Building Relationships with Our Local Ecology; Our Early Release Day 2014

Friday was our second Early Release Day of this academic year. These days are precious opportunities for our entire  staff to come together for professional development. We spent our time thinking about how we can ground more of our learning in the natural world that surrounds us. 

“Naturalist Intelligence” is one of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, and it's one that we don't teach to as much as the others. We also know that most adults who are stewards of the planet were children who learned to love a special outdoor place through unstructured play and the mentorship of an adult who loved the land. Here in an urban environment, it can be challenging to think about our local ecosystem, so we spent time considering how we can bring children outdoors more often and more thoughtfully. 

Ann Pelo’s excellent book for teachers and families, The Goodness of Rain, provided structure for our time together. While Pelo cared for a toddler for one year,  she cultivated practices that can help any child develop “ecological literacy”. We spent some time with each of these practices on Friday: “Walk the Land, Practice Silence, Embrace Sensuality, Learn the Names, Explore New Perspectives, Create Stories, Make Rituals.”  Teachers worked together to learn these practices, and planned to make them a regular part of their classroom life.

Starting with Our Senses

In my research for this workshop, I found a list of smells that made people nostalgic. It was divided into people born in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, and people born in the 1960’s and 1970’s. (The book was written in the early 1990’s, so folks born in the 1980’s weren’t old enough to be very nostalgic yet, and we’re not sure why those born in the 1950’s were left out.) 
The two lists were very different in part because the list from an earlier generation included natural smells like “Cinnamon, ocean breeze, rose petals” and the list from younger people included “vinyl, children’s aspirin, gasoline.”  I was curious to see if our intergenerational staff would break down similarly, and wanted to ground our work in our own childhood memories and in our senses.

I asked everyone “What is a smell that makes you feel nostalgic?” 

People born Before 1970:

Lilac, a new Barbie case, opening a Play-doh can, Chanel #5, Garcia Vega cigars, ironed linen, manure, the inside of a barn, cloves, lobster juice, shoe polish, food deep fried in oil.

People born in the 1970’s:

Cedar, new crayons, plastic Halloween mask, gasoline, “vanilla” scented baby doll, horses, cut grass, pine needles, dirt, mulch, orange bubble gum, garlic, basement, chlorine, red dirt, orange slices, McDonalds.

People born in the 1980’s:

Dirt, pine cones, a cat who’s been outside, warm pine needles, old cars, chewing tobacco, bazooka gum, MFA (feed) store, city grates, garbage, human filth, “chocolate”-scented dolls, White Shoulders, Play-doh, mom’s chocolate cookies, clean sheets, cigars, mechanic shop, lasagna cooking, Drakkar Noir, cucumber melon perfume, watermelon or strawberry airheads, campfires, puppy ears, bonfire smell in my hair the next morning, old cans, peanuts roasting, mulch, newborn babies’ heads, sidewalk chalk, coffee beans, tobacoo, pigs in mud, fabric softener, orange and bananas together, a certain perfume all teenagers wore, ocean.

People born in the 1990’s : 

cherry blow pops, thunder storms, dead leaves, rotted apples, grapes and blueberries; bubbly tar, big trees in the playground sun, bird seed, fruit by the foot.

All of the groups had manufactured and natural smells in our repertoire. Given the urban environment we inhabit, the children in our care likely will have a similar breakdown. It’s helpful for us to remember that we are participating in precious years of children’s life, and we have some input on which smells (and tastes, and sunsets, and sounds) they associate with growing up.

Next we started on the practices described in Ann’s book.

Walk the Land:

When we walk around the community, children have opportunities that they don’t have when we carry them, or put them in a vehicle. When babies are wheeled around our community, they get to know it in more depth than when they are looking through a window. When we visit the same places over time, children develop relationships with their own sorts of landmarks (that huge dandelion, the good puddle, the purple car, the really high curb). They notice growth and decay when they are able to walk by the same places again and again.

I invited our staff to take some time walking around Peabody Terrace, with nowhere to go, paying attention to their surroundings.

Practice Silence:

As a community we are constantly discussing how we know when to “teach” and when to “step back”. Teachers are often extroverts, and we know that it can be helpful for us to narrate to children what we see. 

However, silence makes space for children and teachers to take their time, watching a worm in the garden, or a red-tailed hawk making a circle over our towers. As we walked, I asked folks to stay silent and to stop when they were ready and spend some time silently observing and enjoying their surroundings.

Teachers watched insects in the lawn, sat in the crotch of one of the sweet gum trees, looked out over the Charles river, drew flowers and poked at mushrooms. 

When we all came back together, I asked teachers to reflect on their comfort level with the outdoors, and to figure out a way to push their own boundary, to give children a little more time and space outdoors. 

Teachers shared that they had noticed some new things during our short period of silent exploration:

Brae: Today I learned that doves exist outside of magic shows!

