Leading the Way Articles - Draft - Ryerson University

Recognizing the Role of Early Learning Lab Schools in ! Canadian Universities and Colleges

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From the Editors

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In 2009, the faculty in the School of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University were inspired to organize a conference focusing on early learning lab schools. We felt that early learning lab schools play a unique role – educating and caring for young children, mentoring early childhood education students, engaging in innovative curricula practices, and participating in research. We believed that we had much to share and learn about and from early learning lab schools in other universities and colleges across Canada. The success of our 2009 conference motivated us to co-host a 2nd conference in March 2012.These conferences were a result of partnerships between lab schools; the School of Early Childhood at George Brown College co-hosted both conferences and the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, co-hosted the second conference. We called these conferences Leading the Way—the articles in this on-line publication which are based on conference presentations will describe how Canadian university and college early learning lab schools seek with great commitment to lead the way.

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You will read that the lab school teachers see themselves as part of a larger system of early childhood education and care. Indeed, because the mission of an early learning lab school is soundly tied to teaching and caring for young children, research and student learning in a university or college, the lab school is compelled to build thriving relationships with multiple stakeholders—children and their families, university and/or college faculty and departments, researchers, and various levels of government, among many others.

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You will read that lab schools teachers are inquisitive and relentless in their exploration of new ideas—the authors eloquently describe the pedagogical journeys they have undertaken to enrich their programs and to critically enhance their professional knowledge and practices. You will “feel” when reading each article the exhilaration that teachers and researchers in early

learning lab schools experience when engaged in collaborative pedagogical inquiries and experimentation. These inquiries can be unsettlingly and often lead to more questioning and uncertainty. In their article, Our Learning Story: Journey of Transformation, Williams, Farzaneh, Simon, Salau, Francisco, and PereraJones (Seneca College, Ontario) metaphorically describe this process as “standing united on the banks of a river, pausing to reflect…where we have come from, who we are, who we want to become, and where we travel to from here.”

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You will, of course, discover much more for in each article the complexities of managing, teaching and researching in an early learning lab school are untangled and in doing so pave the path for more complex reflections on theories and practices. An article by Bateman, Hankinson, and Whitty (University of New Brunswick) illustrates these processes of reflection as the authors and the children explore being outdoors in the woods at UNB.

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In another article, you will discover how Coronel, Feltoe, and Isnor (George Brown College, Ontario) use technology for observing and documenting children’s learning and development to inform their curriculum. In their article, Watts, Moher, and the early learning lab school teacherpreceptors (Ryerson University, Ontario) describe the journey they took to redefine their program’s philosophical and pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. Similarly, Elliott and Yazbeck (University of Victoria, British Columbia) share their story of “two centres and their encounters with children that have challenged, changed, and opened up the way we work.”

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As professionals associated with early learning lab schools you will want to explore the differences between a field placement and a practicum as described by Brophy, Callahan, Campbell, and Reid (University of Guelph, Ontario) and learn about the challenges encountered in the history of this lab school. You can also read about Grove and Lirette’s (MacEwan University, Alberta) reflections on children and citizenship as they

Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

2 “uncover some of the complexities of teaching and learning with child citizens” and Kind’s (Capilano University Children’s Centre – British Columbia) work as an atelierista as she describes the evolution of her studio project.

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Our first on-line publication ends with Hodgins, Kummen, Pacini-Ketchabaw, and Thompson’s (University of Victoria, British Columbia) article that reflects on their “roles as academicsinstructors-pedagogistas-researchers working in childcare centres linked to university institutions (laboratory schools)”, their practice and research, and their work with pedagogical narrations. We end with this article as the authors leave us wondering about the “implementation of new practices and new questions”, paving the way for our next Leading the Way conference.

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As with our conferences, the articles in this publication are representative of the practices of professionals working in university and college early learning lab schools across Canada. Going forward, we hope we can develop a second on-line publication that features the important work happening in an even broader range of Canadian early learning lab schools. But for now this on-line publication is an important celebration of the exceptional contributions that early learning lab schools are making in advancing the early childhood education and care field in Canada.

