the skill of noticing

recognising noticing as the foundation of art, writing, teaching…

In a recent writing teachers workshop, one Saturday morning in April, as we were writing and talking, I began thinking about the usefulness of one skill that seems to be utterly invaluable to all of artists, writers AND teachers: looking, perhaps looking again… and noticing. I keep thinking about how noticing is underplayed, underestimated, undervalued often, but how it (usually subtly and discretely) underpins so much…

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The artist:

One of the first teaching points that I make to my new trainee teachers in their first Art and Design ITE workshop is the idea that teaching children how to look is just as important in art education as teaching children the skills to enable them to make. This is especially so when it comes to drawing. All too often people can mistake that the outcome is more important than the process, and that the success of a drawing is completely dependent on drawing skill. Both of these are, of course, incorrect, and it takes some time to unpick those often entrenched attitudes with the trainees. Arriving at the notion that teaching drawing is, at least in a large part, about teaching children how to look, and indeed to look closely, is paramount for their practice going forwards.

That drawing could teach us to see: to notice rather than merely to look, was strongly advocated by John Ruskin throughout his life in the 1800s. He emphasised connections between drawing, looking, understanding and thinking. He argued that looking at something engenders questions about it. The work and research of drawing advocate Eileen Adams, since the 1970’s, also discusses the multiple, complex value of drawing, extending that notion of looking further to include, more explicitly, thinking and learning.

The skill of noticing is inextricably linked to art, drawing, thinking, learning.

The writer:

For writers there are also many reasons why the skill of noticing is important. Writers often hone in on the detail of a scenario, a character, a place, a thing, describing it with such vividness that it draws the reader’s attention to aspects of that thing that they wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. In order to do this, the writer has to be good at noticing in the first place. Noticing is a form of collecting ideas about the world around you. Writers require a certain adeptness at spotting the finer detail within the bigger picture, to have an understanding of how to use the power of perspective, and from which angle, or camera lens, they write from.

In the writing group we discussed this lovely ‘camera angle’ approach - wondering whether we should start from a distance and zoom in, or zoom in first and then gradually zoom out. We considered the way that writers and illustrators can make use of this, and of picture books that do it so very well (The Snowman by Raymond Briggs - look at those wonderful zoomed out whole page illustration spreads versus the small comic-strip squares of detail when zoomed in). Here’s a small excerpt from one of the draft pieces that I wrote that day. Notice the zooming in:

Swifts in flight, the sky is their canvas, gliding and twirling across the wide expanse. Swooping down, mouths agape, catching the flies dancing their zig-zaggy patterns. More flies gather around the butterfly bush that overlooks the vegetable patch, where he stands in his garden shoes, leaning on the three-pronged fork, wiping his brow with the cap in his hand, hearing her call him in for a cup of tea.

The teacher:

Noticing in the classroom is happening all the time. Teachers sometimes do it purposefully and with intention, but often it happens habitually and discretely, with quiet, minute responses that occur in the moment. This is the power that teachers have - their skills of noticing influence their inferences and, in turn, the way they attend. And so noticing is not a skill to be learnt on its own. Noticing needs to be developed alongside appropriate responses. There is also, of course, a skill in noticing and leaving be.

Teacher noticing is powerful because it can influence the way a teacher responds and thus impacts on learning. Teacher noticing is also challenging because it is hard to plan for, is often invisible (although responses might be visible afterwards), and in the complexity of being in a classroom, with so many individual people to work with, it is influenced by so many different elements.

The art of noticing IS important in teaching, and an art that should be recognised as such. Without noticing and responding, we end up with a workforce of teachers who are merely deliverers of a curriculum that doesn’t take into account the nuances of working with individual children and young people. We end up with a workforce of teachers who think that difference doesn’t matter, because noticing difference and responding to difference doesn’t matter. But if we end up taking the difference out of teaching, we end up taking the humanity out of teaching.

Noticing is a capacity that all teachers have that has such great potential, if only we could all recognise its power, and value what it brings to classroom practice.

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So in conclusion, noticing is a form of collecting ideas about the world around us. It can help us to form connections with the things in the world around us, and then, as writer or artist, or perhaps even teacher, we can connect with each other when we share those ideas or do something particular to attend to that noticing.

Noticing can help us all to slow down and to pay attention, which feels especially important in a world that can be so busy and fast-paced around us. We could all, perhaps, benefit from being better collectors in this way.

So… get on with your busy day. But notice the small things around you. And the big things. And the things in-between. Add to your collection of noticed things. Write them in your notebook. Draw them in your sketchbook. Value that art of noticing.

The hardest thing of all is to see what is really there.

J.A.Baker, The Peregrine.

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Photo by Eric Lagergren on Unsplash

With thanks to Jeni Smith, from Norwich Writing Teachers, for the focus in that April meeting, and for sharing with me that final lovely quote.