The Choice to Invite

The way we choose to display the materials in our classrooms communicates a lot about the way we view children. Being thoughtful with the materials, and taking the time to present materials in an attractive, inviting way, indicates to children, and the broader community, several things:

• We value their thinking
• We respect their work
• We appreciate the processes in which they engage

In the busy and sometimes hectic world of early childhood education, it can be tempting to simply toss out a bucket of Legos and walk away. But taking the time to stop and reflect shows children that you respect them as thinkers, creators, and builders. It sharpens their sense of your view of them - as capable, inquiring minds who are ready to take on the wonders they encounter each day. It also conveys the message that you have a deep respect for the materials in the classroom and encourages them to internalize the same respect in themselves. Setting high expectations creates an opportunity for children to rise to these expectations; cultivating a community of independent, autonomous children requires this type of thinking.

When the choice is made to make the shift to creating invitations, as opposed to simply tossing out materials with no regard to their presentation, the results are amazing. I've reflected before on the ways in which children tend to be underestimated and I've now come to wonder if it is really on us, the adults, to create opportunities for children to show us just how capable they really are.

It has been fascinating for me to see how thoughtful invitations empower children to see themselves as capable. I often talk about the fact that children still manage to surprise me with their thinking on a regular basis. Never has this been more clear than when I set up materials in an engaging, attractive way and the children rearrange them into something unexpected and spectacular. It is heartening to me to see children take the initiative to set up invitations for themselves and their classmates, invitations full of wonder, beauty, and promise.

It is a wonderful testament to just how capable they are when they start creating invitations that are as intricate and interesting as any adult's!

"Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves." - Jean Piaget

The Wonder of Light

It is with a somewhat amused expression on my face that I write this post. Although I have been fortunate to work with children for the better part of the last ten years, I seem to somehow forget how often they surprise me.

We are currently in the middle of several long-term, large-scale projects and inquiries in our classroom. The value is immeasurable: the exploration, the reflection, the encounters in which the children are engaging. Really, it is difficult to articulate so much goodness. I am so proud of the work we are doing. And because of the exciting work happening in the classroom, I sometimes (often) forget to focus on all of the equally amazing things that are happening in the spaces in between - the spontaneous wonderings, the unplanned moments of inquiry, the observations and explorations that drive the moments of our days. Today, I was fortunate to have a reminder of how much the children have to offer, of how much I have to gain, when I spare thoughts for those moments outside of the bigger pictures, those spontaneous moments of goodness that give me pause. These are the moments that remind me to be grateful for the opportunity I have to learn alongside children every day.

"I catched the light in my hands, look."

"It keeps moving away."

"If I make my hands a circle, I can keep the light in there."

My gratitude for this moment is overwhelming. It reminds me to be thoughtful, to be respectful of those seemingly small moments. It reminds me to appreciate the spaces in between. It reminds me to take a moment to appreciate the wonder of light and the small hands that catch it.

Reflective Practice is a Full Time Job

I am by no means an expert on the art of reflective practice, but I recognize it as something that has enormous value in a classroom environment such as mine. And while I know that there is always room for me to grow and improve, I am making strides to be as reflective a teacher as I can be, both for myself and for my students.

During this past summer, I was fortunate to find myself with a lot of extra time for reflecting, brainstorming, and journaling about my experiences as a preschool teacher. Now that the school year is in full swing, however, I am finding it increasingly difficult to give reflection - particularly reflection through journaling - the time and effort I know it deserves.

I wholeheartedly believe the idea that you make time for what you value. But I am also wholeheartedly aware of the fact that I am human. And sometimes I am tired. And sometimes I've had the kind of day that makes me grumpy toward my practice. And sometimes I would just rather read a novel or hang out with my kid. And sometimes, something has to give.

While I am not giving up on the practice of journaling as a reflection tool, I have also had to make some concessions - sometimes other things take precedence. That being said, I am making every effort to renew the zeal I had for journaling in the first place. In doing so, I am acknowledging that reflective practice is no easy task - it requires commitment. And sometimes to honor that commitment, I have to power through - through the weight of rocky parental relationships, through the emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion of working with young children, through the daily grind of paperwork, policies, and procedures - to be really reflective. I owe it to my students - and to myself - to be a teacher who reflects on the elements and interactions that combine to make up our daily lives in the sacred space of our classroom.