Elayne: Birds hop on the ground instead of using alternating feet like we do.

Irene: I noticed that it smells so sweet here today, and that the constant din of traffic is almost unavoidable here.

Seana: I sat in the seat of one of the trees because I see kids do it all the time. It buffers that sound in a way. It was comforting in the way it sort of squeezed my body. It wasn’t as hard as I thought, had more give than I would have guessed. There’s this super soft moss, and my feet were in the dirt for a whole other sensory experience on top of the seat. It was a nice place to sit and observe you guys.

Embrace Sensuality

Next we had a snack to fuel the rest of our work. Our teachers spend much of our time considering the “sensory diet” of the children in our care, so this practice wasn't as far outside of our experience. 

We had some beautiful, seasonal and rich food; fresh sugar snap peas, strawberries and warm, fresh bread and butter to enjoy. Bringing experiences like this snack to children helps them develop their sense of aesthetics and beauty, and their understanding of the kinds of beauty that we find in the natural world. Taking time to feel the ferns brush our legs as we walk in the garden, eating some of our harvest or appreciating the smell of the wet grass after a rain are ways that we can directly experience the natural world and enjoy it.

Learn the Names

I introduced a variety of field guides as a helpful resource and a great addition to any bookshelf in the center. Field guides give children opportunities to practice literacy, taxonomy, and organization but they also put us on a first-name basis with the organisms that surround us. Pelo writes:

“The Earth is not an anonymous place. We speak of it in generalities, using categorical names to describe what we encounter: ‘a bird,’ ‘a bug,’ ‘a rock.’ In our seeing and our speaking, we are willing to make do with broad, indistinct groupings that contain a wide range of individuals, unacknowledged in their particularities. The absence of names becomes a barrier to intimacy: a bird is a bird is any bird, not this cliff sparrow, not this crag martin. When we don’t know what we see, who we hear, where we walk, we don’t know, really where we are. Names are integral to relationship.” (p 105).

When I arrived at my new classroom many years ago in Seattle, I was stunned that the kids in my urban class could name all the different types of salmon, and would ask me “May I pick those juniper berries for our game?” I’ve seen the kind of intimacy with the land and its inhabitants that Ann describes. So I handed over the field guides and sent the teachers on a scavenger hunt in teams. They ranged all over, from the garden to the river, watching the trees for chickadees and blue jays, and searching the field guides for collected leaves.

Explore New Perspectives

In centers with a Reggio Emilia approach, we often discuss “perspective taking” as a skill necessary for life and for working with, caring for and enjoying other humans. I invited teachers to think about the perspectives of the creatures and even the plants that are in our community. It can be a challenge to do this in a not anthropocentric way, but any attempt to “walk in the shoes” of an ant, or a pigeon, or a seedling, helps us deepen our understanding of that organism, and see ourselves more clearly in comparison. If you haven’t, please check out the work of the children and teachers in Infant and Toddler 1 South. These very young children are thinking about the lives of birds in order to watch them.

As a group, we each sat down and considered the point of view of an organism that might live within five miles of here. We thought about that creature’s sounds and sights, the activities and preferences.

These practices are all intended for children and their care-givers to do together, and when teachers and children imagine the perspectives of the inhabitants of our local ecology, we grow closer to this place. When we remembered the smells of our childhood, we also recognized that we help determine the smells (and sights and sounds and tastes and feelings) that will represent their early childhood. Helping the children to feel grounded here, to really know the squirrels and pigeons (rock doves!) who share our play spaces will help them to feel connected to future ecosystems they encounter in the future.

Create Stories

The stories that engage children are not always the most dramatic, or interesting. Children enjoy hearing the simple story of meeting a moose on a trail in Maine, quietly stepping out of the way, and watching it wander off, chewing on some moss as it walked. Debbie shared that her son tells simple stories that  Sammie has shared about encounters with living things in great detail.  We don’t have to make up complicated tales about princesses or dragons, we can tell about the time that there were hundreds of ladybugs in the field. And then we can tell it again and again and again. Teachers practiced this by telling the story of the creature whose perspective they considered. The room was filled with laughter and warm story-telling.

Make Rituals

Rituals always help children transition from one thought, feeling or activity to another. They help us describe our community to itself. Rituals in a child care center are very simple, and usually brief. Erin mentioned the traditions of hollering into the parking garage to hear echoes on the way to the garden and taking some time examining the map of Peabody Terrace on the way back to the classroom each time. It can be difficult to incorporate new practices into our teaching because our days pass so quickly, and we have much to do. This time was provided for teams to take some time to consider what rituals might support, mark or celebrate their time outdoors together. I especially recommended visiting a place weekly or regularly, whether the garden or a library or a more distant playground so that children had access to the same views, the same plants, sidewalk and sky over time, to develop relationships with one corner of the world.

