Thinking outside the box

Earlier this year I was talking with my daughters about - well just about everything really, as we do, and the phrase "thinking outside the box" was used by me to which Isabelle answered...
"well I think inside my box, because it is bigger on the inside, and travels through time and space".
Which of course made us laugh (as my daughters call themselves Whovians - Isabelle has been knitting a LONG  Fourth Doctor scarf for the last few months)...

BUT
This got me thinking...
There is so much focus on thinking outside the box that we are forgetting about the boxes themselves.
Maybe children come to preschool thinking creatively in their radically different boxes - a safe place to think, but also with the ability to share ideas with others... the ability to look into each others boxes, to be inspired.

I get what the phrase is about... thinking outside the box... it is that one way of having a box - that box we are told we should have in school... that one way to approach life - change your box to look like this and all will be well. But of course we need to think out of the box all the time when things within the box don't work!

I, though, work with preschoolers... children not yet conditioned by this one box way of thinking. Children that are filled with play and creativity - who are still learning about taking inspiration from other boxes in order to furnish their own.

If we are all encouraged to "maintain" our wonderful variety of boxes (and by maintain I mean stay true to your own individual creativity, as I assume a box would change over time with new experiences and inspirations changing the fabric, design and technology of the box) - then there would not be the need to think outside the box, but to think by connecting, by box collaboration.

Loris Malaguzzi talked about a 100 languages that became 1 in school... which is more or less the same sort of thinking as this box theory I am developing here (lol). What we as preschool teachers need to learn is how to identify the boxes and how to enable the children to stay true to them and how to learn how to learn, be inspired and interact with others to fuel their box creative drive.

How, though, can we who have been taught to think within a specific box refind our childhood box of creativity?
I believe it can be done through play.
I believe that if we as teachers/adults take the time to mess about with ideas, with loose parts, with nature, with each other... to play then we can learn as children learn... and down this learning path is where we will find our original packaging ready to be filled with all our experiences.

David Hawkins developed the idea of Messing about - and was one of those people that had inspired Malaguzzi. I do recommend that you take some time to find out more about his ideas, as I have found them so valuable in developing a better understanding of my role and responsibility as a teacher and how I can improve my interaction skills with children... by better understanding play and learning.

So I am never going to ask a preschooler to "think outside the box"- instead I want to arm them with the strength to never exchange their box for the standard issue at school (it would be even better if we could persuade the politicians to think "outside the box" or better still refind their original box - and encourage schools to be a place of play, learning, creative and critical thinking - a place that allows children to be creative and to collaborate).

Through the Eyes of the Child 2015

 

In 2014 I started a project with the children called ”Through the Eyes of the Child” - the idea being that children talk about what is important to them and then try to capture this using the medium of photography.

There was an aim to do this worldwide, (with the idea that children would be able to discuss whether or not there were common themes of childhood across the globe) but even though there was a quite a bit of interest it never got to the point where we could share images and our documentation with each other at the end.

This was of course disappointing as MANY hours had been poured into creating the website, working out how to share the images etc etc... it was, though, an opportunity to learn. To learn that even we adults need to just go with a process in our learning and not have a product.

So I am taking that knowledge and starting the project again. As it is a project worth doing.

Last time the group decided together on what was important to them... it was so interesting to listen to their ideas, and argue for why they were important in a way that would convince others of the importance. In the end LOVE, PLAY, PAINTING and TRAFFIC SAFETY were considered important and the children were given 3 weeks to try and capture these themes on camera.

They were given experience with the camera before hand (so they could go through the whole click happy phase), and we learned together with the children that by giving them a "five photo max" each day made the reflecting time manageable for them... sorting and reflecting on many photos became overwhelming.

This term it will be done slightly differently... in fact I will be doing it with my group twice... a one-week prototype and then reflecting on this to see how the five week project will proceed. Hopefully by the end of it the children will feel more competent in using the camera to document their own learning/what is important to them.

The learning is maybe not as important as using the camera to voice what is important. In a way, I do not want the children to be focussing on what they are learning all the time... I want them to play and for the learning to happen within it. I feel that by encouraging the children to talk about what is important I will learn more about the children and can support their learning better, and hopefully the children will discover more about themselves and each other and can build on this wisdom too.

