Building a Nest, Building a Culture

I want to take you back to December 13th, 2012. A group of preschoolers had finished their work for the day on a ceramic sign for their classroom. As they still had some time left in the Studio, they used some leftover clay to work on their own individual experiments. A few minutes in, T. decided, "I want to make a nest. Can you help me make a nest?" F. echoed him. "I want to make a nest, too."

Their seemingly simple request actually held a lot of meaning for me, and for them. These children had embarked on a clay exploration last year, and the result had been a deep investigation of the creation of baby birds/eggs and nests to house them in. One artifact of this process was a set of plans or recipes for making these forms, which helped the children remember the steps that they and their friends had previously deemed necessary for success. 

I still had these recipes in the Studio, hanging from a hook on our clay shelf. As I turned to reach for them, thinking I could offer them as one way to make a nest, F. added, "I need a plan to make a nest." I turned around to show him what I was holding. "Is this the plan you mean?" "Yes! I need the one that shows a nest." "I need one, too," said R., who had also been a part of last year's nest-and-bird making. M. and A., who had not tried nest-making before, were also interested in this idea and came close to look at the plans. 

The children examined the plans, carefully following each step, stating aloud the work they had to do: "Make a ball, poke a hole, then pinch"..."I need mine bigger so I'm pinching more"..."Here's my baby. Let's see if it will fit." R. in particular made an entire family of birds, which necessitated an especially large, open nest. With this complete, she then created one big, one medium, and one small egg, crafting a separate nest to fit each size.

Why has this interaction stayed with me so strongly that I still feel the urge to write about it over a month later?  

Two words: History & Culture

These two words are, of course, inextricably linked, for without the building blocks that a history provides, it is impossible for a culture to develop. For me, the plans are a piece of history - of my history as a teacher here, of these children's history in the Studio, of the medium of clay and the way it has been used here. They are, as I said before, artifacts that speak to an important journey. The fact that the children remembered and asked for these tools in their work nearly a year later suggests the establishment of a culture - a culture of planning and looking back to what we know and have learned in order to achieve a goal. The practice of "making a plan" is, in fact, used in many of the classrooms here. A plan helps children to slow down and focus their ideas, thinking hard about what exactly they are working towards and all of the steps, parts, and pieces necessary to fashion it. It holds them accountable throughout the process of construction, but it also acts as a testament to their hard work when the project is completed. Integrating this idea of plan-making into the everyday work and play of classrooms and schools helps to build a culture where thoughtfulness and follow-through are key, and where each step of the creative process is honored.

This particular encounter in the Studio also speaks to the way in which a long-term relationship with a material helps to foster a culture, as well. In this particular instance, the children's combined knowledge of nest-making and their greater level of expertise with clay allowed them to bring their ideas to fruition more easily and with more accuracy than would have been previously possible. For instance, R.'s nests have become more complex - custom-made to fit the problems she poses for herself - because she has had time to develop her understanding of space and volume as well as her confidence in working with clay. 

This story reminds me of how important it is to look back at where we are coming from and to continue to practice with the tools we have appropriated in our travels. Something we might think had already served its time might prove useful at some future point. It also makes me think of all the ways that we craft our own cultures in the many spheres of our lives through the roots of the unique histories and the artifacts we carry with us. 

My wonderings are: 
What culture do you perceive in your school, at your work, in your home? 
What is the culture that you strive to inculcate, and how does your history help to inform this ideal?

A Conversation about a Castle, A Reflection on Fairness

A group of older preschool children have been working hard to build a castle out of clay.
During our last session in the Studio, the following conversation unfolded.

R.: Excuse me, Susan, Ian, Nina, E., can I make a bridge on that castle?
Nina and Susan say “Yes”. E. and Ian say “No”.

Katie: Why not?
Ian: It goes down.
E.: Because it might fall down.

Katie: Can you show us where you want the bridge to go?
R.: (points to a space across the top of the castle.) Can I make it go this way, E. and Ian?
Both: No!

R.: Why?
Katie: Why?
Ian: No, because that's like a sky.
E.: Because it will fall down inside.