Here are some of the rituals teachers will bring to their classrooms:

·       Asking guiding questions before outings and revisiting them on the way back

·         Starting a journal in the garden, to facilitate communication about the work we do and the things we see there

·         Eating some more meals outside

·         Visiting the farmer’s market weekly once it opens in June for a yummy, local snack

·         An infant room will make a practice of telling the story of “what happened last time” as they put children into the strollers

We also collaborated on a list of local destinations for walks or bus trips. Katie and I will work to put these places on a map that we can all use to guide our outings. I am excited to see what kind of curriculum emerges from our work and play outside this spring and summer. 

It’s transformative for individuals to commit to knowing more about the living things outside our door, and I wonder what could happen over time in a community of learners who all walk the land, practice silence, embrace sensuality, learn the names, explore new perspectives, create stories and make rituals. 

Thinking About Our Year-end Showcase Together

For the last few years, our center has hosted Showcase, an evening when teachers create special displays or panels to highlight moments from the year we are ending together. In a center full of great teachers, we can feel stressed to perform, overwhelmed by all the possibilities or pressured to compete with all the incredible work happening.

I met with the administrative team and we agreed that in the three years that we've had showcase, not once has anyone "not done enough" or disappointed anyone. In fact, when we reflected on these past events, we felt like many people could have done less and still be very happy with their result. In order to head off some of the pressures felt by teachers, and to help us to create the kinds of displays we can be proud of with less effort, we had provocations this month all about Showcase. 

Part of my design of teacher provocation is considering who will attend. Sometimes it's random, and teachers appreciate working with people from around the school. Other times, I'll pick different aspects of the topic, so that teachers can choose which to attend based on their interests. Still other times, we ask people to attend based upon whether they are a new or veterarn staff because those groups have different needs or points of view. This month, I invited Team Coordinators to come first. These veteran teachers with added responsibilities on their team are often the ones cursing at the copier, or having Showcase nightmares in the weeks leading up to the event. I specifically invited this group to name the stressors, the expectations of different protagonists, and our values for Showcase.

Serena and Tracy list the stressors that coincide with planning Showcase.

Sammie, Sarah and Erin consider what families expect from Showcase.

Next, our newest teachers attended, most of them with only a vague idea of what Showcase would be, or with a huge impression from having attended early on in their time with us without having to contribute. We spent a lot of time looking at images of past Showcase displays and discussing what worked for us and what didn't. Finally other teachers, all of whom had been a part of showcase, but who didn't have the same weight on their shoulders as the TC's.

Amy and Sara discuss documentation of Showcases from before they joined our community.

Amy, Sara, Monica and intern Madhumita use Deiter Ram's 10 Principles of Design to analyze past Showcases.

All three groups spent some time reflecting individually in writing, and then sharing their impressions of Showcase. We thought about other events that we've been a part of like this one;

• teaching a culminating yoga class during teacher training
• a final gallery show in art school 
• collaborating on a piece of published writing
• a wedding 
• numerous plays 
• political events and how these shaped our assumptions and our thoughts about Showcase. 

Then we examined Deiter Rams’ “10 Principles of Good Design”. Most teachers have no training in design, and yet we design provocations, documentation and displays like these. We used these principles to guide our thinking about past Showcases as we examined books of documentation. We identified which principles we embraced already as a community (1,3, and 6) and which we could try to fold into our work this year  (2,4 and 10) . From these meetings, I created this summary of our collective wisdom. I wonder what will feel different about our Showcase this year.

What’s Your Metaphor? How do you view Showcase? Is it a marathon? An essay? A play? An art show? A final for a really hard class? A reunion or a wedding celebration? Sara shared how her history as a story-telling performer affected the improvisation and depth that she brings to designing documentation, while another teacher’s experience working in a gallery taught her to handle the stress of last minute design changes. We've all planned an event, or final draft. Those experiences taught us something and affect what we assume about showcase and how we prepare. Talk with your team about your history, and how you see Showcase now. One teacher told us that Showcase was a stressful event like having a tooth pulled. If she changed the way that she sees the event, would that change the way she feels about it?

How Much is Just Enough? Different teachers talked about how much text is the right amount to display. One teacher looked back at her brief interpretive paragraphs from last year’s Showcase and said that it looked a little too long to her now. Think about how long it takes you to read text, and how much time you can expect a viewer to spend in your room. Use this information to make decisions about how much writing to include on the walls. Teachers pointed out that it’s nice to have your collection of documentation in a binder nearby for anyone who would like to look for more depth. (Note, this document is 933 words. See how long it takes you to read.)

