“Students can learn to think, speak, calculate and write more easily through close contact with reality than through confinement and abstract ideas.”
John Taylor Gatto, 1999

As the demand for improved standardized test scores looms over our nation’s education system we, children and teachers, are becoming more isolated from society. Typically students and teachers spend more and more time in a classroom leaning over a textbook or worksheet “learning” about the world. This is followed by hours of homework each week and sometimes each day. When do children ever get a chance to explore and experience the world around them and beyond? When do teachers open the doors of their classrooms to invite people in or to take children outside to seek answers and direct understanding of the community that surrounds them?

At our very first staff meeting this year we began to identify our intention to expand our sense of community. We determined that community is not only those in our immediate school circle but also those near and far who affect our thinking, support our inquisitive nature and potentially add something to our life experience. There are many knowledgeable and interesting people whom we can tap to enrich our lives no matter what the subject might be. We decided to make a concerted effort to include more people in our circle either by visiting them or by inviting them into our space. We are taking our students off school grounds as often as possible and inviting experts and others in so we can learn at least as much if not more than our peers through direct experience. Over the last ten weeks groups of children have taken 10 field trips and welcomed at least 12 guests into our school. We are thrilled with the effect as both the children and teachers have been given the opportunity to expand our viewpoint and our skills.

Mushrooms

During a recent visit to A Child’s Place School Voyagers’ teachers learned that the students there were studying mushrooms they found in their environment just as the Voyagers’ students had been doing. We immediately saw the opportunity for collaboration. Students from each school began writing back and forth, sharing wonderings, drawings and information about our new found knowledge of mushrooms and fungus. Recently, the mushroom study group from A Child’s Place visited our school. Our students were able to show their guests our collection of dried mushrooms, guidebooks, drawings and a slide show of our photographs. All of the teachers hovered around with cameras poised to take video and stills of everything the children did and said. It was partly humorous but also validating to see another Reggio-inspired teacher doing the same work as us.

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Each year we face different challenges as current students return from summer break, new students enter the mix and school routines are established. This year was no exception. After the newness and excitement wore off many students found they were struggling to get along and to see eye-to-eye. Others, students and teachers, found themselves in the position of peacekeeper or referee, both stressful rolls when called upon time and time again. By the end of October or early November it was clear that we were a community under stress.

We have many approaches and methods in place for peacekeeping. The first and most often used is the Peace Conference. Students who are upset with one another are expected to call a mediated peace meeting and talk out their differences before resentments build. During this meeting the mediator, typically another student, facilitates the conversation. He enables each student to share her side of the story, tries to help each see the others perspective and continues the conversation until a solution is found. The mediator must stay neutral, restate what he has heard, ask questions and give each person the opportunity to speak to the other. This process empowers the children to take responsibility for handling their own conflicts. We find this to be a very effective method but not fail proof. Occasionally, a mediator will conclude that he cannot help the parties involved. On these occasions students agree to disagree, agree to revisit the issue at another time or with a different mediator or call a teacher to the table.

Our second approach to peacekeeping is the all-school meeting. This is typically called when a problem is obvious to all, affecting a large majority if not all the members and/or seems unsolvable. These begin with a reminder of who we are and what foundations we are built upon.

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“Documentation is an act of love. By making their learning visible the
children truly become citizens”
-Carlina Rinaldi

In prior Quick Notes the image of the child as strong, resourceful and competent has been linked to democratic community in education. We have also presented the value of intention as a pedagogical (teaching and learning) tool. Now we intertwine these philosophical theories and practices with the theory of reflection, and documentation as a means of reflection. Recently Voyagers Community School teaching staff and a parent attended a roundtable discussion with Reggio-inspired teachers from around New Jersey. In preparation for this meeting we read and analyzed a chapter addressing documentation and the role it plays in our environment in the book Authentic Childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the Classroom, (2001). Along with colleagues we considered the theory of documentation as a means of reflection and its value in teaching and learning within an academic community.

When documenting learning there is intense focus on children’s experience, memories, thoughts, and ideas during the course of their work. This practice or method emphasizes the importance of displaying children’s work with great care and attention to both content and aesthetic qualities. This documentation stimulates and grows from reflection. Reflection is the practice of considering the work in progress, talking about the experiences, sharing possibilities, challenging thinking and visiting the work again. This occurs between teachers and children, children and children, and teachers and teachers in the form of dialogue. Awareness grows from this exchange and gives the teacher/researcher a flow of hypotheses and curriculum direction. The documentation, the reflection and the dialogue that ensues between all members of the community strengthen their bond to each other and to learning.

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Over the past few weeks much has been said about the natural progression of learning and about the delivery and design of curriculum. It seems a good time to address the influence of intention. As educators and researchers in the classroom it is important for teachers to introduce skills and concepts that are necessary for students to function as contributing members of a group. To that goal we have intentionally made math and logical thinking integral to all aspects of our curriculum.

We believe math is a natural part of our everyday life; with this perspective we mindfully help students comprehend the power of knowing math facts and broader concepts. To this end we intermingle mathematical thinking and application in every class we offer.

In Book Club the students reading The Jungle Book constructed a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the classic story we just read to the wonderful performance we attended at the Algonquin Theatre. Using this visual aid the children were able to recall many details and events from each versions. This led them to talk about the story as a whole and the distinct variants from book to play. Many of the children recalled specific details about each version. This mathematical concept of sorting, classifying, comparing and contrasting allowed the children to consider what each had in common and what differed.

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Quick Notes – October 16, 2009

Our first session of classes has just come to a close and a new one will begin on Monday. There were a number of lessons taught to teacher/researchers by students as we progressed.

Over the course of this week students chose their classes for the next five-week session. Several classes continued by popular demand including Strategy Games, Food and Money. However, we are certain these will take another twist as they progress. In addition we offered many new choices such as Botany, Physics and Comic Drawing. These class options grew out the expressed interests of our students.

For instance, the students in our current Food Class moved in many unanticipated directions over our first five weeks, which dictated the need for two classes during the second five weeks. Many of our students showed interest in the production and marketing of food so the Food class will continue with this focus. Meanwhile a botany class was offered to allow for in-depth exploration of plants— how, where, when and why they exist and thrive. This satisfies the budding interests of students in the original food class who were increasingly drawn to the science of growing and sustaining a garden and connecting this thinking to their experience with mushrooms. Our theory, that children would be pleased with these two options was verified, as there is enrollment in each of the respective classes.
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