Clay and child co-becoming

A new task includes working with clay. Clay seems to get the children excited. At first they are instructed to drop a chunk of clay from high up down to the clay bat. The rough movement encourages them into wild experiments. Splash, ouch, bam! They giggle at the loud noise they make by dropping clay. Someone thumps the chunk of clay with a rolling pin.

“Yuck, look at our hands!”

Dropped chunks of clay change shape quickly. At one moment there appears a smiling face, at the next, the chunk of clay has been reshaped into a pile of poop in the hands of another child. The clay sticks to the hands, and the children (those perceived as a boy, in particular) immerse themselves in cutting, rolling, twisting, and chopping it. The plastic material seems to activate their imagination.

“Look, this is Inge!” shouts one, showing a simple clay figure to the child standing next to them. “Look at it now, Inge lives!” they continue and show how the figure moves in their hands.

The other end of the classroom (where the male-assigned children are sitting) seems to be totally charmed by the clay, under the spell of the affective power evoked by the materiality of the clay. Ceaseless excited chatter and bubbling as they touch the clay. As if the clay had hypnotized them. The teacher’s instructions are followed fast but the rest of the time is spent palpating and twisting the clay, responding to its suggestions, chatting – being with the clay. Although the class is coming to its end, the requests to clean up their own places fall on deaf ears. “Inge, Inge… haha…”

Overflowing excitement still continues at the sinks. Washing dirty clay bats transforms the sinks into bubbling foam springs as dish brushes whisk and stir warm water and washing liquid into a lather.