It's Okay to Breathe

The children in my class are in the beginning phases of a study of their hands and what those hands represent to them in terms of their identities. It's a very exciting time, when a new inquiry or study is beginning and the possibilities are looming large on the horizon.

I have reflected before on my own sense of urgency and although I am aware of my tendency to rush, and try to be mindful to slow down, I have been reminded this week that I am often still guilty of barreling through my own agenda and not giving the children time to think, process, and reflect on their questions and curiosities.

I think sometimes I get so excited about all of the amazing things the children are doing that I forget that children experience time very differently than I do. Children need time to think, to process, to walk away from ideas for a bit to gain some perspective. In reality, many times I feel the same way, in many different areas of my life. So here, in a moment of thoughtful reflection, I remind myself that it's okay to breathe. It's okay to take a lengthy pause in the midst of an inquiry to let ideas percolate. It's okay to walk away for a few days and just let ideas hang. If the children are truly curious about whatever it is they are investigating, they will come back to it. And I will be here waiting for them when they do.

I was jarred into this moment of reflection today, as I was wrapping up the first phase in our hand study and I was already thinking about starting the next phase tomorrow. Then A spontaneously traced her hand after finishing her journal today and engaged me in a quiet conversation as she deliberated over just which marker to choose to complete her work. 

"My hand is brown so I need to use a brown [marker]...This [marker] is light brown. I love light brown because my skin is light brown. Can you see my face is brown?"

This was such a powerful moment for me, and a strong reminder of why slowing down definitely has its merits. Sometimes, many times, the most profound statements are made spontaneously, in the spaces between my questioning. They key is learning to abandon my own agenda, quiet down, and listen for them.

Visible Learning - Not Just for the Kids!

Now that the new school year is in full swing, it's time to start implementing all of the ideas that have been collecting over the long summer months. This year one of my teaching goals is to be more intentional in the ways I display my own thinking in regard to the children's interests and inquiries. In our classroom, one of the ways we will accomplish this is with a "We're thinking..." board.

Many factors led to the decision to give this board a try:

          Emphasis on making learning visible - 

          As reflective practitioners in a Reggio-inspired preschool setting, we make it a priority to foster visible learning in our classroom. But it's also also vital to remember that teachers also bring much to the inquiries and discussions we engage in with children. Having an intentional space in the classroom for teachers to record and reflect on their thinking will help foster an environment of learning, reflection, and co-construction of knowledge between children and teachers.

          Transparency, communication, and collaboration - 

          I'm very fortunate to teach and learn alongside three incredible assistant facilitators each day (Jayne, Danon, and Townsley) and the reality of the situation is that it is nearly impossible to sit down together each day to share everything we have observed about the children. We do have a weekly team meeting where we all sit down to discuss our documentation and plan for the following week, but the board helps to ensure that we don't forget anything we've noticed and also helps us notice patterns and directions in the children's thinking, which informs the work we do with them.

Ideas into Action

The really excellent thing about the board is that when the time comes for us to get together as a team to plan for the upcoming week, all of our documentation from the previous week is collected in one place.

This year we are using an adapted version of the emergent curriculum form found in We Are All Explorers: Teaching and Learning with Reggio Principles in Urban Settings (Scheinfeld, Haigh, Scheinfeld 2008).

We altered the form slightly to meet the needs of our center and our classroom. In previous years, I would have been hesitant to display the form with its arrows, scratch outs, additions, and changes but now I feel differently. There is actually a strange beauty in making learning visible - perhaps because it can be such a mess.

The truth of the matter is, learning is often messy and can rarely be placed in tidy little boxes. In reality, there are so many ways to learn (we Reggio folks don't strive to embody the Hundred Languages for nothing!) that thinking of it as only neat and linear is pretty shortsighted. I'm so thrilled to be working toward a more realistic model this year - and creating space for the thought processes of the teachers will certainly support that model. Plus, what an amazing example we are setting for the children, showing them that the process of thinking things through is something we value in our community. What a fine example - that we all have ideas to offer and that we are on this learning journey together.

