Kintsugi, Wait! You Let Toddlers Use Glass!?

Yes. We use glass and ceramic in a toddler, even in an infant, community. And there are several reasons, the aesthetics, the real material (glass and ceramic are closer to a natural state), and it is breakable. What? Breakable materials in a community of young children? Isn't that unsafe? Honestly, it depends on your definition of unsafe. They could break a material and get cut on it. This is true. However, they are being closely supervised, and any cut would, worst case scenario, require stitches. On the other hand, to not learn how to carefully handle items causes long term unsafe habits. Adults seem to think that at some point children will just be mature and careful enough to use breakables. The reality is, and this is born out in the research, children just do not learn how to properly handle these materials. Therefore their ability to handle these items is severely stunted, leading to more dangerous injuries because adults assume competence based on age and provide less supervision.

We had one of those breaks yesterday in class. A child aged 2 year and 10 months dropped a glass tray 

and it broke. 

We swept the glass, with a broom then a vacuum, and made sure that everyone was wearing their hard soled slippers. We saw that there were three large pieces that were potentially repairable. So, I saw an opportunity for two lessons. One in repairing a broken item, rather than simply throwing it away. The second was something I learned on social media, a technique used in Japan to repair broken ceramics called Kintsugi. where the break is repaired with gold and becomes part of the life story of the item. While our classroom budget does not allow for the purchase of gold, it does allow for the purchase of gold acrylic paint and a small tube of super glue. We first painted the broken edges with the gold paint, then I applied super glue and held the pieces together. It seemed to work! On Monday we will return this to its place on the shelf, with an addition to its life story.

For more information on Kintsugi: https://mymodernmet.com/kintsugi-kintsukuroi/