Teaching How to Observe
It seems paradoxical that in 2015, living immersed in a time dominated by the sense of sight, someone would feel the need to teach how to observe. We process more images than in any other historical period; even phone calls have been replaced by face-to-face encounters through Skype, Hangout, or Oovoo; our emotions are summarized with icons on WhatsApp and text messages. Almost nothing remains outside the domains of the eye.
In this framework of hyperexposure to images is where we question whether we dedicate time to observing and whether we invite children to do so.
“For Italian children, the city is a scene they observe from the car window, from their house window, or while an adult pulls them by the hand, forcing them to walk at their pace.” Miretta Prezza 2007.
In 2014 I dared to rewrite Prezza’s observation.
“For children living in industrialized countries, the city is an experience filtered through tinted car windows, elevated platforms where adults carry them, computer screens, or from classrooms where they remain seated watching through windows that isolate them from the real world.”
It is true; we live apart from nature, apart from the city, apart from any real and direct experience with the environment. Children have long since lost the experience of feeling the ground beneath their feet, of touching tree bark, of hearing bird sounds without speakers, of observing rain without glass in between.
And one wonders: do we really need to teach how to observe?
The answer is affirmative. We need children to develop observation skills that allow them to discover information in their surrounding environment, generate hypotheses, evaluate information, and make decisions. Observation is not simply seeing; it is an intentional and conscious act directed at capturing information from reality.
Teaching how to observe is teaching children to use all their senses, to notice details, to ask questions, to generate curiosity about the world around them. It is training them to be able to notice changes, to distinguish patterns, to establish connections between what they see and their prior knowledge.