A Conversation with Jerome Bruner
On possibility, dialogue, and the creative nature of learning.
Of all the people I have had the privilege of meeting and conversing with, few left as lasting an impression on me as the cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner. What follows are excerpts from a conversation we had in Reggio Emilia in 2011.
At the time, I was developing a public art project in Bologna and spending a great deal of time researching the cultural history of the Emilia-Romagna region, of which Bologna is the capital. Two other things were happening in my life that made this research particularly meaningful. At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, we were working on programming for the exhibition The Century of the Child, curated by Juliet Kinchin, which examined how design and visual culture had engaged childhood throughout the twentieth century. And at home, I had recently become a father: my daughter Estela was about to turn three. Questions around early childhood education were therefore very much on my mind.
Being in Bologna also meant being close to Reggio Emilia, the town internationally known for the educational approach developed there after World War II. Curious to learn more about it, I mentioned my interest to the eminent psychologist Howard Gardner, who at the time served on the advisory council of MoMA’s education department. Gardner suggested that I try to meet his teacher and mentor, Jerome Bruner. I remember being taken aback to learn that Gardner, who was already 68 at the time, had a living mentor.
Jerome Bruner (1915-2016) was one of the principal architects of the twentieth-century cognitive revolution. He helped transform psychology from a science of behavior into a study of meaning. Howard mentioned that, at ninety-five, Bruner continued to travel regularly to Reggio Emilia to study the schools there. As luck would have it, he happened to be visiting during the same days that we were in the region. I managed to borrow a bit of his time for a conversation.
Reading this exchange now, what strikes me most is how naturally it reflects the central concerns that animated Bruner’s work across several decades. Throughout the conversation he returns repeatedly to ideas that shaped his thinking: learning through discovery, the role of dialogue in the construction of knowledge, and the importance of imagination in human understanding. In a sense, this brief encounter offers a small glimpse into the broader intellectual trajectory of a scholar whose work profoundly shaped modern theories of learning and cognition. Almost a centenarian, Bruner’s brilliant intellect and curiosity, and his ability to engage with complex and new ideas around art were an inspiration.
We met in a quiet corner of the Hotel Posta, where he was staying while visiting the Reggio schools. Also present wasWendy Woon, then Deputy Director of Education at MoMA, who has also been a really critical mentor to me over the years.
Reggio Emilia, June 12, 2011
Participants: Jerome Bruner, Pablo Helguera, Wendy Woon.
Hotel Posta, Reggio Emilia.
Pablo Helguera
How do you see the visual arts making a difference between the Reggio Emilia approach and other early childhood education systems?
Jerome Bruner
The first honest answer is that they do not draw a distinction between art and other forms of knowing. To know something means to know it in several ways.
Take a simple example: how do you bring order into a group of children? One activity I observed involved the game “cat and mouse.” The children run in a circle while one chases another, and the group becomes a protective structure. What begins as a game becomes a way of asking questions: how does a group organize itself? What shapes can it take? A circle, a square, something else?
The important thing here is that children are encouraged to ask: What is it that we are doing? What other arrangements are possible?
In short, the point is not simply to teach what is, but to explore what is possible.
The other essential element is exchange. When I ask you a question, I expect an answer; when you ask me a question, I respond. Knowledge is dialogic. The world may have order, but there are many possible orders, and they are explored through dialogue.
Pablo Helguera
The visual seems very important in the Reggio system. Is visual thinking dialogic as well, or does it depend on language?
Jerome Bruner
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet there is a wonderful scene where two characters look at the same cloud. One says it looks like a camel. The other says it resembles a weasel. Eventually they agree it could be either.
Shakespeare’s point is that interpretation always involves perspective. If you want to understand something fully, you must be willing to look at it in different ways.
Let me give you another example. The physicist Niels Bohr once told me about his son. One day the boy confessed that he had taken a toy from a store without paying. Bohr asked himself: should I see this through the lens of justice, or through the lens of love? In the first case the boy is guilty; in the second, it is admirable that he told the truth.
The important thing is the ability to consider multiple interpretations.
In Reggio Emilia, teachers encourage children to do exactly that. If a child draws something and someone asks, “What is it?” the child may say, “It’s a tiger.” The next question becomes: What is the tiger doing? From there, a story emerges.
Looking at possibilities in this way may well be the basis of human intelligence.
Pablo Helguera
One thing we see today is a crisis in art education. The old academy model disappeared, and the Bauhaus model replaced it. But today we seem unsure what the model should be.
Jerome Bruner
Well, the Bauhaus was not simply about technique. Technique was there to serve the imagination. It was a way of giving form to human creativity.
Perhaps the first step is simply to ask students to look and decide for themselves what they think art is.
Wendy Woon
It seems that play is central to the process for many artists.
Jerome Bruner
It must be playful. But then we must ask: what is play?
Play is a temporary liberation from constraints. It allows experimentation. And experimentation allows discovery.
Pablo Helguera
I am very interested in art as a way of learning. When we encounter a work that inspires us, the first impulse is often to make something ourselves. I wonder if this impulse to create is inherent.
Jerome Bruner
Yes—because creation is exploration of the possible.
One of the wonderful things about the Reggio classrooms is that you never quite know what will happen next. And that unpredictability is delightful. The children enjoy being surprised, and they also discover that surprise can be shared.
They share it through conversation, but also through drawing, painting, and building things together.
The only thing I caution against is pushing too hard.
Pablo Helguera
What would pushing too hard look like?
Jerome Bruner
Lessons.
“Today we will learn how to draw rounded cheeks.”
Who needs that?
(Laughter)
Education should not become a mechanical transmission of techniques. The aim is to create situations where students discover things for themselves.
When my book The Process of Education turned fifty, people asked me what its central idea was. It was very simple: learning should allow students to go beyond the information given.
They should not simply receive knowledge—they should transform it.
Wendy Woon
We often forget that teaching itself could be a creative act.
Jerome Bruner
We had better remember that it is.
Teaching requires giving students something to work with, but also allowing them to go beyond it.
I remember when my children discovered prime numbers. To them, a prime number was something independent—something that could not be divided. It was a childish interpretation, but not a bad one. What mattered was that they were constructing meaning for themselves.
Pablo Helguera
Paulo Freire argued that students should receive information only when they are ready to use it.
Jerome Bruner
That is a little too romantic. It overlooks the fact that learning can simply be fun. Curiosity itself can drive learning.
Jerome Bruner
Let me give you another example.
I once sailed across the Atlantic to take up a position at Oxford. What struck me during that journey was how differently the world can be represented depending on the purpose of the representation.
For a sailor, the ocean is not simply a geographic space. Its shape depends on the winds that carry you. If you made a map based on travel time rather than distance, the ocean would look completely different.
The same principle applies to teaching. There are always multiple ways to represent reality. Education should expose students to those different ways.
Pablo Helguera
What connects people to art?
Jerome Bruner
Art penetrates experience. It creates a world with its own emotional meaning.
In the nineteenth century there was the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the “total work of art.” What interested me about that idea was that such works cannot be fully defined in advance.
You discover what they are by making them.
That is how learning often works as well. You may not fully understand what you are doing while you are doing it. But afterward you reflect on it, and meaning emerges.
Why insist that everything be understood in advance?
(Long pause)
I could go on and on—but I suspect you have a train to catch.
thank you and gracias!
we had better remember that life is also play.....
(unlike those death-mongers cuyos nombres no quiero recordar, who think life is a violent video game.)