Close Observation...”The Zen of Seeing”

Notre Dame, April 6, 2019

What is “close observation” and why is it essential to living a full and fulfilling life? It is a skill garnered from an early age. ..in many ways instinctual, and also learned from peers, parents and teachers.  In my humble opinion, we don’t pay enough attention to this...to “CALL attention”...to teach: “pay attention.”

The most successful teachers I know use authentic experiences to CALL ATTENTION...and then follow up with asking/provoking their students to record what they observed in whatever “language” is available and meaningful to them (writing, drawing, dance, mathematics, etc.).  This apparently simple process (so simple that it’s often ignored), is the fundamental building block of all learning...of genuine understanding.  What happened?  What did you sense (using all five of senses)?  How would you, can you, describe it?  

Saint Michael School outdoor classroom

I remember a personal epiphany with this process after college, when I was introduced to Frederick Franck by Louise’s mother, Adeline Boyd, an adjunct professor of Eastern Art at Washington University in St. Louis.  The book of Franck’s that she recommended to me when she saw a couple of my sketches was The Zen of Seeing, Seeing/Drawing as Meditation.  The book is a collection of Franck’s drawings and his hand written observations.  It opened a whole new way of understanding the world for me.

He writes: SEEING/DRAWING is a way of contemplation by which all things are made new, by which the world is freshly experienced at each moment. It is the opposite of looking at things from the outside, taking them for granted. What I have not drawn, I have never really seen. Once you start drawing an ordinary thing, a fly, a flower, a face, you realize how extraordinary it is — a sheer miracle.

When I take the time to SEE, the world is transformed for me…I make sense of the parts in new ways…my perspective becomes more complete…my life becomes more full. There are so many experiences that I could recount for you, both in my personal reflections, in my teaching, and my teaching of teachers. 

My most recent experience of the intractable value of close observation that leads to understanding was in Paris. When I saw the news headline last week that Notre Dame had burned, the gut wrenching blow I felt was directly related to these sketches I’d made only two weeks ago...one while sitting out front with 1,000 of my best friends from all over the world, and one four days later having stopped while biking along the Seine with Louise.

West transept and blooming cherry trees, Notre Dame

Neither of these sketches is really about “art.” They represent my full, undivided, completely delighted PRESENCE...really SEEING Notre Dame and drawing what I saw and felt.  I understand Notre Dame in an utterly real and unfathomable way.  Like feeling your breath, now here...now gone.

quick gesture sketch, Notre Dame

Education Is Democracy

Harold Gothson at the University of Vermont

It’s fitting that I write this on November 6, 2018, election day. (I voted happily and hopefully…what a privilege….)

I hosted Harold Gothson here in Middlebury, Vermont this past week. The Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children had invited Harold to speak with them about his experience in Sweden where he and his colleagues have established a high functioning network of early childhood educators. I wrote about Louise’s and my experience with Harold in Sweden two years ago.

Harold has been an observer of and thinker about the Reggio Emilia approach since the 80’s and has integrated and adapted many of the principles and practices in his Swedish early childhood education context, especially with the collaboration of Anna Barsotti and Gunilla Dahlberg. Together they established the Swedish Reggio Emilia Institute.

The Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children has declared their intention to develop a fully realized Strategy to achieve affordable access to high-quality child care for all Vermont families by 2025…a lofty goal, even audacious in these times. When I first read about this initiative, I emailed the director, Aly Richards, to ask for a meeting. At our meeting, after listening to Aly’s description of their work and their intentions, Louise and I volunteered our support.

Besides imparting, in three different gatherings, many good ideas about organization and professional development, Harold challenged the administrators and educators with whom he met to think more deeply about what they mean by “high quality.”

Harold pointed out that much of educational research on learning most often is discussed as neutral in value issues or is turned into methodological advice…group learning is looked upon as a method instead of being seen as a basic aim for the learning process.

Harold described his Swedish colleagues’ profound connection with Reggio Emilia.

In Reggio Emilia, we met not only a celebration of beautiful principles and declarations about children. We met a local society experiencing the idea of preschools as a democratic force that inspires the development of the identity of a city. It was an idea that inspired not only teachers but also local political thinking and acting, as well as empowering a new citizenship by developing participation of families in the everyday life of the preschools. Here we could see and touch a practice that showed that democracy is not fulfilled by the pure right of voting. Democracy demands that the most important role of a school is to support the possibility to formulate and respect your own viewpoints AND to put your viewpoints in to negotiations with your peers so that you can learn together…and learn the strategies that turn conflicts into energy.

