The Vandal-Artist in the Toddler Room: Using Graffiti to Theorize Curriculum and Classroom Spaces

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 71
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Education and Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

Graffiti is rarely used as a way to think about curriculum. Yet, in one classroom, it was, as toddlers engaged in spray-painting and, in turn, diverted habitualized curriculum. As teachers, we engaged with our 2-year-old students in these practices, exploring what it means to become nomadic (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), to discover other ways of being in (and out of) classroom and art spaces. In this paper, we describe an inquiry that dislodged our usual ways of seeing and understanding children’s aesthetic productions. We discuss how teachers might engage in looking at children in their spaces with MacLure’s (2013) notion of wonder, and how that can help us re-think early childhood curriculum and re-position classrooms as children’s spaces.

Authors

• Emmanuelle Fincham, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Marta Cabral, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Tran Templeton, University of North Texas