The response to today’s session was really interesting. This week we turned our focus to shared and private spaces. We talked a lot about the spaces that belonged to us that were private and the spaces that we shared with others. We talked about the challenges of sharing spaces and why sharing a space has benefits. We document these places by placing our private space inside paper cubes and sharing our public spaces on the exterior.
After our break we explored the classroom as a shared space. I asked the children to draw a space for themselves on the floor using tape; marking out what they considered to be enough space to feel comfortable inside, the space around them that they felt belonged to them and to show others the space that they needed.
I really enjoyed watching them negotiate this with one another, they were very involved in the task. After the spaces were completed I asked if everyone was comfortable and if anyone was not to come and tell me why. One of the children found the task difficult as people kept getting in his way, and he ended up compromising the space he required. Another person had returned to their seat and was now sitting inside someone else’s space and she was worried about this. Some people made their spaces too small and only realised this afterwards, while others seemed satisfied in large expanded spaces. I found the groups responses so interesting and look forward to developing this further in our next meeting.