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Rachel Langford PhD Aurelia Di Santo PhD School of Early Childhood Studies, Ryerson University  

The recommended citation for this publication is: Article authors. (2013). Article Title, in R. Langford & A. Di Santo (Eds.), Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges (page numbers of article). Retrieved from http://www.ryerson.ca/ecs/


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Being in the Outdoors! "

Jill Bateman, Rachael Hankinson, and Pam Whitty University of New Brunswick – Early Childhood Centre Fredericton, New Brunswick

Since the inception of our demonstration classroom in 1975, the outdoors has been an integral part of our programming. This year Jill Bateman, one of our UNB educators with a longstanding and deep interest in the outdoors, and her colleague Rachael Hankinson (quickly becoming an outdoor enthusiast), have been experimenting with and deepening their understanding of their own and children’s involvement in the outdoors within a forested space close by. Our overall intent has been to increase the time, pleasure, and learning we experience with children as we are together in the woods. Influenced by the growing movement of forest classrooms across North America (http://naturekindergarten.sd62.bc.ca/ proposal/) and the longstanding practice of being in the outdoors in Nordic countries, we have taken up the call to spend more time in wild spaces. In this paper we briefly describe some the changes, challenges, and learnings we have encountered in our time with children in the woods at UNB.

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On our ventures out to the woods, we carry a well-stocked backpack with a first aid kit, tissues, our cell phone to link with the office and parents, and sometimes we take additional pedagogical supplies. When walking in dense woods we teach the children to put their arms and hands in front of their face, and we carry pruners in our backpack in case we come upon a particular tangle. We are quickly learning which outdoor

clothing works best—heavy duty splash pants, pull-up boots, and warm mittens. We often take snack time outdoors in all weather, including winter, as long as it is warm enough to remove mittens. Only a dangerous wind chill can prevent our daily adventures outdoors.

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Finding a space in the woods

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Fortunately for us, the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton) has retained small sections of woods throughout the campus. When we first set out to find a spot that would work for us, we found that university students also spend time in the woods, and it might take a while to find just the right space for us. After visiting several forested areas on campus—with and without the children—we located our space, chosen for its ideal blend of features that include a clearing for sitting, singing, story-telling, reading, etc.; fallen trees—perfect for climbing on; and quite importantly, close proximity to a building with bathrooms.

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Being in the woods— uncovering our assumptions Spending time with the children in the woods brought to light some our assumptions of being outdoors. We share some of our surprises here, as well as our pedagogical responses. On our first forays into the woods, we were taken aback at how some children wandered away from us and out of


4 our sight. It startled us—we assumed that they would stay within view. To help us all maintain sightlines with each other, we established a visible boundary with yarn. Once we all became more familiar with visual communication and related boundaries, we removed the yarn. The children now know they need to be able to see us. Of course, in the winter with the leaves off the deciduous trees, they can go further, and trailmaking in the snow adds a whole new dimension to our outdoor activities. When some of the children want to follow a trail, one of us goes along and encourages the leader to keep checking to make sure the back of the line is coming—a good skill for hiking in the woods today and in the future.

surprised that invented play scenarios were not part of our time in the woods—climbing yes, play scenarios no. Play entered the woods as a response to the indoor activity of reading The Three Little Pigs in our classroom. Outdoors, the story came alive in the woods as the children spontaneously and collectively acted it out, trying on different roles and using natural props such as sticks for the stick house and large fallen trees for the brick house. We have learned that the woods is a great environment for storytelling and dramatic play!

During our early visits to the woods, some children were eager to explore and investigate, while others seemed to have a hard time navigating the undergrowth. They appeared to be disoriented, which in hindsight may not be surprising as knowing the woods is different than knowing the playground, for example. We thought this disorientation might be linked to limited experience and comfort in the woods. We also realized early on that children might need time to become accustomed to the outdoors. With this in mind, we incrementally increased our time in the woods. For those children not interested in climbing or exploring, we brought clipboards, paper, notebooks, and pencils, and they settled onto our tarp to draw pictures and maps. Children who were uncomfortable started in this open space with familiar indoor activities and tools, and moved into the woods play when they were ready.

We have found that multi-modal literacies are abundant in the woods. In addition to the traditional writing tools we take from the classroom to the woods, writing tools also consist of fingers in the sand or sticks in the snow. When we first brought our indoor art materials into the playground, we noticed that children who rarely created art in the classroom were painting and drawing in this new environment. In the woods, art is created from found natural materials. We have taken glue and paper outdoors, and after collecting natural items such as leaves and sticks, the children created nature collages. A few children created “dirt art”—making borders for their pictures rubbing dirt into the paper.