The one week pilot.

I have 8 children in my group, so I will be dividing them into pairs. Each pair will get a day with the camera. They have to work together about deciding how to spend their 5 photo opportunities (I am thinking about letting them delete a photo during the day if they feel they need to take a more important one). Working as pairs also encourages dialogue. At the end of the day I will sit with the pair and talk about which of the photos is the most important for the day and why. This photo and their thoughts will then be saved, but not shared with anyone else. I plan to save the image in a powerpoint presentation so that I can document the children's words together with the children. This will take Monday to Thursday. On Friday we will sit and look at the four photographs of what has been shared. The dialogue will about looking for similarities and differences in the photos - have the children taken images of the same kind of thing... do others agree with them that that moment was the most important during the day? The ultimate goal is to see if there is an common theme in their photos/reasons for choosing the photo.

 

The four week project will be the same (of course I might make adjustments based on my observations of the pilot). This time each pair will have four days - Monday to Thursday to document what is important - this time they will have the benefit of the pilot, so it will be interesting to see how it affects their method of selecting and taking images.

It will mean that potentially there are 20 photographs to reflect on - as yet I am not sure if this is too many or not... but the pilot will help me make adjustments. On the Friday I will sit with the pair and do the reflection time, saving the images in a powerpoint presentation that will get added to over the weeks. Again it will be important to include the children's words - their motivations as to why those photos should be a part of the presentation and not the others.

This will mean the presentation will have 16 photographs to look at - and why there is a fifth week... because then we can go through the photographs at our own pace - it might take one session or 5 sessions - or more... but I do feel the first session should be a quick run through of all the images and reading the texts to the children like a storybook... and to start the dialogue after that. Again I will understand more about how this dialogue should proceed after the pilot.

I feel quite excited about this project - and feel it will allow me an important insight to how the children view their preschool lives. 

There will be no need to register. The old Through the Eyes of the child website and the old Through the Eyes of a Child blog I will not be using - as it consumed far too much time to maintain them... but I will leave them up and accessible as a reminder of what has happened, although I will be transferring the posts from there to this blog, to make things a bit easier...
There is a facebook page connected to the project - also called Through the Eyes of the Child... you are welcome to drop by and share if you are joining in the learning process of this project... either you follow the same sort of process as I am, or develop your own... it would be great f you could share what you learn.

Building a Bridge - Da Vinci Style

When I was in Milan I visited an exhibition about Leonardo da Vinci and it really got me inspired... as I could see so many of my preschoolers interests woven into a project about his thinking, creations, drawings etc etc etc...

Bridge building was also one of the contruction ideas that I tested when I was there - and I knew exactly which children in my group this would inspire...

There was a book you could buy at the exhibition about this, but I felt it was just too pricey - and I have been looking for the same book elsewhere and not found it, but I have found other interesting books.

Da Vinci designed a bridge (1485-87 sometime) that could be constructed without nails or adhesive - a self-supporting bridge - and this can be replicated in the classroom if you are interested...

Check out the images below and you will see... and, yes, this is all I am going to give you, as it is the same information that I will give my preschoolers...

 You can see how the sticks weave in and out to offer stability - under, over, under over - the middle row doing the opposite to the two outer rows... a bit like weaving in a way.

   

As you see once the bridge frame is constructed you can then build a pathway over it - I think this image makes it easier for children (and me) to make that leap from model to actual bridge).

The top bridge is made with long flat wooden blocks, the following image might make it more clear as to what sort of blocks are used.

All images come from google searches and Amazon (which sold a da Vinci bridge kit for a sum of money that I felt was too much for my budget, and that we could improvise with blocks that we already have - possibly kapla, but we also have a some others that are longer and thinnner that are just bef´gging to be used in such a project).

Below is a film on how the brdige is constructed. If you want to find out more details about the bridge and other Da Vinci inventions then please check out Leonardo's Inventions

                  

Here is the bridge I built at the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in Milan.

Perspective...

How often do you check your setting from the height of the child?

It really does make a difference on how you see things...

It can also be valuable to take photographs from the height of the adult and the height of the child to see the difference too...

