Over the past four months, the preschool community has been engaged in the project Spaces and Places. The winter break allowed us to pause and reflect upon the significance of the children's work.
This past week as part of our professional development, we spent three hours with our Reggio consultant, Dr. George Forman, "studying" and unpacking our community learning story as a team.
Here is a link to the Spaces and Places community learning story:
LS_Community Spaces_Places HOME.pdf
Nearing the end of our webcam session, George reflected, "What you have shared with the families is rich and deep. What we did today (on our PD day) was a graduate course in three hours. I commend you for your work."
Yes -- it was indeed an intellectual workout -- a perfect way to begin the new year as the children return. Look for more as our work and research around Spaces and Places continues.
As Thanksgiving break and conferences draw near, I'd like for us to take a few moments to reflect and ponder on the current Spaces and Places project.
Our Journey...
We began our project in August with a few key questions or thoughts -- I'd for us to revisit those questions, which was shared with you in an email back then. Here is part of that email:
"Before we begin I'd like for us -- families and teachers -- to pause for a moment and ponder about how might children encounter spaces and places.
The sounds? The elements? The smell? The temperature? Do you find them looking up or looking down? Do they touch and feel the objects first? Or do they observe and look over every element of the space?
Do they react or enter differently in different spaces or places?
The answers to these questions help us to know who the child is as a learner.
How do children approach the natural vs. unnatural, or man made, spaces and places?
Will the two different types of spaces cause the child to use different strategies in knowing and/or understanding the natural vs. the unnatural? What senses does the child use first in each of these spaces or places?
How does your child process the elements found in a man made space or place?"
At the time it seemed as if we had created a very tall order for our research!
As the year or project has unfolded through our perspective research project groups, new questions surfaced or perhaps we found ourselves funneling or refining our early questions (from August) to a few "newly" framed questions for our research:
- How do children "read" or process the elements of a space or place -- be it natural or unnatural (man made)?
- Do children read a space much like words or marks on a piece of paper in that they "decode" the elements within space in order to make meaning of what a particular space is?
- What "messages" or "signs" do the various elements within the space convey to the child as the child reads the space?
Over the past month, we have noticed a shift in the children's thinking around their research spaces -- shifting towards an empathy for the space and the elements within the space. This shift is critical as the child begins to take the position or view of "others" (decentering)-- with "others" - being a person, animal or thing.
When we begin to think about a child's "decentering" -- or their taking the view or perspective of "others" -- we find lifelong implications. Authors/writers, artists, professionals, CEO's, (the list goes on) are able to take the perspective of others with great expertise. They often understand what "others" - be it clients, viewers, patients, etc. are experiencing, feeling and needing. This is a professional "skill."
Taking the perspective of others requires that one has to read or assimilate the nuances, signs or messages projected from others -- persons, animals or things.
The children in both projects have shifted to "reading" the messages/signs that are being conveyed or found in the natural elements of the park.
Let's unpack the concept of messages/signs.
Messages/Signs
Messages/signs range from complex to simple. They can be coded messages. There are varying degrees of communications, which can be misunderstandings between two people or even unspoken thoughts. Messages/signs can be static sounds or secret codes. Messages or signs are all around us in our daily lives within our digital world -- text messages, emails, phone messages, etc.
Each week the children often go into the parks and begin to read the many natural and man-made messages/signs observed and experience in their research park.
I want to share an experience from Mele Park. On this particular day the children were looking for natural messages/signs in the park. As the children were walking along the beach looking for messages Margaret (Thomas' mother) who was with us that morning walked along the beach with us as well. As we walked along she began to share with me through her eyes -- as an oceanographer -- the messages/signs that she was reading on the beach that morning.
As Margaret spoke I realized that the children's work that morning - their close listening and observations were laying the foundation for lifelong skills in their interactions with the world! Ironically just after she shared with me her observations, the children began to find many of the messages that Margaret had found, once again emphasizing the children's astute observation skills and knowledge that they have about the world around them.
I asked Margaret to send to me her reflections about what she was "reading" at the park that day. Her thoughts epitomize how what children wonder and ponder upon in childhood can lay the foundation for lifelong learning.
Let us look at the messages from that day on the beach through the eyes of an oceanographer:
"The area of the beach we were walking on yesterday is the 'intertidal zone' the area between low water mark and high water mark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertidal_zone). Within the intertidal zone there are narrower zones, or bands - which are determined by the amount of water and wave exposure.
Animals and plants respond to this zonation (this is a focus of study for many marine ecologists). For example, some crabs like to be wet all the time, so they live in the lower intertidal zone. Other crabs prefer to be dry, and they live in the higher intertidal zone. You may have noticed that most of the ghost crab burrows were in the higher intertidal zone.
We saw some examples of 'tide marks' on the beach yesterday (LG's note -coral deposited on the shore line). If you click on this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/seaweedlady/3139408569/ you get an idea of intertidal zonation in Long Island sound and how different organisms respond.
