Diffracting Position of Child

Exploring Position of Child through movement and imagery.

Following on from the Position of Child stream, Professor Amanda Ravetz has been developing a range of ways to share insights and experiences from her work with teachers and parents, educational psychologists and other researchers.

She is using workshops, installations and video in iterative ways to foster registers of experience associated with school that are hard to communicate in conventional spoken or written language.

Amanda's experiences

Amanda’s experiences in ‘position of child’ were affecting and physical.

She noticed that instead of making a conscious decision about where to go and what to do, she would suddenly find herself in a different part of the classroom, caught up in a movement of children.

In the playground, running from place to place, she experienced a heightened awareness of shapes, being part of moving lines, circles and other fluid groupings.

Movement workshop

To communicate and investigate her experiences through movement, Amanda invited Dr Anna Macdonald, a dance and moving image artist, and filmmaker Huw Wahl, to develop and film a workshop.

The workshop, led by Anna, involved a series of simple movement tasks and games.

By inviting adults to take part in movement workshops, followed by discussions, Anna and Amanda were able to reversion what Ravetz had experienced in ‘position of child’.

This included a ‘flocking’ game, as well as making friends, running and jumping and being moved by other’s movements.

Simple gestures and movements were used to bring to the surface feelings connected to being a child.

Examples included closeness to the ground, sadness of disconnection and joy in movements such as jumping, hiding, chasing and pushing. 

Using these methods can open up reflective conversations between participants about children’s experiences of school.

This can make it possible to consider how school feels to them in fresh and empathetic ways.

Currently, two workshops have taken place. Participants included teachers and school staff who worked with Amanda when she was in ‘position of child’, an educational psychologist, and researchers and students at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Huw and Amanda are editing a video with footage from the workshops and footage taken by children in school, drawing out the resonance between the two kinds of material.

Movement workshop during Diffracting Position of Child

Diffracting Position of Child - workshop

Drawn film

Amanda was curious about the connection between children’s picture making (with cameras and film) and children’s experience.

To explore this, she  introduced simple digital cameras to the classroom, in collaboration with Research Associate Dr Jo Ray who supported the children with using the cameras and film.

Everyone in the class had the opportunity to take still or moving images during periods of free play and during their forest school sessions.  

Class member’s footage included imagery that appeared documentary in feel,  as well as other more abstract and sensory material. 

Some class members were excited to play, posing, instructing or composing images with other people and things.

 Some made still images sparingly, others shot large quantities of images that resembled an animation.  

Over a six week period,  the activity shifted from making footage and images, and playing with the cameras, to reviewing what had been captured. 

Reviewing did not engage children for long durations. Instead, it provoked excitement of recognising friends and familiars. Some of their recollections and observations connected with images they saw.  

It feels that we are slowly giving form to the textures of the school classroom through conversations, gestures, shared materials and experience of time, and through the additional use of cameras, images and drawing.

Professor Amanda Ravetz