Katie: Maybe you could show us what you want the bridge to look like?
R.: (to me) Can I use your clay?
Katie: Sure
R.: Is it okay if I do something like this? (She draws lines on the clay and holds it up for everyone to see.)
E.: Yes, that's okay.
Ian: No.
R.: Why?
Ian:  no answer
Katie: Well, now we have three votes that say yes, and one for no. If we are voting, it's okay. 

As R. began to draw the lines for her bridge, Ian seemed hesitant as to whether or not to accept them at first. However he began to nod his head and point to other places he thought the bridge could extend to.

This happened over a week ago and continues to resurface in my thoughts. Even in the interaction, I wondered about my words and my influence on the situation, about the values I was upholding in moderating the moment. Specifically, I’m thinking about fairness and all of the possible ways to present a decision or action as "fair."

Why Did I Suggest a Vote?

I suggested voting as a way to answer R.'s question as to whether or not it would be okay about making the bridge. Later, I wanted to analyze why I jumped to using this form of problem-solving rather than allowing the conversation to continue until everyone felt happy with the agreement.

Time Pressure
First, I recognized in myself a feeling of pressure about time. Studio only takes place once a week for forty-five minutes, which means that these children have a limited amount of time to work on their projects each week. Although I knew that hashing out the issue would be very valuable on multiple levels I also worried that if I didn't help to resolve things quickly, they wouldn't be able to make any progress on the castle. This is reasonable of course, but looking back I wouldn’t prioritize time if I had it to do over again. Next time, I think I’d give the children time to resolve their issues, even if that did mean we would have to wait until the following week to enact our decision.

The Power of No
By the end of the conversation I was unsure whether Ian's continual "no" was rooted in a true aversion to the idea of the bridge or whether it was rooted in the power of saying "no" in the face of so many saying "yes." I wish I had waited to ascertain this and let R. try to work more closely with Ian to try to achieve a compromise before I offered a solution. Even if his ideas had revolved more around power than around the actual bridge question, I would have liked to hear the discussion the children's discussion about this.

The Majority Rules
Finally I knew that these children were familiar with voting and had suggested it as a problem-solving method before. But now I wonder if this was the right way of handling this particular argument.

Is Voting Fair?

Now I wonder why, in a bigger context, this idea of voting rose to my mind (and comes up elsewhere in our school) as a means of solving disputes "fairly."

On the one hand, voting is an essential part of America's political problem-solving system. It is what we hold up as being a fair way of making a single, united decision for a large group of people. Perhaps, because of this, it is ingrained in those of us who grow up here that voting is a fair and just way of making decisions and resolving disputes.

On the other hand, voting compromises the feelings of the individual for sake of the majority. Decisions are reached more quickly without having to appease every dissenting voice. When I think about it this way, voting feels less than fair to me, and it is not the ideal tool I would like to give children for solving their problems.

So, what would I prefer to advocate?

• I think of the consensus-building exercises we have undertaken as a staff this year, where we have worked together to reach an agreement "we can live with" about issues like the possible adoption of a school-wide playground policy.
• I think about the ways in which we constantly try to provide children with a sense of their own autonomy in as many aspects of their lives as possible, including decision-making.
• I think about the fact that, even though there is a necessity for schedules here, there is also a lot more breathing room here than these children may encounter in other settings of their future lives.

I think that I would like to make more space for children to undertake the hard, sometimes grueling process of consensus-building, even at the expense of time and action. I would like them to feel in their hearts that fairness is important, that it can be hard, but also that it is attainable. And I would like to be a teacher who supports them in discovering this. I suppose I have found my new year's resolution!

What do you notice about the conversation I documented?
What perspectives do you have about fairness and problem-solving?
Do you ever find yourself interfering in a similar way, and how do you react in those moments?

Boys ironing and girls shooting nerf guns

Many of us have been spending time online or in stores shopping for gifts for loved ones lately. Much has been made of the "gendering" of toys, the color-coded packaging, the narrow boxes of behaviors that boys and girls are welcome to enjoy. The degree to which EVERYTHING is proscribed in this way can make even the most open-minded parent feel funny about shopping for their child in the "wrong" section.

