Enjoying Art Education with Your Kids — An Invitation to Dialogue-Based Viewing

"I hear art education is good for children, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"I love art myself, but taking the kids along to a museum feels like a high hurdle."

This article is written for people who feel that way.

I am a mother of four children, ranging from a kindergartener to elementary schoolers.

First, let me share a conversation from our home last night.

Talking with the Children About an ARTiATE Work

"It's a cat that fell into the sea, and the fish is a god, and it's crying."
"A cat car!"
"It looks like a Christmas tree."
"A cat buried in morning glories."
"Maybe a bath with stylish walls?"
"The fish are getting married!"
"It looks like New Year's!"

Yomogi Harada, Neko no Yume (A Cat's Dream) (ARTiATE)

This is Neko no Yume (A Cat's Dream), a work by Yomogi Harada, available at ARTiATE.

When I showed this work to my four children and asked, "What do you think this picture is?", all sorts of answers came back.

Of course, I showed them only the image of the painting, without the title or anything else.

When I added little responses like "What did you see that made you think that?" or "Ah, this part here — I see," the conversation kept opening up, and just listening was a delight.

What Is Dialogue-Based Viewing, Which Nurtures a Child's Heart?

As with my conversation last night, you might wonder, "Can just having a fun chat really count as education?"

The educational method by which, through looking at art and talking about it, you can nurture a variety of abilities and qualities of heart is called "dialogue-based viewing."

Dialogue-based viewing was developed in the mid-1980s. It began at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Rather than looking at a work with attention to information such as knowledge and background, several people talk together about what they themselves felt and thought.

There are many abilities fostered through dialogue around art — the power to think for yourself, to overcome difficulties, and to deepen communication: what you might call the "power to live."

Enjoying dialogue together as parent and child becomes irreplaceable time with your child, and nourishment for the heart as well.

How to Do Dialogue-Based Viewing, and Key Points

These days some museums hold workshops on dialogue-based viewing, but taking children to a museum is quite a high hurdle. In fact, there are areas with no museum at all — like the rural place where I live.

So from here, I'll introduce methods you can do at home.

In dialogue-based viewing, the parent becomes the facilitator (the one who leads).

• "What is happening in the work?"
• "What in the work made you think so?"
• "Is there anything else you noticed?"

You talk mainly around these, but when a child is still young or words don't come easily, try asking in words suited to the child. For example: "What does this picture look like?" "What did you discover?" "What sounds do you think you'd hear? What smells?" "When is it?" "Where is it?" "Who is there?" — questions like these.

Affirming with "Oh, you thought so — what a good thing to notice," or digging deeper with "Why did you think that?" — passing the ball to widen the conversation makes it even more fun.

As children grow older, expanding from the picture into questions like "In what country or region was this painted?" and "What was the historical background?" leads to even deeper, more active learning.

Subjects for Dialogue-Based Viewing

When choosing a subject, they say it's important not to decide in advance, "Maybe this is too hard for this child?" or "What if it scares them?" Believe in your child and show them all sorts of works.

Go to a Museum

Encountering real art is a very important experience: beyond feeling it with all five senses — the atmosphere, the smell, the texture — it also stays with you as memories and episodic recollection.

The key is that you don't have to see every work. Try letting your child immerse themselves deeply in the work they like.

Make Use of Online Museums

In recent years, online museums you can enjoy from home have been increasing.

On "Google Arts & Culture," in which over 2,000 museums from around the world take part, you can not only view images of artworks but also use a Street View (interior) feature that simulates the feeling of actually visiting the museum.

Many overseas museums also make their works public — the Louvre, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and more — so it's worth looking for your favorites.

Picture Books

There are also plenty of picture books for enjoying art.

For dialogue-based viewing, leaving the reading for later — first appreciating the pictures carefully, and then checking the text — seems to deepen understanding.

Paper books in particular can be kept at hand and looked at again and again, so your child may find a favorite work.

The Child's Own Drawings

A child's own drawings are splendid works too.

It's nice to ask what they expressed and how, and it's also good to bring out an old drawing from a time they don't even remember, and have a dialogue about it.

In Closing

I've introduced the methods and knacks of dialogue-based viewing, how to choose subjects, and real examples from our home.

Even while doing dialogue-based viewing with my own children, I would catch myself fretting, "What did the artist intend?" — so much so that I had to laugh at my own grown-up airs, and I realized just how information-focused my way of looking at art had been.

Perhaps it's actually the grown-ups who get to learn to enjoy art, by taking in the fresh, unique essence of children — or so I find myself thinking.

Please enjoy dialogue with your children through art.