| This is a qualitative study to understand how young children negotiate their own learning. The search entailed two years observing preschool art making at the paint easel, twenty years teaching preschool, and a life of art making. Using ethnographic methods, the data was collected and analyzed in the form of three stories. Initially, I identified the children as selecting symbols, semblances of objects found in reality. The chosen symbols evidenced in the children's easel painting, story telling, and fantasy play seemed to have meaning based on individual feelings and past experiences. Following further reflection and study I became intrigued how symbol sharing influenced learning through the phenomena of intersubjectivity and memetics. The appropriation of symbols seems linked to a mutual sentience. More than imitation, the appropriated idea is individually reinterpreted and can jump from media to media. The children act as interpretants for their diverse experiences through storytelling, fantasy play and easel painting. The preschool culture, diverse in individual experience, emerges from this bricolage to celebrate a camaraderie based on shared symbols. |