Well, a Swedish toy manufacturer has done something really unusual. They published a catalog (filled with toys made by Toys 'R Us) that has pictures of boys and girls playing together with every toy. Click here to see some images. This was done voluntarily, but, according to the Wall Street Journal's blog, the toy store had been criticized by the national ad regulator for contributing to gender stereotypes with it's catalogs in the past.

Have you bought your child a toy that has been assigned by our culture to the opposite gender? How did that feel to you? How did your friends and family react? I think that changes like this one could take some of the pressure to follow "gender rules" off of us when it comes to getting toys for our children.

I wonder what would happen if we shared these photos with some of our older children. (Preschool teachers? Are you game?)

-Kendra

Looking for our beliefs about children in the materials in our classrooms

What do we mean when we say "image of the child"?


The image of children that the educators and families in Reggio Emilia, Italy hold is quite radical. It may sound ordinary to say that children are whole people, that they are protagonists of their own lives, that they can be in control of their own learning. It's not. If you go to a local playground, watch parents and their children, and try to infer what they believe about children, you'll find that most of us act as though we think children are out of control, that

without adult reinforcement and coaching

they will be unkind, in danger or that they won't know what or how to play.

Here, we try to let our image of the child guide us in our work. When a teacher says to two children who are not yet two years old “What do you think we should do to solve our problem?” you see what it means to trust children. Teachers all over the world who are inspired by those in Reggio Emilia are struggling to define our image of the child in these terms.

This year our center-wide intention is “Bringing Our Image of the Child to Our Work”. One way we can see what a center believes about children is to look at how spaces are designed and materials are stored.


For example, in our classrooms:

• three year-olds have a range of art materials available to them at all times.
• Two year-olds use porcelain pitchers to pour milk at snack.  
• One year-olds carry around framed family portraits and have access to musical instruments.

Our classrooms embody our image of children in these and other ways, and we wanted to look together to see where we could do some more work and where we were succeeding.

Each team coordinator took some time to visit another classroom and reflect on what the space communicated about how the inhabitants see children. We used a protocol that invited us to think about how we described our image of the child back in September. (See the inset list). Then we came together at our monthly team coordinator meeting to share feedback.

Over and over again, teachers told us that they could see that teachers believe that “Children are capable and deserving of respect.” Some of the examples people shared:

• "T2N did an amazing job with their mini-atellier, and all around the room I saw spaces for collaboration... The message was 'I trust you with tape all the time.' The forks and spoons were out where kids could get them when they need them."
• "T1S also shined... They took all the railings off a climber, which I’ve never seen anyone do before".
• "Everything was available! There were no gates to bathroom, plants and fish bowl are  available to children."
• "The [P1] room gives [the children] the opportunity to explore or confront the rigid constraints of materials. You could see that all toys are props for play".

We asked teachers about what parts of our image were harder to see in classrooms.
This could be because of our own biases and agendas as “lookers” or because of what was there in the environment. We heard it was harder to see:

• "That children are constantly in relationship to people and materials. I could see notebooks and I know that certain things happen, but I couldn't see it in the environment."
• "Partnership with families. I could see family photos, but does that really tell about partnership?... I didn't feel like I saw partnership."
• "It was challenging to see an emphasis on process over product in the infant room, since babies don’t “create” in the same ways that invite us to concentrate on the product."

It was clear that teachers really appreciated the feedback, and the glimpses they got in to each others' classrooms. As teachers, we often find that we have “our heads down”. We’re so focused on our own tasks, our own classrooms, that it may be a few days or weeks before we notice the documentation or new climber down the hall. This is part of why we love opportunities to really see what each other are thinking and working on: weekly provocations for teachers, this blog, our annual showcase, and our hallways full of documentation are opportunities for seeing this place through someone else’s eyes. 

Grounding our observations in our image of the child seemed to help us formulate our feedback, and translate it immediately into changes in the room. Right away, teachers seemed to see their own rooms differently, and the changes that some people made in the following days and weeks were made because they looked at their rooms through the lens of our image of children.

