Gorse Center Kids Discover Their Bodies, Themselves

String "brains," plastic-bag "stomachs," and balloon "hearts" are all part of the self-portraits created by students of Gorse Child Study Center teacher Sandy Johnson (above). Kids learn about their bodies by making models of them, inside and out.

When you're four or five years old, it seems everyone else knows more about the world than you do. But Gorse Child Study Center teacher Helen "Sandy" Johnson makes kids experts in the one thing they already know better than anyone else: their own bodies. For about two months each year, Johnson's students--a dozen or so children--build life-size models of themselves, inside and out. She invented this "Bodyworks" teaching approach, and wrote a new book, The Growing Edge, about its powerful effects on the children.

Using paint, paper, plastic bags, and other common materials, every child builds his or her own likeness while learning about what happens in each anatomical area. As children wiggle string "spinal cords" through macaroni "vertebrae," they discover that--although people look different on the outside--everyone's the same under the skin.

"The Bodyworks expands kids' sense of their own 'insides' and lets them connect to the wider world in a profound way," Johnson says. "Awareness of their bodies leads to awareness of the whole web of life." That's a lot to expect from construction paper and string, but the approach works.

Johnson, who holds a master of arts in teaching from Harvard, has taught at Gorse for thirteen years. Before that, she taught high school English and social studies; but a stint with Head Start made her realize, "I belong with the little ones."

Not only do the children thrive using this approach, but even MHC undergraduates find illumination from The Bodyworks. "Every year, lots of teaching assistants learn about their own bodies from the project," Johnson says. "They are relieved to have a way to ask questions, and they comb the books for information. One told me, 'It's like I got the chance to do my childhood over again, and this time I did it right.'" Thanks to The Bodyworks, Johnson's four- and five-year-old students are going to get it right the first time.