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Another surprise we experienced was related to dramatic play. Many children in our group are very play-oriented in our classroom and playground spaces; they create multiple and ongoing play scenarios daily. It is very exciting! When we first started visiting the woods, we were

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Pleasures of being outdoors

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Opportunities for problem solving and leadership abound in the outdoors as well. A Rube Goldberg machine invention contest put on by UNB Engineering students fuelled interest in creating obstacle courses in the woods out of the natural debris. It is a passion with our children that has continued for months. The following examples illustrate problem solving and leadership. When one child’s foot got stuck between two pieces of wood, her friends rallied and they all helped to


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figure out a way to extract her foot safely. Another child loves taking his friends on treks through the woods, negotiating the dense underbrush and finding ways to navigate the terrain. On one occasion, happening upon the edge of a wooded area, he shouted, “Stop!” and threw his arms out to the sides to prevent his followers from entering onto the neighbouring parking lot. In another example, we asked the children to think about why we—the two adults—sank through the snow while they could walk on top; we later added snowshoes into the problem-solving outdoor adventure.

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Our ongoing learnings…

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Play outside is more conducive to a flow between activities

We have been intrigued at the different paths some of the selfdirected activities take. On one occasion a group of children spent time together following animal tracks after a snowfall in the woods. While talking about what kind of animal it could be (a mouse), suddenly Michael stopped to pick up a stick and told us he was writing the mouse’s name in the snow. As he worked on making letters, another boy began to experiment with this mark-making in the snow, and a discussion about letters and words ensued.

Many times we have been on our special tarp in the woods telling or reading stories when the children have asked to tell their own stories to the group. On one occasion the storytelling began to include more and more of the group until they drifted off the tarp to “perform” the story they were telling in the woods.

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We are more attentive to interests

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We have noticed that as educators, we are more attuned and attentive to the children’s interests in the outdoors. Initially drawing from our own childhood memories when we enjoyed building forts and homes for toy animals, we encouraged this activity with the children. We were surprised to find that it failed. As we paid closer attention, we realized that this particular group of children are climbers. They love exploring fallen trees and navigating through the branches, balancing and helping each other along. We also watched an interest develop in maps and map reading on one of our field trips (when we were reading a bus map), leading the children to draw treasure maps for each other and have treasure hunts for hidden gems.

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Learning in all seasons

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We have seen learning occur in all types of weather. Playing in the rain, which tends to be avoided because of the mess, has shown us wide grins and raucous laughter from the children. Rainy days result in glorious


6 puddles for jumping in and building bridges, pouring drinks of “chocolate milk” and cooking “soup.” We aren’t afraid of getting a little wet, and the children absolutely love the freedom to splash and explore water and how it moves. Additionally, the children have created beautiful pieces of art using watercolour crayons in the rain and were thrilled at the idea of doing art as the raindrops splashed around them. We are grateful for all kinds of weather and what it teaches us!

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Valuing unstructured time to play in nature

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Our most significant discovery thus far in our outdoor experiment is valuing unstructured time to play in nature. Children and adults alike feel a sense of timelessness in the woods and on our playground. Often we are surprised when we look at our watches to discover that the time has flown by. We keep to a relaxed schedule and are much more flexible in letting things happen than when we are faced with the classroom clock on the wall. We are adding many new features to our wooded space—but we don’t imagine that a clock would be a welcome addition!

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Contact: Pam Whitty Early Childhood Professor University of New Brunswick Fredericton, NB [email protected]

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Our Learning Story: Journey of Transformation! "

June Williams, Tanya Farzaneh, Maya Simon, Laura Salau,   Lerna Francisco, and Niluka Perera-Jones Seneca College Newnham Toronto, Ontario

In 1969, Seneca College was one of the first institutions in Ontario to incorporate an early learning centre to enrich the Early Childhood Education program. Seneca College has two lab schools: K.O.L.T.S. (King Campus), and the Newnham Lab School, which opened its doors in 1992 at its current location in Toronto. The Newnham Lab School’s designing principles were intended to meet the needs of students, faculty, and children. As a demonstration and observation Centre for the School of Early Childhood Education, the lab school’s unique collaborative design effort among faculty, lab staff, and parents provides a superior curriculum and training environment for ECE students applying theory into practice.

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“Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning how to learn.” Loris Malaguzzi (1993, p. 79), Italian Early Childhood Education Specialist, Quoted in The Hundred Languages of Children, Ch.3, by Carolyn Edwards, 1993.