We also talked about the wrack line. The wrack zone is just above the 'average' high tide, where algae is deposited on the sand usually as a result of storms. This marks the
highest water mark on the beach. The material here (algae, kelp, old coral, driftwood) doesn't get washed away from day-to-day, so it is drier, and if it's been in the sun for awhile - sunbleached. The wrack zone will tell you the 'strength' of the last storm, and sometimes you can give a good guess to when the last storm was from the age of the material. I attached an interesting picture of a wrack line from Newfoundland.
There are many messages out there! If the children can learn to read them, they will have a deeper understanding of the processes (e.g., storms, animal behavior, plant tolerance) that created them."
Indeed there were many messages/signs that day!
We also find the Alpha project group "reading" messages while in Manoa Park as well. The Alpha project group has discovered a 'family" of trees living in their park. Each tree's nuances (be it shape, texture, location, etc.) is depicting to the children different family members -- uncle, grandma, mommy, daddy etc. We also find the children anthropomorphizing emotions -- as they have found scary trees. The children are indeed observing and reading the elements of the park.
The children are truly noticing the many messages/signs of their park!
So many of life's occupations depend on messages/signs - from the doctor who is sees his/her patient -- as the doctor reads the patients symptoms; to the auto mechanic listening to the sound of the car engine listening if the engine is tuned; to the computer operator who's reading and creating a coded message for a new program or figuring out a problem.
Messages/signs are vital concepts within life's process.
Which leads us to new questions:
What are the messages/signs that the children glean from a space or place? Why do some messages/signs catch the children's attention while others don't? How do children decode the signs/messages?
Much more to learn from the children's work and research around spaces and places.
One final note --
I have been pondering about the concept of "messages" and the many aspects messages connect with children's learning, which I have alluded to in previous emails. Yesterday in my web cam with George, he raised the question about messages vs. signs. Not just printed signs but other signs found. He used the example that if a boat is on the beach and leaves the beach an imprint is left behind in the sand, which is a "sign" that a boat has been there.
Hmmm....interesting point!
As we unpacked this concept of signs and messages it became clear that the children are 'dancing" between the two concepts often using the word messages to mean signs. We will go back to our documentation and conversations with the children as we ponder the concepts of signs and messages. This is why you are seeing the insertion of "messages/signs" in my thoughts that I'm sharing with you.
Wow -- so much more for us to uncover as we come to know more about children's learning and thinking!
The Broad Strokes: Spaces and Places Project
The past few weeks have been intense from the perspective of the teachers. Having worked several days with Dr. Forman, as he consulted with us on our prospective project groups, our work in general and our project have caused us to think more deeply about the work that we are doing.
We were very encouraged by our work with George. Allow me to share in a few broad strokes what we gleaned from those four days with him and the questions that emerged from our work with him.
The project Spaces and Places has at its foundation solid "big ideas' or concepts, i.e. -- "maps," light, wind,"tree-ness," community/relationships, sound/movement, space/place, company/loneliness, systems, symbols, and the list goes on. These are concepts that are capable of sustaining project work.
Within the project work, we are indeed fostering key or essential learning dispositions: listening, posing questions (to adults and peers in both small and large groups), working in collaboration with large and small groups, speculating and theorizing, expressing one's ideas through multi-modalities, advocating for one's ideas, listening to and following directions, all of which cultivate a culture of "thinkers."
Through our daily work in the project and the classroom communities, we are constantly and consistently defining the language(s) of space/place across a variety of media (materials) such as natural materials, soundscapes, light, reflection, etc.
George observed that our documentation is superlative in comparison to other programs he consults with! All of this was gratifying and positive!
As only George can do --he left us with two weighty questions or provocations that are to be used in helping us frame our next steps in the project work. He challenged us to make it a point to step back and look through the lens of this first question: what is the learning?
He posed this notion of learning, not from a traditional mindset of pouring facts into a passive child but rather through the lens of children actively engaged as critical thinkers. What will we see through these lens? Questioning, wondering that leads to pondering, being able to reflect on and rethink ideas, risk taking, and many of the learning dispositions we value as teachers and parents. Not only are these the tools needed for 21st century thinking but more importantly tools needed for lifelong work.
The second question that George posed to us was having the children think about the park though an empathetic mindset t: How can we raise the children's empathy for the spaces and places that they are interacting in?
Empathy is defined as taking the perspective of the other (other such as adults, peers, the perspective of life in the park). We also talked in depth around the notion of "reciprocity of empathy" (the children in Reggio do this well) simply by having the children think not only of themselves but to take the position of the other and what they can give or do for the park (other).
When children are able to take the position of the other (decentering themselves from their own egocentric view) then they are able to understand the perspective and ideas from another person's point-of-view. The ability to consider from the other's perspective ushers in and supports collaboration, co-learning and co-construction. In having an empathic understanding of the spaces and places, the children begin to make an emotional connection - a relationship - within the system of the "park/place." When the children begin to make a connection of how one entity affects the other, they will have understood a HUGE concept that has profound implications in their understanding of the world around them.