The above image if two photographs taken from the exact same point... the only difference being that on the one on the right I was crouching, being a small as a child...
Suddenly the room feels bigger, I see things that I missed when I was standing up - but I still see all the way up to the ceiling (for some reason some places become afraid of putting things high up - I feel that we should be encouraging children to lift their eyes... to be observant of many things around them, and not just what is at their height - like being spoon fed - of course there still has to be an awareness of what the children can see and why it is being put where it is being put).

This is one image from my visit to Garden Gate Child Development Center on Martha's Vineyard, where I visited as part of their ECE retreat earlier this month.

More posts will be coming from this visit.

Durham Early Years Festival of Inspiration

This is some background information for the keynote talk I held at Durham Early Years Festival on 19th June 2015. This is to enable MY journey to be talked about during my time talk time without compromising on refernces and where to go further if you are interested in finding out more...

http://p4c.com/history-p4c Matthew Lipman and  P4C (Philosophy for Children)

Listening - 7 inspiring TEDtalks  - here I have linked some talks that can really inspire you.

SAPERE - P4C in the UK

Alison Gopnik - talking about learning in the early years... the importance of play, the importance of childhood!

 Other sites worth checking out...
Peter Worley - Philosophy Foundation
Teaching Children Philosophy - Wartenberg - this link you can find lots of story books with suggested questions and ideas of how to explore them - check "Book Modules" and you will see a list of titles...

The best position for listening - a post about the session where we drew how to sit in order to listen well.

The Listen Dance - an activity to explore listening with the children through movement

Learning to Listen

The Bubble Game

The Importance of the Spoken language - listening with pre-verbal children

Listening with eyes - another way to play and increase listening skills

Kandinsky - art to aid listening.

Listening, art and testing boundaries - another post about an art session that was more about supporting the children's listening skills than the actual art...

Of course please take the time to explore my bog... to find inspiration of one kind or anohter.... and even better, leave comments.... to get me thinking, to inspire future posts...

Thank you for listening

the bad the good and the barbies...

When I became the parent of identical girls I had many thoughts about how I was going to be a good mother...
Buying Barbies for my daughters was not on my good mother list. Instead I bought completely different dolls for my girls (that were horrendously expensive, as were all the extra clothes and accessories) - but these dolls had the bodies of children isntead... perfect, I thought, for their role-play together.
At the age of three my aunt bought them a barbie each for Christmas... the expensive dolls were dumped in a corner... it was ALL about barbie now...

I quickly learned that being a good mother was not about enforcing my thoughts upon my children about what is right and wrong... but giving my children the possibility to make their own informed decisions. My children allowed me to see barbie with a new perspective... not this view so many adults have of an adult with an unrealistic form - but as an open ended toy with limitless abilities... a toy that represented an adult, unlike the expensive dolls... this meant a toy that had more power in their eyes... but also a toy that could fly, that could swim, that could work, go to parties, change outfits, wear BIG long dresses, like nothing they had seen in real life... they were fairies, mermaids, teachers, researchers, adventurers...

When I ask my girls now (14) about their memories of barbie they remember it was fun because you could move their legs, you could change their clothes and they could pretend many things....

Of course barbie could have a completely different look and still be able to move her legs and have a variety of clothes... but as a mother of barbie playing children I felt that it was MY responsibility to give my daughters the strength to feel proud of who they are, how they look and what they want to be... the barbies have not been responsible for my children's self esteem... I HAVE been a huge part of that. I have made a conscious decision to have a healthy view of my own body (especially in front of my children) and I also made the decision not to diet... as child I remember my mother ALWAYS being on a diet - and always being dissatisfied with her body image... she DID NOT play with barbies as a child - they did not even exist until my mother was 12 - my mother had left school at the age of 14 and went to secretarial college, met my father at 15 and was married at 19 (that just made me shudder a little when I think of my daughters and realise how close to adulthood they are).
What are my mother's issues with body image to be blamed on then? if Barbie is the root of all evil when it comes to modern childhood's body image? Especially when neither myself or my daughters have  issues with our bodies (and yes we can have our days of insecurities like all people, but there is that feeling of being content with the body we have).

