Designing for the Senses
Course
Touch [7:48]
We touch things all the time, yet rarely take the time to think about how the object feels or what information we can gather from that touch.
Air is normally also silent except for the noise objects make while air is going through or around them. Air can be loud if it works itself into a storm. You can't really taste or smell air either, although it may carry the tastes and smells of everything it encounters as it moves, but you can touch the breeze and once you have done that, then open windows can provide a physical sensation as gust of air give us a touch of pleasure.
Our interaction with clean, moving air should be guaranteed, but it isn't. Designing learning spaces where children are encouraged to touch the air must be the first table stake in school planning.
We touch things all the time, yet rarely take the time to think about how the object feels or what information we can gather from that touch. Failure to take time to appreciate how something feels is simply a lost learning experience. Designing spaces with texture creates visual interest, but also leverages our sense of touch. Inside a library that can be done with building materials like stone, glass, wood, and new wall coverings.
If you have the opportunity to plan an outdoor environment for students, try to include my favorite herb, lamb's ear. It is wonderful to touch because its leaves are plump and densely covered with soft silver gray silky hairs. It is not a beautiful plant to look at and the clump next to my patio is frequently harangued by guests for its sprawl and flowering gawky stems. But when I hand them a leaf to touch, they can't put it down and neither will children. Plants, trees, wet rocks and different types of mixed-media art are all wonderful to touch. Think about how you can incorporate them into a building design project.
Technology is not really all that interesting to touch. Sometimes it's warm. Usually it's hard. Recently, it was programmed to be responsive to our touch. Touch screen seem to me to be a clever way to engage people in a touching relationship with technology. It has the advantage of speed, but it's dull compared to lamb's ear.
Richard Louv in his fascinating bookLast Child in the Woodsquotes Nancy Dess, a senior scientist at the American Psychological Association to reinforce the importance of touch in the digital world. None of the new communication technology involves human touch. They all tend to place us one step removed from direct experience. Add this to control orientated changes in the workplace and schools where people are often forbidden or at least discouraged from any kind of physical contact, and we've got a problem.
Louv goes on to explain, "Without touch infant primates die. Adult primates with touch deficit become more aggressive." Diminishing touch is only one byproduct of our cultural of technical control, but Louv and Dess believe it contributes to violence in an ever more tightly wired society.
Touch is a critical learning tool. It is the primary learning experience for babies. Simply seeing a bright object is never enough for a baby. They want to reach out and touch it. Once they feel it, then perhaps they will need to taste it as well to truly add it to their memory bank.
In Dr. Sian Beilock's new bookHow the Body Knows Its Mind, she makes a strong argument for encouraging infants to reach out into their world to touch objects to augment their future intelligence. Beilock explains, researchers are able to show that the link from action to thought was explained not by the parents' intelligence or educational level, but by the infant's physical capabilities.
When children can sit up by themselves, their hands are free to reach out and grab objects which allow them to learn things about the world they wouldn't otherwise. Infants learn that their actions could change their environment, which helps shape their understanding of others' actions and intentions. The actions kids could perform at five months predicted not only their IQ at four and 10 years of age, but their academic achievement, reading comprehension, and math problem solving at 14.
The merits of active hands-on learning contributes highly to students' understanding and retention of what they are studying. Sensory touch is a key component to active learning. This development is important because it helps understand why touch continues to work so well in a learning environment as we mature. Young children are making millions of neuron connections in their brains as they explore their environment. The richer the environment they experience, the more sensory input they receive, and the greater the number of connections they make. The connections they use the most will form the neural architecture for their lifelong learning process.
In today's world, with its digital ease of seeing and talking to people, no matter what the distance between us, it is the touch of another person that is missing in our relationships. Touch connects humans, yet we are turning social interaction and our connection to other people over to technology. Touch also connects us to nature.
Louv points to an interesting study done in Denmark which closely links outdoor play with intelligence. A recent study compared two groups of children, one in a traditional kindergarten, the other from a nature kindergarten where children remained outside all day long throughout the school year. Children in the nature kindergarten were found to be more alert, better at using their bodies and significantly more likely to create their own games. Children used more fantasy play and their social standing became based less on physical abilities and more on language skills, creativity and inventiveness. In other words, the more creative children emerged as leaders in natural play areas.
Another serious question for future study is whether an educational environment that progressively limits the time children interact and touch nature will undermine this generation's creative thinking capabilities? Curtailing touch also undermines the latent talents of students who are kinetic, musical, interpersonal, and naturalistic learners. So in a cultural environment where touch is being suppressed, we should be seeking architectural and interior design options to bring both people and nature back into physical contact with each other.
This lesson highlights the learning experience of touch. Even technology has embraced touch with touch-screen technology, but physical contact with objects is not often encouraged. Touch is a key component to active learning to make sure children are making more connections in their brains.
Think about your library space, lessons, and materials. Design stations for your library instruction that encourage students to touch in order to make meaning and think critically. What materials could you include that could be incorporated into a lesson you already teach?
MLA Citation
Collins, Karla. "Designing for the Senses: Learning from Touch." School Library Connection, December 2024, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1985346?learningModuleId=1980800&topicCenterId=2247903.
Entry ID: 2132724
Additional Resources
About the Author
Margaret L. Sullivan, MA, is an independent consultant and principal at Library Resource Group, LLC. She holds a master's degree in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her published works include AASL's Library Spaces for 21st Century Learners: A Planning Guide for Creating New School Library Concepts along with articles on space planning in School Library Journal, Knowledge Quest, Teacher Librarian, and American School & University. For 28 years, Sullivan was an executive at the former Highsmith Inc., a leading supplier to schools and libraries, ending her career there as director of merchandising and marketing.
MLA Citation
Sullivan, Margaret L. "Designing for the Senses. Touch [7:48]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, November 2015, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1985346?learningModuleId=1980800&topicCenterId=2247903.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1985346?learningModuleId=1980800&topicCenterId=2247903
Entry ID: 1985346