An excess of images can also lead to a sense of “overstimulation” that several teachers mentioned when describing their past encounters with showcase. Eileen brought up her own experience of choosing “the best of the best” for photography exhibits, a good tactic to keep in mind when selecting pictures for display. This also plays into honoring one of the principles of design - to be environmentally friendly. Consider what will happen to these images after Showcase ends: how many prints can you easily save for future use or give away to families to take home? Make your pictures count!  

What Have You Already Done? Many of our teachers have had the experience of displaying their past work in a gallery. Think about what you’ve already done this year and how you can prune it a little bit, change the look but avoid writing more than a small summary or interpretive piece. Since the second week of school, Toddler 2 North has been collecting documentation in a basket for possible inclusion in Showcase. You can also do this digitally on your computer by copying documentation into a Showcase folder if you like.

What is Too Big or Too Small? We heard that some people can’t read small print without their glasses, or that some people think that larger is more aesthetically pleasing. Eileen brought up her experience in a gallery “when I'm looking at a big piece with someone else, we might say something about what we see because we're seeing the same things at the same time. When it's smaller, I’m reading the whole thing on my own and having a private experience.” Consider what sort of experience you are trying to provide as you choose the size of your images and text - do you want to open up conversations between viewers or offer a moment for quiet, individual reflection?

What Does It Mean to Be a Team? I brought up that if a team can come together behind a shared vision, the display is often much more legible as a whole, and it can be more succinct and focused than the more common approach of three individuals telling their own stories. Katie realized that part of the panic in the last days and hours before provocation are largely due to an “every person for herself” mindset that occurs when each teacher is designing their own display. If the three people are working together, they’ll have communicated about what’s happening weeks before, and they’ll be working toward shared goals, finishing earlier and enjoying their pizza (Center-wide take out is our pre-Showcase tradition). How can your team decide together what to display from your shared work this year?

Is Showcase Just About What's on The Wall? Sara reminded us that Showcase is not the displays that we hang, it’s the interaction among community members and with the displays. We are creating a structure where Showcase can take place, one that invites people to consider big ideas, whole stories, or fundamental questions. The Showcase is found as much in the conversations as it is in the printed word or pictures. Consider the ways in which you can make space for them in the design of your presentation.

How Is Our Work Part of Something Larger? Showcase is intended as an opportunity for teachers, children and families to view the work happening all over the center. It also offers our own families and friends a window into what we do. Erin pointed out that our design can facilitate this kind of movement.

How can our design encourage readers to take in the work of the whole community, and make connections among all that they see? How can the stories we present work together to illustrate our identity as a center as well as individual classrooms?

Have you been a part of our Showcase in the past? What were your impressions? Has your center hosted a tour, or a culminating event like this one? What wisdom can you offer us?

Creating Spaces for Art Materials in Classrooms

Over the past several years, art materials have become increasingly available to children in our classrooms. We have now reached the point where 5 of our 8 classrooms have dedicated mini-ateliers where a mix of different media are always out and open for children to use. Of course, like any piece of our environment, these spaces need to be revisited, reviewed, and revised as the year progresses.

After our school's break in January, I returned ready to help classrooms take a second (and third, and fourth) look at the structure of these spaces, as well as their systems for displaying children's work. In some cases, such as our Preschool One classroom, new life was breathed in merely by the addition of new and exciting materials. Restocking depleted shelves with items like cardboard tubes, popsicle sticks, string and rope, and various recycled objects opened up new possibilities for construction and collage. Although these items are commonly seen around our center, they had not been out in this classroom for some time. Adding them back into the mix gave children some wonderful materials to create props for dramatic play (a big theme for these children) and offered great opportunities for teachers to introduce the idea of making plans before building and choosing materials to match.

In other cases, more extensive (and ongoing) restructuring was set in motion in order to bring the lived reality of these spaces in line with our intention understanding of their purpose. As I worked with teachers to think about their mini-ateliers, we saw the need for a distinct, cohesive space that children recognize. All of the materials available must be close to each other (in order to invite the potential for multiple media to be explore within a single project), and the tools needed to manipulate these materials must also be near at hand in order for work to continue uninterrupted. This became clear in one classroom where materials and tools were spread across two different areas of the classroom (there was a separate area for writing). Teachers noticed sharpie caps, scissors, and paper scraps abandoned on the floor from children's journeys from one part of the classroom to another. Moving the two shelves close together in the front of the room created a central mini-atelier, where children had all of the necessary supplies within sight and reach.

This space - even if it is a single shelf - must be visually unified in this purpose. In their experiments with their mini-atelier this year, our Toddler 1 North team first placed materials on the bottom two shelves under their parent check-in table. During significant parts of the morning and afternoon these materials were inaccessible as parents checked their children in and out, wrote notes, and read documentation posted above. The children also conflated the adults' pens and check-in sheet on the top shelf with the small clipboards and other materials set beneath them, and would use the adult materials as often as those set out for their specific benefit.