Where I've Been

"[E]ach child is viewed as infinitely capable, creative, and intelligent..."

-Louise Cadwell

A student independently creates a small world play scene.

A new school year is upon us and as I eagerly anticipate the new group of children that will soon be entering the sacred space of our classroom - a space where play rules and the rights of the children are a priority - I find myself reflecting on these small people and where they've been.

I have the privilege of teaching and learning from four-year-old children each day. When I really stop to think about it, it is amazing that these small people have been on this planet for only four short years. Four years! It's really amazing.

I think it is often easy for teachers to welcome a new group of students and immediately lament how much they "don't know." Let us not forget, the students who just left our community had an entire year to get where they were when they left, and although it is sometimes terribly hard to remember, they entered the classroom in the same place as these who are now gracing our doorway. It is so easy - especially in our society, who places so much emphasis on deficits in children entering the school system, rather than recognizing and capitalizing on all of the knowledge they bring - to forget that four-year-old children are filled to the brim with the wisdom of their experiences. 

Children are so often underestimated because of their age. What's four years? A stint in high school? A college career?

Play dough representations.

How much did I learn in my four years in high school? In college? My first four years as a classroom teacher? Loads! Certainly more than I can quantify here. But here's what I didn't learn in any of those chapters of my life: How to walk. How to speak and comprehend an entire language. How to assess and react in various social situations. How to navigate an environment - multiple environments! - that were totally out of my range of experience on a daily basis. The list could continue on and on.

So why are children so frequently underestimated? In the four years before these children walk through my classroom door, they have accomplished much. So much. They come to us each day possessing so much knowledge, so much experience, so much wisdom. They are learners, researchers, artists, musicians. They are storytellers, collaborators, community members, individuals. 

Remembering and reflecting on this fact also helps me keep in the front of my mind that these children enter our space each day as fully capable - and I owe it to them to consistently remind the world.

Sense of urgency?

Feeling a sense of urgency seems, to me, to contradict everything I advocate for as a preschool teacher and mother. In a culture that constantly tells our children to RUSHRUSHRUSH, early childhood teachers and advocates often have to remind families and the broader community that childhood is not a race to some eventual finish line. "Slow down," we say. "Appreciate the moments. Take time to notice and wonder." So how do I reconcile what I know to be true for children with my own break-neck pace when it comes to all of the behind-the-scenes goodness of teaching?

Knowing I am on the cusp of restarting my master's program, I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency. I know this endeavor will take several years and I currently feel like I just can't get started fast enough. Coupled with my excitement and anticipation for pursuing my degree, I have a desire to get started on the next school term. I teach preschool in a year-round lab setting and I often find myself feeling guilty as the hot weeks of summer stretch on. Sure, feeling excited to start a new school year is not crime, but what about the kids who still remain in my class this summer?

I'm really pushing myself to grow as an early childhood educator, particularly in regard to being a more reflective practitioner. What I have learned about myself so far is that being more reflective rarely means being more comfortable. In reality, being more reflective often means being rather uncomfortable as I consider some of my own complacency and think about ways to push myself further as a teacher and advocate. This recent feeling of urgency has certainly given me pause, forcing me to address my discomfort and think about why I feel this way - and, more importantly, what it means for me as a teacher.

I don't really have an answer here; I'm not sure that having one is necessary, or even possible. Rather, this questioning of myself is encouraging me to think about I can offer my students, and my own daughter, by slowing down, breathing deeply, and taking the time to notice and wonder.

And So the Story Begins

What drives an early childhood educator to better practice? I have found that for me, reflection is the key to my better understanding of my students, my colleagues, and myself as a teacher. Intentional reflection is what has helped me grow into my role as an educator of young children more than anything else.

There are always so many reasons not to start a blog: being a full time teacher, full time parent and partner, and a master's degree student being just the tip of the iceberg. But why not force myself out of my comfort zone and share my learning journey along the way?

I hope we can reflect together in this space, for the benefit of ourselves and our students. Come learn with me!