When you first came to PTCC, what could you infer about how we view children?

How do you feel to get or receive feedback from your peers or colleagues?

 We didn't have teachers assess our common areas. (The piazzas, outdoor space, grown-up bathrooms and the yard) Do you have any feedback about them?

Open Studio

 Our first Open Studio of the year was (I feel) a great success! Nearly every classroom was represented, and many children were able to share their knowledge of clay not only with parents, but also with siblings and with classmates who they don't usually encounter in the Studio. 

In preparing for this Open Studio time for families I thought a lot about some of the tendencies that we have when we work with clay around our children, and how they fit in with our work as a Reggio Emilia inspired center. Our knowledge of clay is often guided by an understanding of it as a medium for creating recognizable "things," and we are eager to share this understanding with our children. This is an understandable urge and a beautiful one! But what does this mean for the child on the receiving end? Sometimes it can simply mean joy in the wonderful gifts a parent has shared. Sometimes it can become hard to see the clay for its other possibilities. Sometimes it can feel disempowering when their young hands can't make the perfect shape the way an adult's hand can. 

All of the teachers at our center are constantly grappling with questions like, "When do I step in to help?", "How can I be supportive without infringing on a child's agency?", and "How can I ask questions to understand a child's mind without imposing my ideas on them?" In thinking about this year's first Open Studio, I really wanted to expand this culture of careful, critical thought, opening it up to parents through some questions and prompts posted on the wall:

The issue? How to ensure that parents read them. I agonized over this question beforehand as I was setting up. I planned to point them out to parents as they entered (which I did) but I was not so sure what to do to help them follow through. I wanted to offer them an opportunity to learn a bit more about our work as a center, but I was not comfortable with taking on the forceful approach necessary to make sure everyone read it. However, I knew that this meant that some parents might read these questions at the end, at which point they might feel as though they had done something wrong. "Well," I thought to myself, "This is an experiment I have never tried before, and I won't know how well it will work until it's over." In the end, I decided to try out my initial idea of mentioning the information to parents as they arrived, then seeing what happened. 

One parent was kind enough to reflect on her experiences surrounding these prompts at Open Studio:
I heard you say that there was something I should read on the panels against the window, but I assumed it was documentation about the studio and I planned on reading at the end of my time in the studio. After I'd been in the studio, [my partner] tapped me on the shoulder and told me I should read the stuff on the panels, but I still thought it was just documentation and that I'd read it before I left. At that point I thought it must be really great documentation, but I still didn't know it had anything to do with my opens studios. Even thought I didn't think I needed to read it at that point, I could see it from where I was sitting and started to read it from across the room. As I read it, I was holding a ball of clay that I had just loudly said I would turn into a monkey and I did feel I wanted to rewind and take back all of my references to representational use of clay. I also started to make a concerted effort to think of clay as a sensory activity and engage or prompt [my child] in ways that supported that view of clay.
... So the prompts definitely achieved the goal of deepening my understanding of Reggio, clay, and the studio. My only fear is that if [I hadn't been told] a second time to read the posters, I would have read them at the end and felt like I did the whole thing wrong. I'm really happy to think about Reggio teaching and try new things, so it also would have felt like a lost opportunity.

This parent's words are encouraging in that they suggest that parents at our center are willing and interested in engaging with the pedagogical philosophy that runs our school. At the same time, they show me that what I was worried about happening had happened. 

So, how can I better design an Open Studio that will encourage parents to engage with some of the ideas that drive our center's practice? The parent above suggested the possibility of having my questions as handouts, or of posting them by the door for people to read before even entering the Studio. In addition, she offered the idea of a sort of exit question for parents to respond to via email or this blog later on. 

Dear parents -
Did you attend Open Studio and read these questions?
Did they affect your time in the studio?
What do you think reading them now?
How can I best invite you into our center's pedagogical practice?

........................

