, is an instructionally
designed unit, designed to help young children progress in stages
towards building their own pieces of art. This curriculum is grounded
in the following rational philosophical
approaches: Constructivism, Existentialism and Humanism.
These philosophies of learning allow space for diverse learning
opportunities, providing children the opportunity to organize their
own experiences in creating their own pieces of art.
This instructionally based unit is the result of the integration
of complex, practical, learning processes and theory. In the unit,
experience coincides with theory and philosophy. Theory is seen
as part of the development of life, and learning is seen as a cooperative
process. Experience and theory are combined to find a medium that
works best for each individual in a certain context at any given
Theorizing from experience takes place when learning is approached
with the idea of opening up the individual’s subjective experience.
I strongly believe that this is part of our learning process. In
reflecting on the correlation between my experience and philosophy,
it is evident for me that learning is not about the one or the other
but is the integration of both. It is this framework that allows
for the organization of the many influences on learning, the many
factors that motivate, transfer and explain the importance of the
experience that refines the teaching and learning process.
The material and the steps presented in the unit are organized
in simple and easy steps, allowing room for individual, personal
contributions. Through simple steps, guided by a facilitator, children
reading the book can acquire a sense of practice, which will bring
about reflection and review. This reflection and review provide
feedback to the child, which, in turn, encourages motivation.
It is important that the facilitator knows that the unit is only
for the guidance. The unit is likely to elicit curiosity that will
also elicit expressive feelings, free of criticism—a sense
that there is more than one way of creating that small mug or plate
that is drawn out of the same substance, “clay.”
What does the child expect to learn?
Each child has a diverse sense of understanding, derived from
her/his own personal knowledge. This knowledge is based on her/his
own experiences about knowledge. It is imperative, though, to keep
in mind that this process is facilitated by simple instructions
and a facilitator, possibly a teacher, who encourages the collaborative,
child-centered learning process so the child is free to learn. As
Carl Rogers indicated in “Freedom to Learn,” learning
has a quality of personal involvement. It is self- initiated; and
the learner evaluates what is taking place (Rogers, 1969, p19).
This notion of progress assumes that the child‘s own skill
level will develop and allow his/her potential to be revealed at
its own pace. As the child becomes proficient, s/he will be better
able to deal with their own learning process as they progress.
It is the reinforcement processes that can motivate each child
to develop her/his skills to actualize the potential that lies within
him/her. The process of engaging with the medium of clay helps to
bring about not the mastery of building a piece of pottery, but
rather the mastery of rediscovering what the child can do. This
should be and is reinforced continually, emphasizing that there
is more than one way to view the end product.
Viewed in this way, the learning process is about personal freedom
and making choices. It is about commitment to oneself. Such a commitment
leads to the idea of making choices and contributes to a sense of
responsibility for taking action as part of being free in relation
The design of the teaching strategies in
The Art of Hand-Built Pottery
This instructionally based curriculum, The Art of Hand-Built
Pottery, is a mode of instruction that is largely based on a
self-chosen end product. As mentioned, it incorporates simple, basic
steps. These simple steps encourage each child to self-initiate
and explore his/her own diverse experiences. Along the way, the
child is likely to encounter many kinds of situations that will
teach him/her to be self-reliant. The facilitator has the duty of
supporting this learning process while giving the child plenty of
space to keep moving and get actively involved in the transformative
educational process. The facilitator encourages the child to reflect
on his/her potential skills and recognize his/her creative abilities.
Children are also given the space to make choices and take responsibility
to further enhance their being as free individuals. This unit encourages
children to freely express their own subjectivities without being
influenced from outside. Children’s ideas develop through
maturation and experience. They learn from activities that do not
indicate that one way is right, or another wrong. The activities
in the unit may be accomplished in different ways, and require the
child to think and evolve on his/her own. The process reflects a
notion of life as being continuously in flux.
This unit emphasizes the importance of personal achievement that
at times encounters the possibility of failure. However, failure
is part of life’s learning process. It is about gaining and
losing to reach a balance rather than the extreme of one or the
other. Carl Rogers said this process helps children to self-actualize,
and that self actualization is a motivational construct (Rogers,
Life itself presents an ongoing process of learning and achievement
in which personal growth is achieved. The humanistic approach is
embedded in this unit. The unit provides children with opportunities
that facilitate learning, and resources that emphasize making choices
from within and taking responsibility.
The unit is a process of adventure that allows children the freedom
to explore and become a creative learner. It is this process that
will have the most effect, not only on the production of a personal
art piece but also the process of thinking dialectically about the
subject at hand.
The simple steps built in to the unit are a way to facilitate the
process and allow a space for the personal contribution. This curriculum
is grounded on the philosophy that a children’s creativity
is subjective, the expression or way of releasing their thoughts
and feelings. Children’s relationships and interactions help
them to develop their curiosity and interests enough to raise questions.
By looking for the answers through this curriculum, children will
develop their ideas.
In order to help children use their own means to realize their
potential, it is imperative to understand their developmental processes.
Young children between the ages of three to six years old need tangible
physical situations where they can build their cognitive structures
for future development. Accumulated tangible experiences help them
conceptualize and create logical structures. It is with their creative
ability itself that children try to find their own way in the world.
The sooner they are encouraged to do so; they begin the process
of making choices at deeper levels. Their subjective experiences
enhance their own self-judgment, allowing them greater freedom of
To sum up, this unit will be a source of motivation to the child’s
own personal growth. As mentioned, children contribute to this development
by reflecting on their life experiences. The unit is based on philosophical
approaches that postulate strategies that help children learn actively
by exploring freedom rather than being a passive learners. The philosophies
that have shaped the unit propose that we learn and theorize from
our own experience. The learner best learns when s/he is open and
believing in the many possibilities of human action when the whole
human being places importance on understanding on him/herself.
December 22, 2009
| Osanna M. Rosa
All Images and Content Copyright©
2005www.artpotentials.org Osanna M. Rosa