The Creative Classroom Issue 03: Explore, Capture and and Appreciate Creative Learning Spaces
The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in China and around the world has presented exciting opportunities for NYU campuses to once again provide platforms and programs for students to learn outside of the traditional classrooms. To celebrate evolving reflections around creative learning and its spaces as well as the opening of the new NYU Shanghaicampus, our special 3rd Issue explores some of the themes captured in the Creative Learning Spaces Photo Exhibition in Spring 2023. Read on and join us to rediscover what it means for students when a space becomes a creative classroom and see the full display of all submissions.
PLAYFUL LEARNING
Upon the first glance, “Play” seems almost magical, unreal with its color palette and foggy mixture. Our first prize winner, Ken Wu, captured a wonderful moment filled with pure joy and amazement as two little kids played with a lantern in a festival in Shenzhen. For Ken, playing is an important and continuous form of learning because there are so many essences of learning that are “at play” at the same time. For children specifically, playing is also one of the first form of socialization they learn, where emotional intelligence and social empathy are nurtured.
“On Chinese New Year’s Day of 2022, celebration could be heard in the streets of cities all over in China. Fireworks, bustling crowds, and music everywhere. It was a time when the city became vibrant of life.
After dinner under the lantern show at Shenzhen OCT Harbour, adults and children alike were having fun playing and running under the artificial mist. Lights flickered, the mist blew, and the colors changed as time passed. It was what seemed to me a time of festivity and the absence of stress… like time stopped in the midst of all the activity occurring. At that moment, a click to capture the essence of childhood.
The essence, play. A space of timelessness. A space to create. A space to imagine and learn.
How do we continue to cultivate and free our imagination and curiosity even as we become more mature — when we as adults aren’t so “naive”, and whose impressions of the world become much more refined compared to these two kids in the image? For Ken, the answer lies in relentless playing. Keeping a playful attitude towards life experiences means trying, anticipating, testing, and as a result, learning.
Mental activity is the root of learning. How you learn is through observation, imagination, and recollection. Playing is this space of eternal learning. It is the endless imagination in play that develops our understanding of our environment and how we perceive the world. It is also through play that we imagine a different reality, and that itself is the stimulus to societal development.”
Keep playing, keep imagining, and keep creating.
Commenting on the first prize winning picture, judge Qu Xinyi noted:
“The photographer successfully catches the kids’ spontaneous movements and creates all the elements in a balanced way. With the help of natural light and fog, the picture was made creatively with the cyberpunk style, which contrasts with the traditional Lantern Festival (or Spring Festival) impression that red is the always main tone.
In this picture, we can see how two kids interact and purely enjoy their own time, playing. And if only one word can be given to define Creative Learning Spaces, I think it should be FUN. It is our human nature to chase fun things and it is how we learn when we are kids, just like them.
It is said that when people look at a photo, they always think about themselves. This picture strongly strikes a chord with me, and I cannot help thinking of my childhood and my first paper rabbit lantern.”
LEARNING THROUGH OBSERVATION
As NYU Shanghai students have to find their footing in a new city, often many times over in their college journey through study away opportunities, city walks have inevitably featured as an important mode of slow learning and observation, and as a way of cultivating belongingness in a new home. Slow walks ask us to become more present in the surrounding environment and community, and force us to slow down and think. As Eadin reflected in her New York study away experience:
“The photo “Here A Door” was taken in New York City’s Central Park during my Spring 2023 study away semester.
Back then, my friend and I decided to take a walk exploring the city while capturing moments through our cameras. While strolling along one of the park’s streets, I ran into this scene where two cute boys were joyfully playing. What made it even more special was that the arch’s shadow created a perfect leading line towards the kids trying to open a door. I love lights and shadows in terms of photography, and I often capture such moments when you can sense stories and life, and… it’s beautiful.
It’s about the kids’ classroom, and my classroom.
For me, walking in outdoor spaces has always been a thrilling thing, and I will call every corner I have walked my “Creative Learning Space”. Back in New York, I often walked for more than 40 minutes at a time even when there’s a subway choice. I enjoy walking in the city to see the scenery, the people, different life, and, of course, encountering precious moments as in the photo. It allows me to observe and appreciate a city’s charm, think about the place I live in, and feel my own existence in the world.
For Eadin, an intentional observation is bound to foster learning, often to our surprises. For all of us, especially those who are going through their study away experiences, don’t forget to go on city walks and capture moments that speak to you.
Therefore, whenever you observe and explore a space, if you feel, discover, or do something, I would call it a “Creative Learning Space”. It doesn’t matter where it is, it can be the simplest of moments, but arouses your curiosity. For the kids the place might be the door, for me it might be the beautiful scene, the park, the city, and all roads I walked with my observation.