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Our story

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We stand united on the banks of a river, pausing to reflect upon our journey—where we have come from, who we are, who we want to become, and where we travel to from here. Looking back we notice small tributaries. These are the headwaters, the sources of our existence. We realize through the passage of time we have become wiser and stronger, our passion rolling through each ripple, catching the next, and passing it on.

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Reflecting on all the rivers and streams that have nourished us, we looked within to define our role as co-constructors of children’s learning, recognizing that our views of teaching and learning have changed. Our view of the child has evolved into the image of a strong, capable learner—a protagonist. Honouring and respecting the simple ideology that children are born eager to explore, discover, and make sense of their world, our role has shifted to one that supports rather than one that leads. The image of the child is founded with respect to his or her ability and desire to learn.

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This belief began with a shift in our curriculum and pedagogy as well as with the children’s environment. Through this journey we have come to recognize the value of the environment as a third teacher—where


8 children are researchers and builders of theories, initiators of inquiry and investigation through their explorations of beautiful quality materials.

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Our centre’s aesthetic appreciation is founded in the belief that children desire and require beautiful materials to help them develop their own aesthetic awareness. Every item is chosen with relevance and purpose. Inspired by Reggio Emilia founder Loris Malaguzzi and his respect for children and their spaces, we have transformed our beliefs and views of teaching and learning. Initially, our research led us to books, photos, and stories of his approach. For example, theme-based displays were cast aside for more authentic natural elements. Through the transformation of the environment we noticed a change in the children. They were building a deeper connection to the space.

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The centre is now not just a place with simple things, but where we embrace an ideology and belief that respects the learners. Our curriculum has always tried to incorporate and model that of the School of ECE; we work with faculty to design and implement exceptional quality care. Our philosophy was inspired by theorists from John Dewey to Vygotsky and maintains a strong connection to the schools and beliefs of Reggio Emilia. This has led to our own interpretation and representation of the principles that guide our beliefs and steer the direction of our curriculum.

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A recent highlight for the educators at the Lab School was the privilege of meeting, sharing, and being inspired by Lella Gandini, United States Liaison for the Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach. While touring our school, Lella interacted with the children, reviewed documentation, explored, and collaborated with us. Her visit affirmed the power and beauty of our program and the work we do. She was one wave, one ripple that seemed to propel us forward faster, in anticipation of the next bend down the river.

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Collaborating with faculty of the Bachelor of Child Development Program has enabled us to delve more deeply into constructivism theory and the theories of Big Ideas. Our curriculum has always been based on the idea to follow the children’s interests through play. Over the past two years we have shifted our curriculum to truly understand, interpret, and analyze the what, how, and why we do what we do. The strength of the teacher’s voice has matured; we have learned to truly “listen” with our ears, our eyes, and most importantly, with our hearts. Through our reflective practice we have come to understand the deeper relationship we have with children. On our journey, a noticeable change occurred in our documentation. We shifted from narrating experiences and skills towards revealing a truer sense of the child’s voice through our interpretations. As we began to analyze and collaborate on the children’s experiences, we were able to see their learning demonstrated through their relationships with peers, teachers, materials, and the environment. This process is shared and developed, allowing children to revisit and extend their learning. It was through more meaningful connections among educators that our documentation revolutionized, becoming richer, more authentic—a living, breathing testament to the children’s learning. Lella Gandini reminded us of yet another key element in documentation: the verbal story. Verbally sharing the process plays an important role by exposing the underlining meaning within the documentation. This reminded us once again in the value of relationships, collaboration, and the need to share the learning through a variety of languages, photos, anecdotes, and voices of the children, teacher, and parent.

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9 Looking down from the banks of the river, we are in tune to our voice. Our reflection honours the voices of all: the children, the parents, and the Early Childhood Educators. We are beginning to understand and interpret the underlying philosophy of Reggio Emilia. Relationships between and among children, families, educators, students, co-workers, materials, and the environment are all interconnected. Thus emerges a support network centralizing on the child. Our team has grown, now comprising not only the educators of the lab school, but also faculty, student teachers, parents, and the Seneca community. As we grow, we learn and expand together.

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We push off once again from the river bank. Paddling, we synchronize our oars, encouraging each other to keep tempo, celebrating our accomplishments while supporting each other’s strengths through challenging rapids. Respect is given to the changing river landscape. We embrace the uncertainty, knowing that it is part of the journey.

