Beyond Quality and Gunilla Dalhberg

When Ashley and I were in Stockholm a few weeks ago we were lucky enough to have a lovely dinner with Gunilla Dalhberg.  Gunilla is author with Peter Moss and Alan Pence of Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care. The second edition was published in 2007.  This book is ground breaking and seminal in the literature about early childhood education theory and the work from Reggio Emilia in early childhood education.  The book is theoretical and dense.  It is inspiring and transformational based on questions such as ...Who is the child? And what is education for? 

We have know about Gunilla ever since we began our journey with Reggio Emilia in 1991-92.  Stockholm is the first place in Europe where the exhibit from the schools of Reggio traveled, then entitled, When the Eye Jumps Over the Wall. The Reggio Emilia Institute, (which Ashley wrote about last week), was founded in the fall of 1992, just after our family had left Italy to return home to the U.S.  The institute is still going strong and has influenced the high level of early childhood education in Sweden ever since.

What are the major take-aways from this book? In the New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, Volume 5, Issue 1, 03-12, 2008, Gunilla and Peter Moss summarize their most salient points.

The language of quality can be summed up as ending in a statement of fact: “it speaks of universal expert- derived norms and of criteria for measuring the achievement of these norms, quality being a measurement (often expressed as a number) of the extent to which services or practices conform to these norms” (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 2007, p. viii)

Beyond Quality explores another language of evaluation, meaning making, recognising that there may well be many others. Meaning making, by contrast, speaks of “evaluation as a democratic process of interpretation, a process that involves making practice visible and thus subject to reflection, dialogue and argumentation, leading to a judgement of value, contextualised and provisional because it is always subject to contestation” (p. ix).

Meaning making is evaluation as a participatory process of interpretation and judgement, made within a recognised context and in relation to certain critical questions: for example, what is our image of the child? what do we want for our children? what is education and care? It values subjectivity (or rather, ‘rigorous subjectivity’ (Lather 1991), uncertainty, provisionality, contextuality, dialogue and democracy. It assumes a participant who makes – in relation with others - a contextualised, subjective and rigorous judgement of value. It foregrounds, therefore, democratic political practice, the exercise of collective deliberation.

Meaning making employs particular methods, suited to its democratic political practice, in particular pedagogical documentation, a tool for participatory evaluation. Pedagogical documentation has its origins in the innovative and, today, world-famous municipal early childhood services in the Northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia (orded notes, the work produced by children, photographs or videos, the possibilities are numerous.) Then it requires a collective and democratic process of interpretation, critique and evaluation, involving dialogue and argumentation, listening and reflection, from which understandings are deepened and judgements co-constructed.

Its origins owe much to Loris Malaguzzi, one of the twentieth century’s great pedagogical thinkers and practitioners and the first director of Reggio’s municipal early childhood services. Documentation represents an extraordinary tool for dialogue, for exchange, for sharing. For Malaguzzi, it means the possibility to discuss and dialogue “ ‘everything with everyone’ (teachers, auxiliary staff, cooks, families, administrators and citizens)...[S]haring opinions by means of documentation presupposes being able to discuss real, concrete things – not just theories or words, about which it is possible to reach easy and naïve agreement” (Hoyuelos, 2004, p. 7).

This concreteness of pedagogical documentation is critical. Measures of ‘quality’ involve looking for what has been predefined, discarding what does not figure in the template; it involves the decontextualised application of abstract criteria, reducing the complexity and concreteness of environment and practice to scores or boxes to tick; it strives for agreement and the elimination of different perspectives; it assumes the autonomous and objective (adult) observer. Above all, ‘quality’ offers consumers information about a product, for ‘quality’ is a language of evaluation suited to a particular understanding of early childhood (or other) services: as suppliers of commodities on the market to parent consumers.

The current expansion of early childhood education and care provides, potentially, many benefits and possibilities for children, parents and wider society, and expansion brings with it major risks, not least of which is increasing regulation and normalisation, what Nikolas Rose (1999) terms ‘governing the soul’.

If these risks are to be reduced and the potential benefits realised, societies need to put technical and managerial practice in its place, as subservient to democratic political and ethical practice, and to open themselves to diversity and experimentation.

As Ashley wrote about also last week, we are in dialogue with the Permanent Fund, an ambitious project to provide early childhood education for all of Vermont's young children  by 2025.  We have high hopes that the examples and deep thinking from Sweden can be an inspiration and a guide for this innovative, ground breaking work taking place in our home state.

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.

