Abstract

Boredom and apathy are readily observable in many contemporary classrooms. In order to combat this prevalent condition, elementary students between the ages of eight and eleven years old in two different classes at Coronation Elementary School in Montreal, Canada, were offered a series of activities that provided them with opportunities to become active researchers of their own experience. In these efforts the camera played an integral role in enabling the children to bring their ideas, concerns and real world experience into the classroom in thoughtful and personal ways. Conclusions drawn from this qualitative study support the view that by providing children with learning environments in which deep personal connections are fostered (through care, dialogue and pleasure in learning), they may be empowered to employ the technical or artistic skills they are taught to create texts that are representations of their individual and collective identities. Experienced together, this pedagogy of connection , along with explorations of identity through the visual arts, served to build a bridge between the children's experiences outside the school and their lives in the elementary classroom, which in turn brought them to increased engagement in their learning.