Seneca College Newnham ECE Lab School Staff, 2013 June Williams, Manager, RECE Tanya Farzaneh, RECE Maya Simon, RECE Laura Salau, RECE Lerna Francisco, RECE Niluka Perera-Jones, RECE

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References

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Malaguzzi, L. (1993). History, ideas, and basic philosophy: An interview with Lella Gandini. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds). The hundred languages of children (pp. 41–89). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. 

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With hopeful hearts we share our dream to continue to be a part of Seneca’s Strategic Plan, to mentor and inspire future and current educators, and to contribute to the wider community. We hope our passion, dedication, and commitment will inspire a new generation of educators. We listen to the river—a new adventure is taking hold, the hidden current is flowing rapidly, and new water is surging. Where it will take us, only the river knows.

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Recording Early Learning Observations (RELO)! "

Veroushka Coronel, Sue Feltoe, and Margaret Isnor George Brown College Lab Schools Toronto, Ontario

RELO (Recording Early Learning Observations) is a web-based software program developed by Professor Marie Goulet at George Brown College’s School of Early Childhood. Working in collaboration with the Early Childhood Lab School team and the college’s Information Technology Department, in 2008 Professor Goulet’s vision became reality—providing a software tool that enables Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) to observe and document children’s learning and development for the purpose of informing curriculum planning.

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The basis of RELO is an Ontario document entitled “Early Learning for Every Child Today” or ELECT (Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning , 2007). This document is an early learning framework for Ontario’s early childhood programs, containing within its pages the principles that guide quality early childhood programs, plus a “continuum of development”. The continuum is based on five over-arching domains of development: physical, emotional, social, communication, language & literacy, and cognitive, as well as root skills—specific capabilities, processes and competencies—that exist within a domain. Although the continuum is divided into larger age-related sections (infant, toddler, preschool/kindergarten), individual children’s skills may appear at differing points along the continuum as they learn and develop. ELECT is intended to be a strength-based model of development with an emphasis on skills a child is currently working on or developing. Based on this framework, the RELO tool was designed as a user-friendly interface for RECEs, parents, and

other staff members to record and document children’s learning. RELO supports several of the principles outlined in ELECT: • Principle # 2: Partnerships with families and communities—families are able to access their child’s profile of development at any time with a simple, unique password. RELO further enriches the dialogue with parents and families about their child’s progress and their child’s current skills. The benefits to families include ease of access and the ability to retrieve their private child’s file from any webenabled device at any time. This accessible program encourages family contributions and sharing of observations, promoting a reciprocity of learning that supports the notion of continuity between home and childcare. • Principle #4: A planned curriculum supports early learning—educators can collect and organize observations in a meaningful manner. This informs curriculum planning and implementation that is child focused, related to theory, and based on the interests and skills of the individual child. Benefits to educators include RELO’s user-friendly interface and informative reports that help to clarify and highlight patterns of development for individual children and groups of children that are recorded in the program. As RECEs, we understand that learning is never isolated to the childcare centre; we know that development takes place in the context of families and communities, respecting that parents and families remain the experts on their own children.


11 Using the RELO tool, family members are invited to share observations of their children’s learning in day-to-day situations, thereby providing valuable information on child development outside the structure of a formalized childcare centre. Below is a visual of the online format that RECEs and parents will use to submit observation entries about a child:

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As in the example (see Image 1), when choosing the Observation tab users will be provided with drop-down menus for both Domain and Skill(s); the selections outline the sequence of skills that children at different ages can be expected to acquire across the five broad developmental domains. A quick reference guide provides examples of indicators that support the educators and families in placing their observation in the most likely domain and skill.

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Domains (five broad areas or dimensions of development): 1. physical 2. emotional 3. social 4. communication, language & literacy 5. cognitive Root Skills: specific capabilities, processes, abilities, and competencies that exist within a domain

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Indicators – markers of what a child knows or does which show that the skill is emerging, being practiced, or being elaborated Interactions – examples of adult-child communications, contacts and joint activity that support the child’s accomplishment of the indicators and related skill development

The RELO tool also has a pictorial observation option where the user can capture the child’s learning in a very concrete/visual way that supports a deeper understanding of how learning occurs in both planned and natural processes. The RECEs are able to print detailed reports of the development of a child within their group, which informs their curriculum planning to ensure the needs of the individual within the larger group are being met. We are excited to continue using the RELO webbased program to enhance research possibilities in the field of early childhood education, from seeking a better understanding of the patterns of children’s play to gaining insight about families who use this tool and their understanding through exposure to child development in a more “concrete and succinct “way.

