Big Four

Materials, skills, ideas and concepts. These four practical components lace this site where theory meets practice, and creative engagement can happen through aesthetic means. These four elements lead to performative states of being that support communities of practice and inquiry. Over time, these practical components will be explored. Here is a quick breakdown for today:

1. Materials: valuing and appreciating the ‘raw materials’ through which things are made, breaking things up, finding the sources of things, and accepting that materials are finite and, therefore, so are we.

• Skills: We know education is a means of acquiring skills. We learn these skills through step-by-step practice and routines. We break up the parts and put them together as a rhythmic pattern that we can automatise as physical knowledge. Like learning anything, we observe others, understand the steps, and rehearse the steps until they become a part of our body. This demands practice, concentrated effort, and time.

• Ideas: Ideas activate our imagination. Ideas are shared and communicated through the symbols of literacy and numeracy. We form connections and engage with each other and our world as stimulated by our ideas. Ideas value and permit openness to experience and that there is no right or wrong, only difference. Through ideas, we see the world anew and can appreciate new perspectives through different lenses.

• Concepts: Appreciate that to do and make things happen in life, we need to bring our ideas, skills and the materials we use together. Through taking time and working with others, objects of creation can be realised. Concepts allow us to move beyond play and to realise our dreams through projects and products.

Think about how materials, skills, ideas and concepts inform your everyday.

Until next time,

Mon x