In light of these differences, the teachers changed both the check-in system and the mini-atelier's location. Families now check-in using a clipboard that hangs up on the wall; large unit blocks taped together created a lower system of shelves that children could access more easily. These shelves are also set apart in their own nook close to the sink -visually a separate, special space - and materials are more available than before.

This group of teachers also found themselves asking the question - how can we make more materials open and available in a way that does not require constant policing on our part? They looked to a system they had already employed in a different area of the classroom where hanging baskets are labeled using a sample toy that is attached on the outside. For instance, a basket of trains would have a small train dangling over the edge, showing children what the basket holds. The labeling system gives children more power to ask for these additional toys when they are interested, while also giving teachers a chance to size up the atmosphere of the room before adding a new element. The teachers decided to try a similar system in their mini-atelier, creating a space for buckets of art materials to hang in sight of the children and within easy reach of the teachers. Thanks to the help of a parent who hung the rod for the buckets, messier materials, like glue and paint, are now within sight and within mind for children and adults alike, ready to be brought down as needed for the task at hand.

One piece of our mini-ateliers that many teachers are still thinking about is how to create holding spaces for children's work. We love to encourage children to take a second look, add a new layer, or seek out more details for their creations in order to deepen their thinking about them, but this can be difficult to do without a place for these creations to live in the interim. Our Toddler 2 North classroom rearranged their classroom in order to make space for a holding area for children's building projects. A long-forgotten shelf in one of our storage areas was the perfect size, and the children helped to clean it off and fix it up with a new paint job. This shelf now stands ready for three-dimensional work - from Lego creations to wooden sculptures - to be "saved" and revisited.

A Toddler 1 North Teacher shared this picture of a child at work
at their mini-atelier.Not only are the materials within arm's reach,
but the top of the shelf also acts as a convenient work space.

As a staff, we have been working with the book Designs for Living and Learning by Margie Carter and Deb Curtis in order to revisit our classroom environments together. Within this book, chapters are often broken down into the "living" piece (which are the more structural or macro changes to the environment) and the "learning" piece (which represents the materials and provocations that are set out). The ongoing process of reworking the mini-atelier spaces reminds me of the continuous give and take between these two elements -"macro" changes we might make to our environments and the intimate details of the materials we fill them with. Both are essential in helping us to build our underlying values into the physical spaces of our classrooms, and both deserve continual review and revision as our time together in that classroom unfolds.

How can we continue to build the practice of saving and revisiting children's work into our physical spaces and our daily practice with children and families? 

Paper, Light, Clay: Open Studios Thus Far

So far this year, I have offered four Open Studios (one with paper, two with light, and one with clay), inviting families into the Studio to play with and explore these materials with curious minds and eager hands alongside their children. This has been the most successful series of Open Studios I have hosted in my time as atelierista, which leads me to examine my own hopes for these precious afternoons I spend with families and what has made them so special this year.

The Open Studio for families is a great tradition that was begun by my predecessor, Viki, as a way of offering parents (and grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.) an opportunity to share an experience in the Studio with their child. As Kendra has discussed before, our philosophy hinges on families as partners in our teaching and important members of our school's community; the Open Studios that I host every other month or so are one way in which I strive to welcome families into the Studio.  They give families a chance to learn a bit more about this space, some of the materials we explore here, and what their child in particular will do in this space, with this set up.

Last year, I wrote this post about our first Open Studio as part of our clay exploration. I was wondering how I could use these special afternoons as a way of also inviting parents into our pedagogical practice and encouraging them to consider some of the same questions we ask while working with young children. My solution to this question for this year has been to ask the families who come to the Open Studios to first read these pieces about exploring art materials alongside infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. I also try to have short versions of these available as handouts and to have poster versions up (although I admit I ran out of time to prepare these things for the latest one). In addition, I post questions to guide our thinking around the room, along with sticky notes and pens for adults and children to record their answers. Here are a few of the questions and answers from each Studio:

"How can you change paper using just your hands?"

"Wrinkling, ripping, waving, scrunching."
"Twisting, tearing, zig-zag, throw in the air."

"What did you learn about paper?"

"It makes a good wrestling mat."

"It makes big noises when you kick it and hit it."

"You can pick up REALLY big pieces." 

"(How) can you alter light?"

"'Blue on it, now black on it... green there!' Simon noticed changing light most when he was moving cellophane and drawing on the light table."

"Shadow is formed when light is blocked. There is heat, too when light is produced."

"What did you learn about light?"

"Light comes down down on it, like this." 

"K. learned that light comes in different shapes." 

"You can mix colors even without paint."

"What makes clay special?"

"You can change it many times."

"You can use it over and over again."

"You can play with it and use it for fun."

"I love the way it feels when I squash it in my hands."

"It involves all the ancient elements: earth, air, fire, metal, water."

