Museum Moment..

I parked myself in the water room and before focusing my attention on a subject, I tried to get a "feel" for my new environment. There was a blue-ish tint to the lighting, and echoing noises of voices, running water, gurgling, splashing, and pumping almost reminded me of being underwater, where sounds are somewhat amplified but muffled. The room "smelled wet," and brought me back to my early childhood days at the YMCA.

The little boy I observed looked about 2 years old and was playing with a funnel and water. He would drop it in one of the water "tanks," see and feel it create a splash, retrieve it, and start this process over. After a few rounds, his sister, who I would guess is about 7, picked up the funnel and modeled for him how to scoop water with the funnel and then hold it up to let the water drain out the hole in the bottom. She did this all without talking, and after he watched, captivated, for a few moments, he was ready to experiment with this new way of using the funnel. She handed him the funnel and he dipped it in the water, raising it slowly and seeing some of the water spill out the hole in the funnel and also over the edge of the top of it. He tried to turn his wrist to make the water only come out of the little hole, but by the time all the water had already spilled back into the tank. He dipped again, this time correctly positioning his wrist as he raised the funnel and watched the water pour out it in a round, steady stream created by the small opening. He grins and shrieks with delight, reveling in his new-learned skill. "A-bah, a-bah!" (Maybe 'water,' or 'agua'?)

It was a joy to watch this simple interaction between brother and sister and acquisition of knowledge. It got me thinking about the theorists' ideas about children's learning being constructed in social settings and as a result of interactions. What struck me about this particular interaction was the non-verbal and suggestive nature of it. The sister was not all-knowing or corrective, but rather offered her brother a potential new way to use a tool. It was his own curiosity with how she created such a perfect stream of water from the funnel that led him to experiment with different ways of holding it to achieve similar results. Not only was it fun to watch him take on and overcome this challenge, but it was touching to see how his sister modeled this for him. In a sense, she had observed what he was doing and used her knowledge about her brother to show or suggest to him (without directing him) a new, potentially rewarding way of playing with the funnel. This led him to do more with the funnel! After he mastered this skill, he went on to try to "transfer" some of the water from the original tank to another tank right next to it. Her observation and subsequent suggestion opened up for him new ways of using the funnel as a tool.