Visting the University of Vermont Campus Children’s School

Listening to Harold as he addressed the different groups I wondered if his larger, more complex aspiration for education was too much for his audience? For instance, was it not grounded enough in the practical matters of curriculum development? Apparently I need not have worried. The responses generated from a post visit survey indicate understanding and motivation. Here are a few examples:

This is a societal shift we are trying to make - it’s so much bigger that a bill or a funding ask. We really need to change the cultural perspective of early childhood and the value we place on our children.

Our learning environments - this includes the children and the families - should be seen and treated as learning communities where we practice the skills needed to understand and actively engage in democratic society.

The outside world is the “school,” the school building is the lab or studio. Children’s best learning is directed by themselves, with teachers as guides…a learning community in which the adults put the emphasis on wondering rather than conducting.

You can learn more, volunteer, and invest in the Permanent Fund and this on going work. Vermont intends to lead the way with strategies and models for other states and communities. We need this kind of leadership! Thank you to the Vermont Community Foundation, to the Permanent Fund, and thank you to Harold Gothson for inspiring us all to think widely and broadly about the dynamic, big picture and values that are the foundation to this vision.

I Need you to Write the Curriculum for a Reggio School...

I need you to write the curriculum for a Reggio Inspired school. That was the request by a good friend and colleague, an architect who is charged with designing a new early childhood center where the benefactor/founder wants it to be Reggio Inspired.

We have requests that are similar to this one from time to time.  For example, this blog in a response to an email query addresses how to start to make learning visible, and this one explores how to compose student work in a book form for a public audience.

My written response to the request to write a curriculum for the Reggio approach follows:

Let’s be clear that there is no “written curriculum” to be followed for “The Reggio approach;” though there are: architectural patterns for setting up aesthetically pleasing learning environments, lists of highly recommended materials and their organization, ways to integrate different disciplines, the 3 R’s and all the others including all the arts in skilled and inventive ways, methods for developing authentic and meaningful experiences that generate deep learning, mediums for documentation and assessment of learning in ways that make the learning visible, protocols for collaboration between teachers that results in evolved and advanced practice.

In fact, this way of teaching is a paradigm shift…something completely different than what most of us have experienced as the norm. It’s a bit like the difference between jazz and classical music…while both require fundamental knowledge of the instruments and the ability to read music, jazz has only a skeletal outline, a melody (not a complete score) that is an open “provocation” for each player to innovate…and much of the innovation is inspired by each player’s attuned listening to the others in the group.

All that said, can teachers learn to teach using the Reggio approach? Absolutely, but in our experience it requires systemic changes in thinking and ways of doing.

First: hire teachers who believe in their hearts that this is the right approach. Before their interviews require them to read The Hundred Languages of Children, and Bringing Reggio Emilia Home. In the interview, ask open ended questions like: What in all this makes sense to you?; and What do you wonder about? From their answers you’ll know which ones are really “on the bus.”

Second: with the new teachers, convene a series of collaborative discussions around shared readings…to develop thinking about and context for the work of creating a classroom and a school community.

Third: set up the classrooms and common spaces with well organized, beautiful materials, in aesthetically pleasing ways.

Fourth: plan/outline/map a series of authentic and meaningful experiences…”provocations”…and prepare to listen to the children and to document their thinking.

Fifth: schedule regular meetings of teacher teams for collaborative reflection on the dynamics of the classrooms, the specific experiences recorded, the composition of documentation of the experience (making the learning visible), and ideas for next experiences.

Sixth: schedule learning experiences for the teachers throughout the year.

This is clearly a simplified and synthesized outline of how to think about a curriculum inspired by the work in Reggio Emilia in a new and transformed way.  To launch this work is a challenge and a great journey as well as an enormous contribution to children and families and communities.  This way of thinking about and creating school honors our intelligence and creativity as human beings on the planet and creates the context for real, engaging, lasting learning for everyone. Let's do it!

*the images in this post come from archives of the St. Louis Collaborative, The College School and The Principia in St. Louis and Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, MA.

Inspired by Sweden

Louise and I just returned from a marvelous trip to Sweden where, in addition to sailing a good stretch of the west coast and bumping around Stockholm, we visited Harold Gothson and his wife, Eva, at their beautifully restored farmhouse on the island of Oland on the southeast coast. And herein lies a story I’d like to tell, for it informs the work we need to do here in the U.S.A. Harold is a long time friend. We first met in Reggio Emilia, Italy in 1994 and he visited us in St. Louis for one of our conferences in 2001. He has been an extraordinary organizing FORCE in Swedish early childhood education. Over the past 30 years, beginning in 1987, he and his colleagues, including Anna Barsoti, Gunilla Dahlberg, and Per Bernemyr, developed a comprehensive system for professional development in the Swedish early childhood schools.