Some of these answers came from adults, some were children's answers, and a few were a combination of the two. In every case, it seemed as though answering the questions helped to put some of our own learning and the learning we were witnessing in others into words.

In addition to these questions that I posed, I heard the parents themselves asking more questions of their children as they worked, and many of them were open-ended and inviting: What does this paper sound like? Where is that light coming from? How did you make that with the clay? Parents also asked me about the materials they encountered, questions that seemed to suggest an interest in potentially extending these experiences into their homes:  How do you get these ideas for provocations? What kind of lights are these? What type of clay is this? Where can I get some? 

I also noticed parents asking open-ended questions using their actions, rather than their words. A father turned and quietly watched what another child's work, inviting his daughter to look at the discoveries of this child.  A mother with her infant child gently brought some rope lights to her lap, running her hands over them as she held them within reach of her son. A father rolled a simple ball of clay, offering it to his daughter to see what she would do with it.

These meetings in the Studio together have also offered parents from multiple classrooms the opportunity to meet and converse with one another about subjects other than just the material. By the end of each Open Studio, many of the adults in the room have met someone new and shared a conversation with them about their children, their experiences in Cambridge and at PTCC, or their interests outside of here. I remember one of the sessions with light occurred right before Thanskgiving; as the children and parents spread and scooped sand into trays on the light table, the discussion shifted to the subject of the holiday, the traditions of the different families, and the many ways of cooking turkey. You often hear that art can bring people together in unexpected ways, and I think this is an instance of one of them.

Throughout these evenings, I was struck by the care and attention that parents were paying to their children, and the attention that adults and children alike were paying to the materials set out before them. One parent observed that the questions I asked were much more focused on the "how" ("How are you using it?" "How did you do that?" "How did it change?") of the material rather than the concrete question of "What are you making?"; I felt that the people present at the Open Studio were also embracing these "hows" rather than the "whats." I was also amazed at the attention they were paying to each other, the negotiations that happened within this shared space, and collaborations that sometimes grew out of this. I am so grateful to work in a community full of people of all ages who are invested in the work we do and are willing to learn more about it through the "hands-on" setting of these Open Studios.

Looking forward to the next Open Studio (most likely in April), I am wondering:

- What else might I offer parents to give further insight into our work as a center and my work as an atelierista?

- What should we explore together next?

"Meeting" Our Needs

Our profession is unique in how various our different chores and roles can be. To risk stating the obvious, in a given week, a teacher may work like a graphic designer, a school  nurse, a strategic planner, a researcher, a project manager, a mediator, a writer, and an interior designer in addition to their primary role of care-giver. This means that we each need a multitude of skills to do our work. Our weekly one hour team meetings are a tool that support us in all of these roles.While we have had a lot of training to become teachers, running effective meetings is not usually part of that. In the past, team coordinators  had some specific training about facilitating meetings, but we still see how all of our meetings could do more, so we had an opportunity to reflect on our meetings, how they work, and how they can serve us.

Last year, for the first time, the board approved two days each year when the center will close so that teachers can do professional development.This year, our work will be to support teachers as they find their path to in-depth project work with young children. Friday's early release focused on meetings, which are a tool for all of our work, and can therefore support us as we pursue more depth in our curriculum.

Our center puts children and their families at the center of our work. In this spirit, I called upon our families to share with us their collective wisdom about what makes a great meeting, and used their input to design our time together on Friday. Since they work in a variety of fields, their advice served us in all the various ways we meet.

We heard from sixteen parents and I distilled their seven pages of wisdom into a few key ideas. I added to these ideas a few of my own, and we had a lot to talk about. Here are the major themes.

Meet with intention.

There are different sorts of meetings: information sharing, decision-making, problem-solving, or planning. One parent suggested that we know ahead of time if we're going to have a "blue-sky" meeting or an "in the weeds" meeting in advance, and plan accordingly. Some folks suggested that some shared ground-rules for meetings can be helpful, which is another kind of intention-setting.

It was also suggested that we have a sense of what kind of work can happen in the meeting, and what should happen out of it. This will be different for different teams, but having a shared intention about it will help us keep from meandering through unclear conversations that eat up our precious time.

The idea of being intentional in our meetings is nothing new for us. This is why we started our meeting with a brief mindfulness exercise guided by one of our teachers, Kara Magaldi. We also remembered the slogan coined by Anne Lamott "WAIT: Why Am I Talking?" which we use to remind ourselves to be mindful with our speech when we are together. We also addressed sharing anecdotes, which can be useful to set the context of a conversation or share important information, or build relationship by sharing a laugh or a poignant moment, but can also eat up our time together without noticeably contributing to our goals for the meeting.

Managing time is a part of every meeting.

