Interviewing children on Animistic Thinking
After school/preschool program

            This experience has been both rewarding and educational, because I felt I was looking into the secret life of the preschoolers that I interviewed.  I was amazed by the similarity in some of the children’s answers.  I spent time in a preschool class interviewing four and five year olds, and then I went to my school-age classroom to ask some six and seven year olds the same questions.  I truly believed there would be a big difference in the answers to my questions according to age but there was not.  I will start by discussing my findings on magical and animistic thinking.  I will then talk about what I’ve learned on episodic memory, use of scripts and ideas of self.

            As I read about animistic thinking I discovered Piaget’s theory.  He believed children of the preschool age were animistic thinkers because they thought non-living objects had life like qualities.  After I interviewed the children I realized two of them did believe the sun could think and feel.  Six-year-old J said ‘yes the sun can feel.’  Six year old E said ‘yes the sun thinks about some body living on it, and it feels happy.”  According to the text J and E may believe this is true about the sun because of their lack of experiences with the sun.  However when the children were asked if cars could think and feel the majority of them said no.   The answer I received from five-year-old B was quite different.    He said, “Yes, the cars on ‘Little People’ think.  They sing and dance.”  He was referring to a cartoon his sister watches.  I don’t know if he really believes cars can feel or if he understands the cartoons aren’t real.  When the children were asked if books could think there were several responses.  Six-year-old A said, “Yes, they think about people learning how to read.”  Seven-year-old T said, “books can’t think, but I can go into a book.”  The text referenced to most three and four year olds as being magical thinkers when it comes to believing in fairies.  I was shocked to find out that not only did the four year olds all say ‘yes’ to fairies being real and being able to think, but so did the five, six and seven year olds.  I was amazed by these results.  When the children were asked if fairies wishes would come true they all agreed, however supporting the text they said their own wishes could not come true, even if they wished every day.  I wanted to add in another observation on magical thinking.  The day before St. Patrick’s Day the teachers set up all kinds of clues to show the children the leprechaun had been in the room.  There was green glitter in the toilet, and green fingerprints on the wall.  I observed why there was so much excitement.    A group of ten children ran around from room to room searching for the leprechaun.  The level of noise and energy increased in the room.  I was shocked that some seven and eight year old children were looking for the leprechaun too.  They truly believed he had been there.  I recorded some of their comments below.

“He pinched me.”

“Look there’s his pot of gold.”

“He left a trail, and it stunk.”

“Leprechauns are tiny, they just do tricks.”

Then one child started to cry. When I asked what was wrong, seven-year-old H told me she was scared of the leprechaun and she wanted to go home.  This is true of the text, which says children think if they imagine something it may appear and become a material item.  She honestly though the leprechaun would appear out of thin air.

As I interviewed the children on episodic memory, I asked them several questions.  The first question I asked was what they had done the day before.  Most of the children told me they did not remember. The four and five year olds answered me quickly with an ‘I don’t know.’  The six and seven year olds seem to think about it for a minute, and still answer ‘I don’t know.’  I was surprised the reactions were so similar.   Four-year-old J told me “I don’t remember, but I did play with Matthew outside.”  This is true of the text on episodic memory that a preschool child will remember an event that is meaningful to them.  The next question I asked the children was what they do when they are at a grocery store.  Four-year-old H told me she goes in, mom picks stuff out, and then they buy it.  Seven year old A told me she gets a cart, goes through the aisles, goes to check out, puts the grocery’s in sacks while mom or dad pays, and then they load the groceries in the car.  The children’s answers followed what the text said about the use of scripts.  The younger children gave a shorter explanation of the grocery store experience yet it was still in the right sequence.  The older child had a much more detailed script of sequenced events at the grocery store.

             To discover the children’s ‘ideas about themselves,’ I asked them what they thought about themselves, to describe themselves to me, and to tell me what they were good at.  The four year olds seemed to struggle with response time on this question so I just repeated it over and over until they understood me.  Four-year-old J answered, “I don’t know, but I did help my mom carry some heavy stuff.”  She also told me she was good at playing the guessing game.   This coincides with the text about a preschool child’s self-concept.  Younger preschoolers will identify concrete behaviors when describing themselves.  When I asked a seven year old the same question he seemed more tuned into his talents as he described himself.  He said, “ I play Game Boy, and soccer.”  He also said “I want to be a judge.”  The younger children’s responses were directed toward specific tasks they had completed like putting their coats away, or helping pick up and the older preschoolers spoke of their talents like instruments and Swimming Lessons.  According to the text these ‘talents’ could be due to the child’s culture and the responses from parents.  For example if a parent always tells their six year old how great of a soccer player he is, he would naturally respond to being good at playing soccer. 

            I would like to conclude by saying I really benefited from this assignment.  I would like to have more conversations with children in the future on magical thinking.  I was surprised by the answers some of the children gave me, and I’m now aware that children even up to age seven may still believe in fairies and leprechauns.  I’m also more fulfilled to know that children can start to recognize their own talents and special interests at such a young age.   This tells me as an educator how important it is to provide feedback on each child’s special abilities.  Children from 4-7 are really discovering their worlds.  They play with their imaginations to the point where they can’t separate magical thinking from reality.  They truly need environments, which encourage and support their imaginations, and talents.