Picture of the year

Every year I designate one of the pictures I have taken as my "picture of the year."  Since I am not in the classroom anymore, I have a very limited set to choose from.  The set for all intents and purposes is comprised of pictures of my grandchildren and their play.

This year I chose a picture that I captured when I took my three-year-old granddaughter to the zoo in late October.  She is the middle child of three and had never had any alone time with grandpa.  I picked a day when her sister was in school and she did not have preschool. Another benefit was that mom could have some rare alone time with the baby.  My granddaughter was excited to go and I was excited to show her the animals.

We did see animals, some real and some not real.  In fact she actually spent more time with the animals that were not real.

Maybe the draw was that she could substantiate her agency by climbing on them and getting up close and personal to them.

There was one other feature of the zoo that captured her attention more than the lions, tigers, polar bears and such.  That feature was the rocks that formed the boundary between the path and the ground.

That got me thinking a lot about boundaries.  What makes up a boundary and how negotiable is that boundary?  The path at the zoo has a boundaries, namely its edges on either side.   When the boundary is not substantial---when the edge of the path is level with the ground---the boundary is easily transgressed simply by not seeing it as a boundary.  Of course, the adult on the scene will make sure the child knows that she has stepped over the boundary.

However, there are times when the boundaries are substantial.  At the zoo, there are fences.  Those are substantial---and nonnegotiable.  Are there substantial boundaries that are negotiable?  For my granddaughter, the rocks that formed the boundary between the path and the ground seemed to be one of those boundaries.  As an adult, I could have pointed out that the rocks were not for climbing and that if she fell on the sharp rocks she might get hurt. 

My granddaughter did not see the rocks as a boundary.  Rather, they presented themselves as  a challenging path to test her balance and navigation skills.

Boundaries are important.  How we perceive those boundaries is even more important.  How children perceive those boundaries is also more important.  Hard and fast boundaries are limiting.  Negotiable boundaries open up a world of possibilities for children to make new meaning in any given context.  Children will always question the boundaries.  That is one of their jobs as part of living in this world.  As adults, maybe we can come to appreciate their penchant for testing boundaries.  And maybe we can even re-examine our own ideas about boundaries.  How do you question your boundaries in the classroom, at home and in the world?  What boundaries are nonnegotiable and why?  What boundaries are negotiable and why?

With that, I give you my picture of the year: my granddaughter using the boundary of the rocks to create her own path, one that is more interesting and has more meaning for her than seeing the exotic animals at the zoo.