There were a few different points of view about time-keeping among our contributors. Many suggested that time-keeping could interrupt or stunt a brainstorm, while others asserted that it was crucial for getting through business items and decision-making. Either way, it was agreed upon that it's important that time be kept in a way that serves the meeting.

During our early release day, teaching teams had two "mini-meetings" of fifteen minutes each. The brevity of these meetings seemed to help folks focus so that they could accomplish something in so little time.

Have a facilitator and a (separate) note-taker.

Many people mentioned the importance of a "chair" "convener" or "facilitator" for the meeting, someone who is invested in the process of the meeting as well as the content. A long time ago, at PTCC, this person was usually the administrator who was present at the meeting. The administrative team decided that the meeting was owned by the teachers, and are now participants or helpful witnesses in the meetings. Generally, the team coordinator is the facilitator AND often the note-taker in our team meetings.

I asked that the two non-coordinating teachers take a turn leading each one, and that another person take notes. We heard that this was helpful for many teams who were able to learn things about their meeting just by shaking things up, or who discovered that they liked taking turns with this kind of leadership and will make it part of their regular practice. Others found that they learned about the roles that they don't usually inhabit, but were happy to go back to the roles as usual.

Agenda, agenda, agenda....

The word "agenda" came up 33 times in our collected contributions from parents! Some were sure to point out that there are relationship-building, brainstorming or visioning meetings that do not require agendas, but that most other meetings require one, with approximate times for each item.

Our teaching teams have had different relationships to agendas over time. Some use a template each week, some create their agenda over the week, others in the first five minutes of the meeting, some develop the agenda collaboratively, others leave this job to the team coordinator.

I asked teams to develop an agenda, with times for each item at the start of their meeting to test out how this can help people. Afterwards, we heard that taking specific time with the agenda at the outset gave folks more time later in the meeting because they were more organized. As one teacher said "a strict agenda resulted in a more relaxed meeting".

     Next Steps and Accountability:

       Many of the parents who contributed to our knowledge of meetings, talked about creating lists of clear next steps along with who would do each one, with deadlines. Teams were asked to spend part of their second "mini-meeting" creating such a list to be revisited at their next team meeting.

In addition to these contributions from families, we practiced some other helpful practices.

Checking In at the Start of a Meeting

We talked about "Check-ins" at the start of meetings. These are common in our center, but there hasn't been a shared, clear idea about what their purpose is, so sometimes they take too long, turn into story-telling sessions, or are uncomfortable for people who don't understand why we do them. I shared the following with teams, and encouraged every team to check in to start their first mini-meeting.

Check-ins are:

·         A way members of a team build relationship.

·         A way to share own your perspective and how it might affect the meeting

·         A way to name and then “shelve” experiences or feelings so that you can focus more fully on the meeting.

Check-ins work best when:

·         You do them every week “whether you need them or not”.

·         They only take a few moments per person.

·         Everyone understands the purpose of the exercise.

   

      Accentuate the Positive

      In order to best learn from our mini-meetings, teams described what was working well as they finished up. This practice (known sometimes as an "Appreciative Debrief") can help teams to learn from their success. I suggested the simple and whimsical "three stars and a wish"; tell your team three things that worked well and then one that might be changed.

    What makes a great meeting?  
      Throughout our time together, I asked teachers this question. Our answers were tightly tied to respect for one another and for the meeting: punctuality, considering how, why and whether we are interrupting each other, and honoring the intention of the meeting are all hallmarks of a good meeting.We also need to find time for fun, connection and humor. Finally, some kind of recording the conversation and making plans for accountability must be a part of every great meeting.

   What about you? What have the best meetings you've been a part of taught you?

How Do You Try New Things?

Those of us who live in the land of child care and education get TWO “new” years, two fresh starts. For most of us there is a fresh start in the fall and then another that we share with the rest of the world in January.

Last August, our staff decided that we were ready to integrate in-depth project work into our curriculum and started preparing during our work days. We invited Sandra Floyd, mentor teacher at Epiphany Early Learning Preschool (and friend of mine!) to visit us and share her stories and perspectives on in-depth projects with young children. Together, we made a plan for a relative timeline for beginning our own project work. Like most centers, our curriculum really deepens by the winter time. Groups have gelled and interests have ripened. In addition, since this will be a departure for our teachers, we wanted to take all the time we needed to change our systems and learn about negotiated curriculum before we jumped in. As a result, we chose January to be our turning point when we expected that teachers would invite children into our first small group projects.

There is a book by Cher Huber, called "How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything", and I bring this idea up often with teachers. If I look at how I left the house this morning (woke up late but cheerfully with my son, no real routine, enjoyed pancakes with my toddler, left the dishes in the sink, had to run back for raincoat and boots once I got outside and realized that it was raining, sang songs together and talked about big ideas with my partner in the car on our way to work) it tells me a lot about how I do a lot of things; not terribly organized or neat,very focused on some things to the exclusion of some others, involving love and fun, thinking about things and my favorite people. In this spirit, I invited our staff to think about how we started new things in the past to learn how we might start our project teams this year. 