But maybe not all children have access to a parent that is going to get them thinking criticially about the toys they have.... er wait a minute, neither did I....
But that aside, if we, as a society, think that barbie, and similar toys/images, are damaging to children then what are we doing about this as parents and as teachers...

As teachers we could bring in the barbies and the princess culture into the preschools and schools... LISTEN to the children about WHAT EXACTLY it is that interests them about the barbies and the princesses and then explore that... in the same way you would with super heroes... why are super heroes more acceptable than barbies and disney princesses...? they are also a similar kind of stereotype... do all boys feel the pressure that they must have muscles and wear tights? Do boys feel that have to wear masks as an adult, do they go round thinking they have to always protect ?- and just as there are more princesses than princes, there are more male super heroes than female ones... especially in the merchandising.

My family are totally into Marvel - the girls as much as my son... maybe more so ... OK so I suspect hormones might have something to do with that too? ;-)

But my question is... if we are to increase the rights of girls to have equal status of boys... then why are we saying what they like is bad?
What are we saying to girls when we say... the barbies you like and think are beautiful, we think are bad... does that mean we are saying the girls are wrong? Are we giving children the message with ADULT values, that their childlike view of the play toy is wrong?

I have learned many things by listening to children.... and I mean listening to THEIR perspective, not what I think is a child perspective (you can check out my post where I talk about the difference between child perspective and child's perspective - here) - and I have learned that children really view things in completely different ways from us adults... so that when we are adding our adult values to certain toys we are weighing down children's play... especially if we are not allowing children time to explore this extra weight and make their own decision about whether or not this is relevant or not for them - and whether they can peel that weight off and to continue playing with the toy in the way that THAT see it... and hopefully allow us as adults to see it with fresh eyes too.

In all of this writing, I am not saying that I LIKE barbies or disney princesses, or ninja turtles or super heroes as toys or as books  but I am not going to weigh down the children with MY values... I want to listen and understand THEIR values... and all the time  I am working on building their self esteem and their critical thinking so that they are able to make their own decisions and feel happy about them and themselves. I want to enable the children to make informed decsions... and that means seeignt hing froma variety of perspectives... philosophical dialogues really help with that

If I can reach the children and support their learning through barbies, or Frozen or Ninja Turtles... then I will do that... but what I have found is that there is often an element of these characters that the children are interested in... and we have been able to explore through that... for instance last year we explored magic powers as the group went Frozen crazy. But I will never just focus one one thing... I will offer the children a great variety of options to explore it from many perspectives and also to explore alternative play...

We actually watched the film Frozen at preschool in four sections... after each section we talked about what we had just seen and recreated the story.... so many of the children knew parts of the story but did not know the whole, or understand the message of the film... by exploring the film at preschool we were able to support the children's comprehension of a film many of them had seen a enormous number of times... thus giving the children the power to make their own decsions about what they felt about Elsa, Sven, Hans, Anna, Olaf etc etc - and even with this knowledge of the great power of Anna... the children just wanted magic... and Elsa had that, as well as a dress that magically changed... the boys also wanted Elsa powers and identified more with Elsa than they did with Hans or Sven... although they did quite enjoy being guards and having the power of locking up Elsa... (but there are girls that played that role too).

So what am I saying in all of this?

I reckon I am saying that we need to believe in the competence of children... that they know that these figures are not realistic - like during our philosophical dialogues about fairies, when I asked the children if fairies were real.... "They are real, pretend real"... children have a power of imagination that many, most, adults have lost, making it impossible for the adults to see anything more than an impossible form of barbies...

as for disney princesses... shouldn't we be elevating their status instead of sinking it further? Why can't princesses be powerful, why does pretty have to be bad? Why does pink have to stink? All of this should be empowered so that boys want to be princesses too.... so that boys want those princess dresses just as bad as the girls... I mean as a female I go round in trousers all the time, and wear skirts and dresses when I want to feel different and special (and also when I am not crawling on the floor)  - when do men get to wear skirts and dresses - or tights/leggings, without being questioned? Where are their rights to feel powerful in all kinds of clothing...?

Elevating princess power might just mean giving boys the freedom to choose too?

OK... so hopefully I have a provoked a whole load of thinking now...

