Technology is defined in Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum (1995, p. 6) as:
… a creative, purposeful activity aimed at meeting needs and opportunities through the development of products, systems, or environments. Knowledge, skills, and resources are combined to help solve practical problems. Technological practice takes place within, and is influenced by, social contexts.
Paper-cut is a comprehensive art. It is good for children to develop and improve different aspects of ability. For example, it will help children’s creative development, the ability of observation and the improvement of intelligence. Paper-cut was so welcomed at the centre because of the cheap material, adapt to a wide range of age group, different types and vivid images.
I was working in my home centre nearly two years. From my observation I found that children like to draw the picture on the paper and then cut it off. The New Zealand Curriculum (MoE, 2008) emphasizes that society and culture influences the development and use of technology and that technology influences social and cultural structures and relationships. In my centre, we also bring other countries’ culture in (eg, Chinese paper cutting). It is a unique art form and has exsited for thousands of years. The normal designs made include animals, flowers and figures cut, with scissors or knives. They usually made it for decorate doors and windows. They called chuang hua(window flowers) or jian zhi(paper cutting). Paper cutting has long history featuring both national and regional themes.
At centre, we provide paper and scissors for children. We suggest children to fold the paper over two times, and then cut anything what they want. This is the easiest way to make chuang hua. We encourage children to creative their own one. Children use their imagination and related to their real life to create their work. We also offer some books for children to help them to make some specific patterns. After they cut it, they were really exciting about their “chung hua”. They were happy to show it to everyone. Te Whariki Strand 4 Goal 4 described that, “children develop skill and confidence with the processes of art and craft, such as cutting, drawing, collage, painting, print-making, weaving, stitching, carving, and constructing” (Ministry of Education, 1996).
“Technology is about helping people and solving problems” (Smorti, 1999, p. 5).
Children can develop their ability of hand-eye coordination. In the paper cutting process, it is requires children to “look” and frequency of hand ‘move’ consistent, so that they can flexible tailoring. From this practice, children can learn the skills of hand-eye coordination very fast.
Paper-cut also can cultivate children’s patience. It is a quiet art. It requires children to concentrate on the cutting. According to the drawn lines and cut it very carefully. So that over time, It will cultivated children’s good temper: calm, patient and meticulous.
Paper-cut can enhance a child's intelligence. Children through observation of the eyes, the idea of the brain, his hands cut a series of steps in the paper-cut, in the completion of word at the same time, but also the brain development and enhancement.
Paper-cut can enhance a child's intelligence. Children through observation of the eyes, the idea of the brain, his hands cut a series of steps in the paper-cut, in the completion of word at the same time, but also the brain development and enhancement.
Reference:
Ministry of Education. (1996). Early Childhood Curriculum Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa .Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2008b). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Smorti, S. (1999) Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, 19, 5-10.
This blog is awesome such a great way to explain technology and the way cutting is linked to technology, it is technology. I enjoyed how you linked this to te whariki strand 4. I believe your reflection was very interesting, as I wouldn’t have seen cutting as part of technology but through your words and how you explain how the learning development works was a great explanation. Children at my center struggle with scissors all the time so I do believe it is technology because the problem solving can be so intense sometimes for children. It was great to learn that paper cutting is great for brain development and enhances intelligence. I believe children should be encouraged to work on the cutting process as much as they can because it is very technical for them and this could improve children in the way they think and be influenced to work with digital technologies. This is linked to “Using a process approach to technology, it is the ‘doing’ that is important rather then the ‘product’” (Smorti, 1999, p.6).
ReplyDeleteHi Linda.. I like your second image as it represents our culture (the character‘福’). And your blog is awesome, I think it should all credit to me as I helped you to change the background colour o.O! I think you explained the non-digital technology very well because not too many people have seen paper cutting as part of technology, but your convinced your reader. I strongly agree that when making a ‘CHUANG HUA’: “fold paper over 2 times first and then cut out the shapes” is part of technology. But I think you need to explain WHY, what are the technologies happening here, and PLEASE PLEASE explain WHAT IS CHUANG HUA for your readers, because it was quite confusing for non Chinese speakers to understand this word. Anyway, I understand and I am sure Rachel will understand as well, but for the others….. T.T… “Learning through the arts is beneficial in its own right and contributes to children’s development in all areas of learning” (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2006).
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ReplyDeleteI love how you use paper cutting as part of technology. I do agreed how you stated that children learning eye co'ordination and developing gross motor skills. These all came from using their own imagination as well and being creative of how they think and putting them into practice by cuttting their own materials of what they think can benefit them. Cutting is also about safety where somehow it needs supervision as well, with positive encouragement. I did notice last week with one of our children cut his whole fringe off while playing at the family corner, and the parent's were quite shock not knowing that he could use scissors. Anyway I really like how Linda use this technology as part of her reflection, as this an every day activity that is by children at their centres. Te-Whariki states that "Technology: capability in solving practical problems contributes to self-confidence and well-being (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 94).
Linda, it is a good reflection on technology learning. I like your cutting paper idea to enhance children’s creativity. You explained clearly how non-digital technology happened when you taught children to cut paper. It is not only about cutting, but also about technology learning. You quoted from New Zealand Curriculum’s definition on technology, technology is a creative purposeful activity which aims to solve problem (Ministry of Education, 2007). Technology depends on flexible, open, divergent thinking, which is encouraged in children through a flexible and open environment. Cutting paper activity just provides children an open environment. It “provides children with many opportunities to succeed, thus helping them develop positive attitudes towards themselves and learning” (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2006, p. 80).
ReplyDeleteOne thing I concern is what age group you are working with. Paper cutting is not appropriate for the very young children, such as babies and toddlers. At that young age, their fine motor skills are not good enough to handle with scissors (Berk, 2001). When we work with children, age-appropriate is an important issue in our teaching practice.
Paper cutting is a rather complex activity for a lot of young children. In actual fact most children find it hard to hold scissors. I think this is a great activity for children to engage more with art (especially from different cultures). The scissors are certain type of non digital technology and its a great skill to have for children. Smorti, (1999) explains that “technology is influenced by the culture or the society in which it occurs”. In your case paper cutting is a part of your history in art within your culture, you needed a tool to create this type of art and as a result sessions where invented. Technology was influenced by your culture. I can also see through this activity children are building on the listing skills and learning to follow instructions. Are the children able to take their paper cutting art work home? Or do you display them at your centre. This sounds like a fun activity and I would be interested to learn more about it so I can implement it in my own centre.
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