Their thinking was initiated when they hosted the first exhibition from Reggio Emilia in 1981. Their research began in earnest with study tours to Reggio Emilia and hosting a second exhibition from Reggio in 1986. In addition to their reading and seminar discussions they developed a close relationship with Loris Malaguzzi and Vea Vecchi in Reggio.

In 1990, Harold was appointed by the Swedish government as the Project Leader of Leadership Organization in Early Childhood Education with 10 Swedish communities. In 1992 Anna, Gunilla and he formed The Reggio Emilia Institute, a cooperative, not for profit, organization focused on developing early childhood education inspired by the municipal schools for early childhood in Reggio Emilia. In 1993, Loris Malaguzzi participated in the formal opening of their office in Stockholm.

Their work evolved to encompass two main arms in action: The Stockholm Project and The Reggio Emilia Institute.

The Stockholm Project included seven early childhood schools selected in Stockholm. Each school agreed to five tenets:

1. to focus their study on Reggio Emilia

2. to operate as a group by consensus

3. to intentionally diversify their student enrollment by race and economic capacity

4. to focus their reflective teaching practice on documentation

5. to always be engaged in study at the university

Over the ensuing years the schools’ study included readings, study tours to Reggio (one a year, each with as many as 300 participants), and many hours of sharing documentation. Harold played a major role in keeping the organization of meetings on track. Anna and Gunilla (and others) were a constant source of research ideas. The Stockholm Project schools became essential models for other Swedish schools.

The Reggio Emilia Institute became the research and sort public forum arm. Harold was the leader and chair. Gunilla and Anna (and others) shared their research with both The Stockholm Project and with a growing network of early childhood educators around Sweden. They organized meetings with leading officials in almost all the big cities and many towns. They gave presentations open to the public in all those towns and cities. They hosted Friday-Saturday study seminars. Through those efforts the network strengthened and grew.

In 1995 Harold was given an additional appointment, as consultant to the Stockholm District that includes elementary education.

Over the years, as the network grew, their understanding deepened, and their work became even more sophisticated (several schools were built or renovated with design principles inspired by the school architecture in Reggio), more of the planning of the monthly meetings was coordinated by groups of participants (not just Harold, Anna and Gunilla). Because of this level of development, in 2000, the original five members of the Reggio Emilia Institute decided to expand their cooperative membership to 25.

With the expanded membership came an increased need for more organization. They added a managing director. They selected consultants from within the participating schools. Today there are over 75 school directors, pedagogistas, teachers and atelieristas who serve as part-time consultants to other schools around Sweden. They continue to add to the membership by invitation.

In 2005 they designed a course for 25 pedagogistas. By 2018, over 600 pedagogistas will have taken the course. They have published several books that tell and illustrate the stories of many projects in the schools (unfortunately for us anglophiles, they’re all in Swedish). In 2014, they began a course for atelieristas. Their annual summer institute continues to be attended by hundreds of teachers. They continue to lead two study tours per year to Reggio Emilia.

In 2014, they focused research on sustainability and initiated a series of talks, seminars and social media networks to deepen their understanding of how these issues essential to our times can be integrated into curriculum.

Knowing this history outlined above is necessary to understand what one sees when one visits early childhood centers in Sweden, as Louise and I did in Lund, Vasteras, and Kalmar. Each one was of the highest quality we’ve ever seen (including in Reggio).  And, as Gunilla espouses in her excellent book, Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, these extraordinary educators are addressing education on a much more profound level than just giving high quality care and developing skills. They understand that at its most essential level, the environments they design and the projects they evolve are the vehicles for creating community; community that is just, fair, inclusive, democratic, with rights for all, including the youngest.

And here's a fact that substantiates their audacious goal, beyond quality. Sweden is a nation of 10 million. Over the past five years they have welcomed 250,000 refugees from Syria.

As you can tell from this blog, Louise and I came home re-energized about the work that we do with schools. It’s a little scary to declare this at our age, but we now know that we need to engage in a whole different level of organization; one that generates networks of professionals committed to this work. Fortunately, we’ve just been invited to help in one, The Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children. Their stated mission: Ensure that ALL Vermont children and families have access to high-quality, affordable early care and education by 2025. View a curriculum guide for early childhood education in Sweden here.