A Willingness to Change: Reorganizing from Set Groups to Interest Groups

In discussing some of the positive aspects of having set Studio groups, I also mentioned one of the major drawbacks of this style of Studio distribution - the fact that it leaves very little room for re-organization around common interests. My grand hope for our Studio is that it may function as a space for children and teachers to really dig deep into the possibilities of a medium, a theme, or an idea. But I sometimes find myself scratching my head as to how to get to this point when each child in a group seems to have a different interest.

This was the problem I brought to my meeting with one of the preschool teams two weeks ago. I had noticed that, when the children in the set groups were provided with a provocation - such as rolling slabs - a few of the children would be interested in what was offered, some would insist on crumpling their slab or on using the rollers as parts to build with, and others wanted to add water and explore the same sensory experience we tried out early on in our clay investigation. In other words, three distinct interests had emerged through the clay: rolling slabs for use as a writing and drawing surface, building, and getting messy.

Although this teaching team had decided to use set groups at the beginning of the year as a way of mitigating the stress and confusion of assembling Studio groups in the moment, they were willing to reassess and reorganize the groups in order to better suit them to what the individual children were actually interested in. We now have, in fact, four Studio groups for this classroom: a group exploring writing on clay; a group who is investigating long-term building projects; a group experimenting with water, clay, and the messiness that results; and a group specifically exploring the vocabulary of clay.


These children have only had one full week with their new groups, and I can already feel a difference in the time we spend together in the Studio. Some of the children with an interest in building are working to create a train together, while Y. is working to construct a model of the airplane he rides when he flies to Israel. In the drawing/writing group, children are excitedly drawing the symbols they use to represent each other in the classroom and sharing them proudly with their peers and teachers. The vocabulary group created a list of words describing the things our hands can do with clay, and worked hard to try them all out. Today, the sensory group first explored their sticky, wet clay with their hands, then with paintbrushes, noticing the effects of the brush bristles on the clay's surface and of the clay-covered brush on black paper. A. and Kerem found that their hands could work like paintbrushes, too, as they smeared and smoothed clay across the paper's surface.

I am excited to see where these interest-based groups will lead, and I am so grateful to the teachers for being willing to revisit and reorganize their Studio groups to allow for this to happen. I am curious to know the thoughts of teachers and parents about this process of reorganization and reassessment in contrast to the constancy that I have discussed before. What benefits do you see in each of these approaches? Do you see any ways to compromise the two? Which approach do you prefer as a teacher (or would you prefer if you were a teacher)? Which do you think you would prefer if you were a child at our center?

Anti-bias work at the costume shop

At PTCC, we create "anti-bias curriculum". This means that we have four goals to help children counter the biases they encounter in their lives. The four goals are:

1. Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

2. Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity; accurate language for human differences; and deep, caring human connections.

3. Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.

4. Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.

(These goals were originally written by Louise Derman Sparks in her book "Anti-Bias Curriculum for Young Children and Ourselves" and are excerpted from a pamphlet by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.)

Edit: A thoughtful parent challenged the way  these goals are phrased. He mentioned that it language sounds final, as though once one is finished with these goals, dusts off one's hands and congratulates oneself, even though what we're describing is a life long journey. I want to say thank you for this feedback, and agree. We are never done with this work. 

Teachers and admin staff here at PTCC are always working on these four goals with one another as well! We work hard to see injustice and to listen when someone brings it to our attention and to change it to the best of our ability. Thanks for the feedback!

At PTCC we sometimes summarize these by saying:

1. I'm okay.
2. You're okay.
3. That's not fair!
4. Let's do something about it.

There is SO much to learn about anti-bias work, and about how we form and counter our own and our children's biases. Today, I'd like to share a short video about these issues that  focuses on Halloween costumes.

The "What Would You Do?" series is really enlightening and tackles issues of  interpersonal issues of homophobia, sexism and racism in a way that is easy to talk about with other people.

In this episode, there's so much! We often define our selves and others by what we wear. Questions about gender and sexuality are addressed by moms in just a few subtle sentences. I wonder how their words sound to the child?

When we listen to the last woman who intervenes, I can hear her modeling all four of these goals for the little girl. Can you? I think that this story isn't a simple one, even though a seven minute segment can make it seem that way.

What are your thoughts?
How does your family talk about Halloween costumes?