Turtlewings à Bruxelles
Testimonial by Michelle Uthurry, Coordinator at Accueil Temps Libre (ATL)
When Jules asked me to write about the Turtlewings project, several memories of this extraordinary place returned.
When I first walked through the door of Turtlewings in Schaerbeek in 2012, my heart started to beat a little harder, and a poem by Loris Malaguzzi (founder of the Reggio Approach to learning) returned to my memory. I had visited Reggio Schools in Italy a few years before, and it left a lasting impression on me.
"The child is made of a hundred,
The child has a hundred languages,
A hundred hands
A hundred thoughts
A hundred ways of playing and speaking
A hundred, always a hundred
Ways of listening
To be amazed and to love
A hundred joys to sing and understand
A hundred worlds to discover
A hundred worlds to invent
A hundred worlds to dream
The child has a hundred languages
But ninety-nine are stolen from him..."
From Reggio Emilia to Turtlewings, Schaerbeek, a bridge was born and joined a network of educational movements convinced by the idea that children, full of childhood energy, can draw indefinitely on their potential to build their vision of the world while being accompanied by thoughtful adults, with the skills of listening and observation.
My work at the time was at Accueil Temps Libre (ATL), managing centres in Schaarbeek that welcomed children during their free time. When I discovered Turtlewings, they were already on an innovative path. They became a generous and enthusiastic partner of ATL for several years.
But what was so different behind the doors of Turtlewings?
Like Loris Malaguzzi, I want to answer: A HUNDRED!
A hundred subtle aesthetic hands-on experiences for all the senses: of light and shadows, of the visible and the hidden, open spaces and secret refuges, silhouettes in shadow, natural elements, objects staged to tell endless stories, futuristic constructions, inhabited ceilings and a treasure cellar.
In this place, objects came to life, thoughts were put in motion, and meaning was given to feelings. It is difficult to describe the abundance of creative energy within Turtlewings because it was both a personal and a collective process nourished by each individual, interacting with others and the environment that sustained it.
I observed an authentic environment designed for all, enjoying the freedom of movement, individuals enveloped in moments of great intensity, and very young children sharing mature words during collective moments. From encounters between shapes, colours, and textures. Creating stories to tell and listen to. Imagining and reading the world together, the one we see and the one we make or dream of.
It was in these powerful moments that each child, each person, could dare to grow and know themselves a little better. What also allowed this was the absence of models, judgments, and tightly defined objectives, which all channel imagination and limit creativity.
Ahead of its time, Turtlewings recovered industrial scraps and patiently built up an incredible repository of one of kind reuse materials and objects, a source of inspiration for all educative and creative adventures. The basement (A rainbow cellar called REcircle) was conceived as a place of resources where a whole world of objects and textures were sorted by colour.
One evening, the Turtlewings team invited a hundred educators to discover their project and premises. An alley of shoes was laid on the ground to welcome and guide the guests from the street to the front door, but these shoes did not go in pairs. The shoes had been collected because of a manufacturing error, and only one of each model was for the right or left foot.
Participants were asked to create a performance in small groups during the evening. The task was to illustrate a scientific fact the audience had to guess. Like "How long is a Cameleons tongue?" We explored the basement of treasures and found everything necessary to illustrate our facts. I still remember very clearly the jubilant atmosphere and the enthusiasm of everyone in this moment of collective intelligence that was both humorous and...scientific.
In parallel to my Accueil Temps Libre (ATL) coordinator job, I was also a social and professional integration trainer. I accompanied a group to Turtlewings that wanted to work in the childcare sector. Most of them came from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. They were invited to explore the different spaces in a very accessible and spontaneous way.
Afterwards, they exchanged what they had experienced. Many expressed the joy of reconnecting to their childhood through manipulating objects, as they had in their home countries, from games they made and stories they invented. That moment when they gave free rein to their imagination and creativity was worth as much as the theory they were learning in formal settings.
I will end with another Loris Malaguzzi's poem:
"They say to the child...
That the game and the work
Reality and fantasy
Science and imagination
Heaven and earth
Reason and dream
Are things that do not go together
We tell him in short
That a hundred does not exist
And the child says
But it does! One hundred exists!"