We talked about leaving the country for the city, installing a toilet, quitting soda, presenting at a conference, bike commuting, learning to knit, practicing yoga and dozens of other new things we tried. Just listing all the new things had an effect on people; some seemed surprised at how many new things they'd attempted lately, and others had a hard time creating a list at all.

If you'd like to try this yourself, think about some new things you tried in the last few years (marriage, sushi, rock climbing, Spanish lessons) and narrow it down to one successful thing and one unsuccessful thing. Answer these questions:

Successful thing:	Not so successful thing:
Why did you try it?	Why did you try it?
What words come to mind when you think about doing this thing?	What words come to mind when you think about doing this thing?
What were your positive thoughts before you tried it?	What were your positive thoughts before you tried it?
What were your negative thoughts before you tried it?	What were your negative thoughts before you tried it?
Did you try it alone or with a friend?	Did you try it alone or with a friend?
What helped you succeed?	Why didn't you succeed?

Together we discovered that different motivations, self-talk, and strategies worked for different people. Despite this, everyone felt that they learned something about themselves that would help them on their next new endeavor. 

Whatever new things you may be trying out in 2014, this collective wisdom may help you accomplish them!

What motivated successful tries? 

Because it's: healthy, necessary, expresses who I am.
I knew I could do it.

For the challenge

I like big changes.
To prove something to myself or someone else.

Cool people I wanted to be closer to

Doing something for myself

Looking for a new hobby

I was not successful at the opposite.

Why not?

I didn't have to if I didn't want to.

It would be calming for me.

Change can be fun.

What motivated unsuccessful tries?

I felt like I was ready mentally to do it.

I thought it would be healthy.

I thought it would help me find something to do with my hands.

I was interested in it.

People around me were doing it.

I think I should/someone told me I had to do it.

I wanted to prove something to others.

Words that come to mind when we think of the successful thing:

Successful, arduous, challenging, exciting, whole body, complicated, calming, fun, intimidating, accomplished, feel good, gutsy, new, beautiful, flexibility, practice, interesting, refreshing, success! fun, relief, proud, excitement, joy, effortlessness, sharing.

Words that come to mind when we think of the unsuccessful thing:

frustrating, boring, utter failure, procrastination, self doubt, shame, anxiety, new, finances, impatient, comfort, wanting to feel a different way than I do, conflicted, cognitive dissonance, she can do it so I can do it (Comparison) competition, tired, frustrated, bored, nope, defensive, Oh my god! Wanting to turn in on myself, embarrassment, pissed off, blaming ("It would have worked if only...") 

Thoughts we had before our successes

I can do this.

I love this.

This is going to be great.

I love change.

I'm going to be so ________ (Identity)

I don't have enough resources to pull it off.

Maybe I'm underestimating myself.

Who might this affect?

Will I have the follow-through?

I'm a fraud. I'm waiting for the other shoe is going to drop

How can I do it? (Making a plan.)

I can't do it. (Self doubt)

I've failed before.

Thoughts before an unsuccessful try:

people will love it!

salary or other extrinsic rewards

maybe I'll meet some interesting people (bribing yourself)

What if it's just like the last time? What if it takes for ever?

How could I ever do this?

What if it doesn't look/turn out the way I want it to?

I'm not... (Identity)

I don't think I can afford this.

Will I embarrass myself.

It's going to take a long time and involve a lot of details.

I think I'm going to succeed

I don't like what I am going to do.

This will be easy.

I'm afraid I might be scrutinized.

I'm afraid.
This will be a neat thing to try. 
It'll be great this time I just have to stick with it. 
It'll be so nice when this is all over. 
Wouldn't it be awesome to create?! 
No big deal, I'm ready. 
I can totally do this.

What helped you succeed?

I felt good doing it

I felt healthy and got out of my head.

I knew I could.
I had to do it.

I made an investment.

My passion for it.

I had support from a team.

Listening to others telling me I was succeeding in spite of my own judgments of myself.

I played to my strengths

Repetition

I avoided comparing myself to others.

I trusted myself and others, let go of control. (For example, trusting my sister to make the onions at Thanksgiving!)

External accountability/peer support

A more flexible attitude, willingness to learn something

I brought someone else into the process.
competition

I learned from my mistakes in the past.

Why Didn't You Succeed?

It takes so long, and it's SO boring... not fun. (It was a bad match.)

fear

social opportunities

I didn't have natural ability 
I was working alone.

no support/guidance/resources 
competition

This exercise and collected insight gives us a great opportunity to learn from the past in order to succeed in the present. How could you use this information to support a new endeavor? PTCC Teachers, has this collective wisdom informed you as you get started with project work?