Finally, George also encouraged us to have the children think in metaphors, as children's metaphors are often filled with micro-theories when they are trying to make sense of their world.
For example, in a recent conversation, the children had created a story about a sock that they found in the ocean. The wind blew and sent the sock to the sun. When asked how the sock got away from the sun, the children pondered when finally a child offered, "The sun wiggled!" The child was saying to us the sun was like a foot and when you wiggle things come off! The child's theory was that when things move/wiggle, this movement causes something to loosen or fall off! It made sense that the sun wiggled and released the sock!
Over the past few weeks as we thought about all of this, our team meetings have been intense as we sift through the data/documentation that we have gathered. We have been weighing all the possibilities that the two project groups could move into. Whew! Our brains hurt -- all in a good way!
As we began to sift through our documentation, we began to see clearly how distinctly different the two project groups were in approaching the project Spaces and Places -- using the park as a point for research! Your children, I'm sure you agree, are totally fascinating!
Continue reading "Project: Spaces and Places" »
Zooming in and looking at the Micro Project: Spaces and Places
Background:
One of the key principles of the Reggio philosophy is that of the environment as the "third teacher." Each week teachers will "seed" or set-up the environment in such a way that "provocations" or problems arise, which leads to new questions or provokes new theories in the minds of the children. How we seed the environment often depends on the work or
interests of the children.
This summer we made the environment a focus for research and wonder. It brought to the surface many discoveries and 'aha' moments about "spaces" and "places."
Based on our observations of the children, we noticed their different behaviors and responses to different environments. Thus, we began to define the difference between a space and place.
Space is undefined yet can have "boundaries." Spaces are more transformable, open for interpretation, or more open-ended in how they are used. Space seems more associated with the natural while place is more closely associated with man-made. Place is more defined, often by the function or role that the place is used for. It is not as open for interpretation in its use. Yet at times, space and place could be one and the same!
During this time we began to create a "dance" between natural spaces and artificial or man-made spaces. The stark differences in how the children approached these two environments was fascinating, to say the least!
We began to "define" or frame the "types" of learning modes that children use within their encounters with space and place. We noticed learning or developmental strategies for each mode of learning we observed. For example, the Gatherers may begin by just picking up any small object that is interesting, then we note them shifting to looking for like objects, and from there they began to use the objects as something familiar - a stick as a
weed-eater, etc. Thus, children were Touchers, Movers, Storytellers, etc. as our eyes (teachers) opened to the "learning modes."
The summer micro-project was exciting, and we felt that it could have gone
on for much longer!
Another defining moment came during our team's two-day webcam conference (July 18 & 19) with Dr. George Forman (our Reggio consultant). During those two days, our work and research from the summer program became a focus for our conversations and thinking.
We (Dr. Forman and the team) began to look at and frame the various learning modes that we had observed during the project and began placing them into a "developmental" framework, noting when the child moved from one level into an advanced/critical thinking level within one of the modes. We stressed the notion of "development" because we did not evaluate one mode as more important than the other and strategies as dependent on
context, age, familiarity with experience, etc.
In reflecting upon all that happened over the summer -- our micro-project, our 2-day web conference with Dr. Forman, along with our (Jordan and Leslie) recent experiences in Reggio/Ligonchio, we pondered the learning potential of the summer micro-project for all our children. We began to unpack the rich possibilities that might happen in continuing the project!
Project Groups
In framing the micro-project, we used the specific language of "what if," which enabled to visualize the possibilities and the potential. What if the project group/summer community continued with their project. We had captured wonderful documentation that would be valuable in the children's revisiting and stepping back into the project "where they left off"
-- so to speak.
What if we framed another project group composed of the mixed communities as well? It would be as if they were few steps behind us, but would have the flexibility of framing their own meaning around spaces and places! This is because with different learners in a different group, their experiences could naturally take a unique path.
This caused us to see rich possibilities as we could have members of the two teaching teams move and work between the two project groups, enabling the whole team to work on the same conceptual project of Spaces and Places as a context for research on how children think and learn.
WOW!!
In creating the two project communities -- Project Group 1 -- will be composed of the children who interacted during the summer project along with a couple other children to help balance the groups. We felt comfortable in adding two more to the first group because this group is already established and the addition of two more would work out well. Both groups are mixed from the two communities and age wise, a rather provocative
level of multiage learning.
Throughout the project the Pedagogista (Leslie) and Atelierista (Jordan) will be working closely with both groups and teams-- as well as weaving ideas and experiences between the work of both groups! Each project group's work will be tailored around the particular project group that each child is involved in. There could be times when the work of the two project groups will overlap! There could be times that both groups move in different
directions! Each group will have rich experiences!
Projections
Each week we will be sharing with the families projections of the work for the week ahead so that families will know what is happening in both groups. These are only projections for what we intend to do -- the children's work drives the curriculum/project. We work with a lot of flexibility so that if they change course, our projections will change!
Look for more as the project unfolds!
Lesile Gleim - Preschool
View the latest images from the Preschool - Gleim Classroom Gallery.
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