Carry on sisters and brothers.

Sun Sets on a School Year, and Plans Blossom for Next Year

The lead photo was taken yesterday (April 29) from our west yard in Middlebury, Vermont.  The sunset is background for the new spring leaves and blossoms of a maple tree (that we planted 37 years ago).  The image struck me as a metaphor for this point in the cycle of a school year.

Louise and I just returned from another wonderful day of reflection and projection with Barbie Perez and her fabulous faculty at La Scuola in Miami.  The sun is setting on their most creative and productive school year, while new ideas for next year are blossoming.  ’Tis a tremendously creative time.

Speaking of TIME, taking the time at this point in the year, typically all consumed with “wrapping up,” to pause and reflect is ALWAYS reaffirming and generative.  Barbie is a wise leader, in that every year about this time, she sets aside a whole day to do just that.

During the morning of our day together, three teachers shared different but related projects that they had been guiding/following/developing throughout the year all based on the big question: What is migration?

One class discovered and researched sea turtles, another butterflies, and the third, birds…all in the neighborhood of the school.  The webs of learning experiences were extensive and portrayed the students’ deep and lasting understanding of concepts, content and skills (both congnitive and 21st C, e.g., empathy, multiple perspectives, ecoliteracy)…each with an authentic contribution to the community of the school and to Miami: a book about sea turtles advocating for protection and beach cleanup (given to Turtle Hospital for their student tours), a book and a play about butterflies and butterfly/pollinator gardens, and a collection of instagram videos about indigenous birds and necessary habitats…all three featuring detailed observational drawings, painting, clay sculptures, and carefully edited writing.

At some time in the future, these publications will be available for you all to have, by request…stay tuned.

We reflected on each presentation following a protocol: 1. share what you notice and value about what you’ve heard 2. share what you wonder about, what questions do you have (and those were collected…not immediately answered by the presenter) 3. the presenter responds to questions and then

4. discussion evolves into everyone’s takeaways…in what ways will this effect/inform MY work.  Everyone thinks together about possibilities, ideas, suggestions and implications for teaching and learning.

Following this protocol is frequently challenging, certainly for first timers, because we are so used to mixing up all three components into a mosh pit of superficial excitement, stepping on what each other is saying, and NOT REALLY LISTENING.  This protocol encourages deep listening, and, therefore, deep thinking.

Here’s a sampling of notes I took in the “notice and value” parts of each: Your writing assignments were so pertinent and provocative and meaningful to the students.Your learning adventures…I call them that because they were MORE than field trips…they were purposeful…part of their RESEARCH.Your research involved REAL issues…the injury of sea turtles…pollination.Loved the idea of the students telling a story about their traumatic experience and recovery.The students have become environmental stewards.Your reflections in your “Daily” [a daily newsletter blog post] was inspirational to follow.Your passion for the subject was obviously contagious and fully transferred to the students.They overcame all “fears of the outdoors”…like it or not, they’re bug lovers forever.Their retention of facts was remarkable…and, I’m sure, stemmed from their genuine interest and passion for the research.You let them wonder, and you valued their theories…so they felt free to share their thinking and to think critically together.You collaborated with other teachers, from other classes and other disciplines, especially the atelierista…so the resulting work is much richer and more beautiful.The students obviously worked hard, many drafts, and took great pride in their work.You pulled off an amazing “aikido” move…instead of resisting the ubiquitous presence of student phones, you captured their interest and energy using instagram and video.

In the wondering and projection discussions several teachers quoted the children: You know, we are teaching each other.  We are teaching you about turtles…and you are teaching us about art materials.The turtles are looking to find their friends again.When I showed the one year old the caterpillar, he said “butterfly.”  He taught ME something.  The babies have become friends.We discovered things together.If we plant these gardens [for pollinators] we can help the world.

It’s probably easy to imagine from tone and content of these reflections, that the energy that flowed into the afternoon for the “projection into 2017-2018” planning was considerable, positive, inventive, all building on the past experiences.

La Scuola is moving to a new-to-them campus, renovating an older school on an Episcopal church site at 7412 Sunset Drive.  Every window looks out on three acres of green.  They move in June 1st.  It’s all beyond exciting, because this little engine that could has finally found the ideal home.  Not surprisingly, the questions the faculty resolved to follow were: Who else lives here?    How are they connected to us…and we to them?    How can we conserve this place and make it better? Welcome HOME La Scuola.  May your sense of place become ever more profound.

To me, you are like these renegade daffodils in our orchard...blossoming in a new field of green.