A Celebration of Learning

This year I have had the privilege to work with Charlestown Nursery School in Boston. CNS is often filled with visitors who want to learn about the philosophy and practice of a Reggio inspired school.  Visitors and families recognize right away that CNS is a beautifully designed, welcoming and engaging place to learn.  This year, I was invited to work with teachers to extend and enrich their project work with children.

A fundamental part of our work as Cadwell Collaborative is to become a trusted member of a team of the faculty and staff at a school. This is the only way that we have found to create the conditions for lasting change and growth. From the beginning, the team at CNS was open and willing to focus on their engagement with project work and to consider how to travel farther and deeper with their students.

This year, each class worked to produce a book or a video as a culmination of their work with students for families to take home as a memory of the learning from the year.

What a beautiful afternoon CNS hosted on June 1st as families attended an open house called a Celebration of Learning. One of the classes for the youngest children invited parents and children to play with loose parts inside and outside and to enjoy the book of stories told with loose parts by the children. The other class invited families to make music and sing together with the many percussion instruments that they have collected and explored all year. During the afternoon, a small and joyful band marched into the commons area of the school to celebrate!

All of the preschool classes published books about their year-long projects. One is the story of how the children decided to care for and repair broken animals and toys and to take this service to the other classes in the building. Another is the story of an extended journey studying snails (who are residents of their classroom), in many ways and with many materials...even imagining that the snails would want to be able to see the stars and building them a telescope!  The last features a broad investigation about "What's inside?" of things? ourselves? fruits and vegetables? machines? Students and teachers wondered, made predictions, made drawings and continued to wonder about the insides of things that can not be seen from the outside.

Congratulations to CNS teachers, administrators and students.  You have engaged in, composed, curated and presented beautiful, joyful learning in the form of long term, meaningful projects to your extended community. It is an honor to be a part of your team.

A Living Building as Learning Center

On a recent visit to St. Louis, Ashley and I took a drive out of town to visit the new LaBarque campus and Jan Phillips Learning Center of The College School. This outdoor country campus has many habitats including a wetland, a prairie, two creeks, cliffs, woodland, and now, a beautiful learning center that is one of the 11 living buildings in the world. We were so impressed with the design and the vision for this extended campus of one of the most exciting schools we know. We met Tim Wood there, an old friend and colleague. Tim explained many features of the Learning Center. The building is dedicated to Jan Phillips who taught at the school and then was Head of School, serving the College School for 35 years.  The center is designed to extend the school philosophy of experiential education, connect people with nature, and advocate a sustainability ethic for the region.

The fire place in the building shows the strata of rock that goes down under the building for several thousand feet, ending with the foundation rocks of the house that used to be on this site. Local timber and many other local materials were used for construction.

Students designed the iron fence and will continue to add features to this campus over time.   A living building goes beyond the idea Leed certified. Every aspect of the building and the footprint is sustainable and actually creates energy rather than consuming it.  A Living Building needs a year of operation before officially becoming certified.

What a hopeful and beautiful legacy to leave a school as Jan Phillips has done. I learned from Jan to recognize sasafras and striped maple, to listen to the sounds of the forest and name them, to lead children into the woods knowing that much would be learned there for life.

Thank you to The College School, my "home school," where I taught for 16 years.  We are so proud to be a part of your family and to watch and admire all the good work that you do in the world for children, families, sustainability, and education. Your influence and example reach far and wide.

Spring

Spring has come slowly this year to Vermont, cool and wet and green. Lush new pale greens, yellow greens, dots of yellow daffodils and white lilacs. Fragrances of sweetness and light.  A welcome full on sensory delight after a long, hard winter.  My niece sent me a poem entitled "Instructions on Not Giving Up" by Ada Limon about the patient green leaves that unfurl "like a fist to an open palm."  I am encouraged by this poem as I am and we are all uplifted by spring and returning life and warmth.

This week, a few of us decided on the spur of the moment to hike up to a mountain lake to overnight camp. What a wonder to swim in a frigid spring fed lake in May, to discover a nest full of baby ducks in a circle of ferns, and a pink lady slipper growing in between boulders.  What a delight to share a tasty meal that we had all packed in pieces of, to roast marshmallows and to listen to the wind and the rushing stream.  We surrounded ourselves with the miracles of the spring and the new world.  We read each other poetry.

Here is a favorite by Mary Oliver, "What I Have Learned so Far"

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world? Because, properly attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion. Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a story, all kindness begins with the sown seed. Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

May we all grow into summer delighting in the precious natural world and our humanity and also working in solidarity to defend and preserve it as best we can.

Amen.