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2009/10 Umbrella Project:
Our Inquiry into Place |  | |
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I was thinking about buttercups. I want to remember them
because they’re so special and magical.
–Preschool student, age 5
The better I know my place, the less it looks like other places
and the more it looks like itself. It is imagination, and only
imagination, that can give standing to these distinctions.
–Wendell Berry
Teachers here have been exploring place with children for many years, beginning by going outside the boundaries of the buildings and playgrounds in order to see what learning might happen in the natural areas around us. The scope of our work in the forests, fields and park that border our two campuses has opened up our collective view of ’school’. We have come to inhabit all of the places of our school, indoors and out, so you might find children in the classroom, but you might also find them in the garden or at the creek.
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 | | | | A Democratic Education |  | |
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By definition, a democratic education is what progressive educators want for children: Howard Gardner describes a progressive education as one in which “democratic values are lived, not merely studied.” And yet what does that really mean for the day-to-day workings of a school? Dewey answers this question in part by insisting on greater participation in the rule-making process, from childhood onward:
It is not enough that children should be law-abiding; they must also be lawmakers in school, just as in adult life, as voting citizens or as officeholders, they will engage in lawmaking. Providing such experience for children and cultivating such habits and attitudes in them, can contribute significantly to social reconstruction (p.220).
- John Dewey Lectures in China, 1919-1920
Dewey’s ideas about democracy and education are fundamental to Sabot at Stony Point’s philosophy. From the age of two
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| | | | We Each Teach |  | |
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As teachers, we actively seek ways to encourage cross-age interactions, and in fact our preschool day is structured in such a way as to promote them. Children start their day with age-mates. Halfway through the morning, classrooms are opened so that children of all ages can come and go. On a daily basis, we see the advantages of mixed-age grouping as children work and play alongside each other, sharing materials, ideas and expertise. Older children have the opportunity to nurture and model skills for younger children, while younger children benefit from the encouragement of their older peers. Experience shows that younger children pass along this nurturing as they themselves grow into responsibility.
When children are part of a mixed-age group, they are exposed to a wider range of abilities and competence levels, and they become more accepting of other people’s strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, it helps all of us to appreciate that every person, regardless of age, is not only a capable learner, but also a capable teacher. Age is not the crucial factor – what counts is the possession of some knowledge or skill that can be shared with others. The idea that knowledge and understanding are constructed in collaboration with others is a cornerstone of our educational philosophy.
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| | | | How Learning Happens |  | |
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As part of our emphasis on collaborative learning, we consider it important for children to be exposed to each other's work. In addition to the direct collaboration that goes on within project groups, we use project circles so that learning can be shared with the class as a whole. During the circles, children present their work, ask each other for advice, reflect on their work, and answer questions. We have also observed the children talking about their work during snack and lunch, sharing their successes, frustrations, and plans.
At other times, the children are indirectly exposed to work taking place around them, when two or three different project groups are working in the same room. We wonder how much the children absorb from this ambient activity. Do the children listen in on conversations within the other groups, and do they feel involved, at some level? The children themselves have started to give us the answers.
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| | | | The Constructivist Classroom |  | | For one week in June, a group of educators gathered at the Stony Point campus for the “Constructivist Classroom” graduate course offered through VCU’s Division of Community Engagement. Instructors Pam Oken-Wright and Marty Gravett led participants in discussing and experiencing tools for co-constructing understanding through hands-on, collaborative research. Using the constructivist educational philosophy of Reggio Emilia as a springboard, class discourse ranged from adopting new practical approaches (e.g. documentation, action research) to deeper questions about the implications of constructivism within different cultural contexts and across the PreK-12 spectrum.
I left the class with a renewed enthusiasm for a constructivist approach to education. Only a few days later, I had an opportunity to apply this new understanding of how we learn, the importance of multiple means of representation, and of that critical “tossing of the ball” among individuals as understanding and meaning are co-constructed.
“She just told us what pi was …”
A few days after the last meeting of our workshop, I was working with a rising sixth grader on geometry. A bright, conscientious student, she was eager to tell me what she knew about circles - and in particular about pi. “How did you find out about pi?” I asked. | | | | Reflections on a year immersed in Shakespeare |  | | In the spring of 2007, Sabot at Stony Point declared its intention to carry out a year-long study of William Shakespeare and his work, life and times. A generous grant from Partners in the Arts brought the idea to fruition, fueling a year of inquiry, exploration, teamwork, inspiration and discovery across all grade levels on the Stony Point campus. The project developed as a collaborative endeavor that drew on our own faculty and volunteer resources, as well as on the education staff at Agecroft Hall, the education outreach arm of Richmond Shakespeare Theater, and the expertise of a specialist in Renaissance music.
Nothing will come of nothing. –Lear in King Lear
Throughout the year, each grade took part in different activities related to Shakespeare’s life and work. Although there was no uniform program of study, the children did not begin with “nothing.” Rather, they were introduced to a variety of “threads” relating to Shakespeare, the Renaissance, and Elizabethan England, but decisions about how to pursue those threads were their own. Thus, the inquiry emerged differently in every classroom. | | | | Teachers as Researchers |  | | The other afternoon K-1 teacher Mary Driebe and I were having a conversation about some of the research she is conducting in the classroom. We were discussing how she and her collaborating colleagues have recently arranged for the classroom studio to be available to children to work on their own or in small groups of two or three during the time we call Investigative Research (IR). Mary had a theory that projects undertaken during IR were only a part of what children needed and were capable of. She wanted to explore which children were attracted to an open studio; whether children could gain greater independence with materials and ideas, given sufficient time; and what would develop if children had greater choice of materials, groupings and process. So the teachers set up the studio to accommodate small groups, they made it available every day, and they observed.
While the process of discovery came as no surprise to her—she has been working as a teacher-researcher for almost two years—Mary reports several significant findings. Thus far, she has come to realize that some children need to take a break from project groups to accommodate their learning through the creation of tangential projects that add personal depth to a collective understanding; that some children need challenges set in front of them and more time for co-construction with an adult; that some children are eager to take on new forms of media (photography, collage) and willingly and intuitively use the time to explore and understand the qualities of new materials, tools, and media; and that some children are capable of enormous independence and can virtually direct their own research. The teachers’ hunch—that children needed freer access to the studio and longer, uninterrupted periods of time in order to further clarify their intentions and to demonstrate greater independence, depth of expression, and capability in learning—proved to be correct. | | | | The Art of Research: Studio as Laboratory |  | | After 13 years at Sabot at Stony Point, I am excited to begin a new stage, working as Studio Teacher, or, as it is called in Italy “atelierista.” My whole life has been preparation for this position, from my training as an artist through my study of education and art education, both on my own and on the job at Sabot at Stony Point.
So, you may wonder what an atelierista does? In all honesty, I am wondering the same thing. No part of the Reggio Emilia approach can simply be picked up and set down in a new context. The atelierista position has to be developed to serve our own unique school community.
Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Schools, described the atelier as a laboratory: “a place for researching motivations and theories of children from scribbles on up, a place for exploring variations in tools, techniques and materials with which to work.” In other words, the studio is a place for children to explore media and ideas and a place for teachers to try to understand children’s intentions, thinking and learning. For Malaguzzi, it was very important to respect the “plurality and connections” in all of the expressive media that children might use, an idea that he expressed more fully in his “Hundred Languages of Children.” My goal is to expand both children’s and grown-ups’ understanding of the media (which become languages) that children can use to communicate. | | |
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