In sum, I hope the photo will remind people that beauty, joy, and discovery can be found in any unexpected places and moments in life. Never stop observing, and never stop being curious.”
A LEARNING ADVENTURE
Looking Out” is a reminder that learning is a process of lasting collaborative exploration. Central in this bigger collaborative project are history-keeping and history-making spaces such as museums or art galleries. They communicate the past history and present artistic movements, which makes them a common destination for outside-of-the-classroom learning, For Yingfan, the museum spaces bear witness and give rise to a bigger picture knowledge base:
“I captured the picture “Looking Out” during a visit to the Museum of Arts Pudong (MAP) in October 2022. I found myself drawn to this oasis of creativity nestled in Lujiazui, in the shadow of the Pearl Tower. The museum, a favorite of mine in Shanghai, stands as a testament not only to high-quality exhibits but also to innovative architecture, beautifully merging the surrounding cityscape into its design. The window depicted in my photograph is a prime example of this integration, incorporating the view of the Pearl Tower as a unique visual element of the museum. The manner in which visitors interact with the window — by approaching it and looking out — represents one of the highlights of the experience of MAP. This illustrates that aesthetic and cultural appreciation stems not only from the interior exhibits but also from the external surroundings.
The imagery and captured activity within the photograph represent my interpretation of creative learning. For me, creative learning is a process that transforms the act of acquiring knowledge into an adventure, where curiosity fuels our desire to pose questions and seek out the unknown. It stems from our thirst to explore what lies beyond our current understanding. This learning journey is best shared with a partner, a companion who can serve as a catalyst for fresh insights, even while exploring the same material.
The photograph “Looking Out” encapsulates this spirit of exploration and curiosity integral to the creative learning process. The image of two individuals gazing out the window symbolizes a quest for knowledge, driven by their innate curiosity. The partially revealed columns of the Pearl Tower serve as a metaphorical prompt, representing our existing knowledge base. Yet, they subtly hint that our understanding is never comprehensive — much like the partial view of the tower only hints at the scale of the full skyscraper. The presence of two observers in the image underscores the concept of collaborative learning, signifying the ability to inspire and influence each other’s understanding. The photograph seeks to convey that creative learning is an engaging and collaborative journey, one that shines like a light in the darkness.”
Judge Diane Geng, director of Office of Community Engaged Learning commented:
My favorite photo is “Looking Out” because of the concepts it invoked related to the theme “Creative Learning Spaces”.
The contrast between the light and color outside versus the darkness of the room conveyed the power of contrasting learning atmospheres and moods, a portal about to be breached by the learners. The image of the window, placed and cropped to reveal an unusual view, also brings to mind an intentional curation of space and perspectives. Finally, the multi-layered scene of treetops, massive concrete “legs” of the Pearl Tower, and the strata of skyscrapers in the distance offer a smorgasbord of possible angles, positionalities, and phenomena to explore.
HANDS-ON KNOWLEDGE
To Yaqi Zhang, the settings of rural education offer a unique space not seen often in an urban setting for children to learn creatively about ways of life by getting their hands dirty. The Guinan school children learn and live very close to nature, sourcing the ingredients from their school garden, and directly cooking with their classmates outdoors.
“I took this photo in Guinan School, Zhongshan City, China, during the ethnographic trip to Qi Xi village. This is the space for the students to practice during their labor class. The day I visited the school was near Qingming Festival, so the students are guided to make Qing Tuan (rice cake made with mugwort) as a traditional Chinese custom, especially in Southern China. I capture this moment because this is a scene you might never see in any urban school where students work together to cook in an “original” style. It shows the unique feature of rural education that students are encouraged to engage with life skills.
Our theme is creative learning space, which I would say this moment could best represent the learning process of these primary school students. For me, creative learning space could be any space where learning is happening other than traditional settings like classrooms. In this photo, the students are learning outdoors in the school “kitchen” — the labor class practice space. The school provides this space for students to gain hands-on skills. I hope this submission could bring a rural lens to the audience since creativity is more often used to describe emergent advanced technology or innovation in urban areas nowadays. However, in rural China, there are many precious moments when intelligent people learn to live a good life by their hands, which should be brought up to a broad stage when discussing creative learning space.”
Through learning by doing, even the smallest activities can become meaningful to the longer learning journey when we pay enough attention to them. The school kids in the picture are not just learning how to cook; by cooking, they are learning about culture and history, and cooking then becomes a gatekeeping to traditions — the students are able to connect with ways of life in the past as they represent the ways of life in the future.