Visit to Ekudden Preschool, Uppsala - INDOOR environment.

For quite some time, and with great joy, I have been following Ekuddens preschool facebook pages... seeing the children's learning being made visible.
They have four pages... Bubblan ...  Droppen ... Myllan and ...Gnistan
For me it was a clear choice to visit when Diane Kashin came to stay with me in Stockholm... a journey together to Uppsala to learn about how the teachers at Ekudden have been working together with their third teacher.

Our guides for the morning were Anna and Sabina who showed us around and explained the journey of each room - as well as many other ideas, strategies and the way preschools work in Uppsala.

I took lots of images, as did Diane, and I have been busy sorting out which ones to include in this first introduction to Ekudden Preschool - focussing on the indoor environment - leaving the school and the outdoor environment for other posts to come...

so to the images... as always enjoy the inspiration - and use them to kick start your own thinking about how your third teacher/environment looks - take ideas and build on them to meet the children and teachers in your context.

Myllan's room of exploration - light, sound and touch to be explored... there is both an overhead and projector that are used, depending on what kind of image they are wanting. Mirrors, cozy corner to lie down and explore - a box of light with items linked to the current project inside to peek at trhough windows. A room for the imagination. There is also string/rope going across the room so that material can be draped down and the childen can climb inside the light installation - very much like what I did with Vinden... see here

In Uppsala all young children are given a book "Knacka På" which is about knocking on doors... the pages of the book, and then seeing what is on the next page... it is a natural step to set up the book in large format in the environment of the youngest children at the preschool... a book where all the children can meet, as they all have the book at home. I love the fact that the city of Uppsala give books out for free for children (at various ages too... and when they are older they get to choose between two books) - I wish Stockholm was doing similar.

the children at Ekudden sleep in their own prams/pushchairs year round... they are parked under the shelter of the roof just outside the window. The children have the security of their own prams to sleep in, and can be easily rocked/rolled if they need some help to fall asleep.

Creating their own playspaces with cardboard boxes.

Between the two younger departments/groups and the older ones there is a shared space for for play and exploration. This is one area of that space with a sand play area

and this is another area of the same space - the bottle in the background of the photo are just off to the right of the photo above... This image shows one of several cubes the preschool has - both inside and out... which is essentially a wooden cube frame that can be draped with material etc and used in a variety of ways... imagination is the only limitation - from shops, to light installations and aquariums to castles to...
On the walls decorated lazy susans have been mounted for exploration.

there is a second shared space - another large room with areas for play and exploration... a light table to explore nature, a construction area and role play area... also several tables to meet, chat and work at their projects (as well as eat lunch)

In most of the rooms exploration islands were set up... not just the idea of a space to explore, but also so that the room says slow down, see what is around you, play with respect to other's play and exploration. Large open spaces can scream run run run to young children, which can make construction play difficult if people start running through it... The children get ample time to run outside every day - so running is not limited... but respect for play and safety is encouraged.

In the older children's area there is a large contruction area, whith many raised surfaces to build upon. Here you can also see the cube in its naked state. Anna and Sabina have found that the cube needs to be dressed differently from time to time to make it visible again - or to help stimulate the play... either deepen it or change its path if it has been stuck in the same play for a very long time...

The two older groups share an atelier together... it was a traditional atelier for paint and art - but as they realised they tended to paint in other areas of the preschool and the room was not being used to its full potential they changed the focus of the atelier - right now it is a atelier of construction and light - and there is the idea that this room will not remain static but will continually develop and change in its focus... a room to explore and be creative.

the older children have created a garden (with mud play before the planting). One child apparently guarded the garden with a stick and thus came the idea of protecting the garden with a wall of sticks... this very much reminded me of the mini medieval gardens I had just seen in Vinterviken Gardens earlier in the week with Diane - sadly I did not take photos then... but will head back and take some. Anna told us how lucky they felt acquiring the gardening table as they got it for free, including delivery, through a site called Blocket (similar to craigslist... so I learned).

So concludes this first taste of Ekudden preschool... a preschool that has just celebrated 10 years of working with children... and their journey was clear... throughtful consideration of their thrid teacher - and important colleague who needs to be regularly consulted so that the children are empowered.