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References

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Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning (2007). Early learning for every child today: A framework for Ontario early childhood settings. Toronto, Ontario: Ministry of Children and Youth Services. 


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Engaging in Reflective Practice Considering Partnerships with Multiple Stakeholders   in a Lab School Environment! "

Kim Watts and Catherine Moher in collaboration with ELC teachers: Linda Hart, Leslie Cunningham, Karen Wong, Angelique Sanders, Maurice Sweeney, Maria Wysocki, Andrea Thomas, and Sanja Todorovic Early Learning Centre, School of Early Childhood Studies, Ryerson University Toronto, Ontario Ryerson University’s Early Learning Centre (ELC) is an early learning and care centre serving 66 children and their families from the university and local community. As part of the School of Early Childhood Studies, the ELC’s objective is to model theory-to-practice as a laboratory school and offer field placement opportunities—currently to over 130 students per year. The ELC welcomes Ryerson students registered in undergraduate observation and curriculum courses and graduate level research courses to observe and interact with the children who are enrolled in the centre’s toddler, preschool, and kindergarten programs. The teacher-preceptors serve as guest speakers for various early childhood studies courses. Observation booths in the centre and a live feed camera situated in one of the university’s classrooms offer observation mechanisms for both undergraduate and graduate students. These experiences provide student teachers, the ELC children, and teacher-preceptors with learning and teaching opportunities.

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Over the last several years, the ELC teacherpreceptors have been engaged in a reflective process of redefining the program’s philosophical and pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. In March 2012, we were invited to share our experiences in a presentation at the 2nd National Early Learning Lab School conference. A unique feature of this reflective process is how we consider and include ideas and

recommendations put forth by our many stakeholders and partners—the children, families, the School of Early Childhood Studies, the Gerrard Resource Centre (GRC) (also a Ryerson University lab facility), and external community organizations such as the City of Toronto and the College of Early Childhood Educators. This paper presents the information shared at the conference and our experiences with the notion of change and sustainability.

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Background: The Process of Change

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Our teaching and learning philosophy is driven by the vision and mission of the School of Early Childhood Studies. To understand the reflective process undertaken by the teacher-preceptors, we highlight the context which influenced our decision to redefine this teaching and learning philosophy. Provocations for change included:

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• School of Early Childhood Studies: vision and mission • School of Early Childhood Studies’ Director: her leadership and mentorship • Early Learning Centre and the teaching team’s core beliefs • External stakeholders’ expectations


14 • The establishment of the Ontario College of Early Childhood Educators

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School of Early Childhood Studies: Vision and Mission

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The University supports the ELC as a site for current and innovative research. Typically four to six faculty-driven research studies and graduate/ undergraduate student research projects are conducted at the ELC over the course of a year. Research is carried out predominately from the School of Early Childhood Studies and departments such as Nutrition and Psychology. Teacher-preceptors act as facilitators for these projects and at times are involved as participants. It is a fine balance ensuring that all stakeholder needs are met. One particular challenge in facilitating the process is the difficulty in scheduling when projects occur simultaneously.

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We have learned from such initiatives that the benefits far outweigh the challenges. For example, from 2011, the ELC teaching team has worked with Dr. Roma Chumak-Horbatsch to pilot the Linguistically Appropriate Practice (LAP) program based on her research and subsequent book entitled Linguistically Appropriate Practice (Chumack-Horbatsch, 2012). The applications in this program served multiple functions and provided an excellent vehicle in connecting the home and the ELC. Further, the LAP program supports and acknowledges children’s diversity and their inclusion in their various communities as critical to their optimal development. This project also engaged parents. After a presentation at our Parent Advisory Committee, a Language Committee was formed. This successful program built a bridge between home and the ELC and increased parent engagement in the classroom as families shared their stories and songs from their diverse culture of languages.

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Director of the School of Early Childhood Studies: Her Leadership and Mentorship

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The School of Early Childhood Studies Director, Dr. Rachel Langford, has inspired the ELC teacher-preceptors to view themselves as the main stakeholder in the reflective process. Over several months we were encouraged by Dr. Langford’s approach of inquiry and contemplation—to delve into provocations and devise strategies that were to become the cornerstone of our own redefined pedagogies. This also included a reflection process that celebrated our multiple perspectives.

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We began by exploring and examining our beliefs about children, families, and pedagogy. This process included journal writing where we captured our thoughts and feelings about the process of change. We discovered that our program did not fully represent our beliefs about teaching and learning; our pedagogical approach was missing a holistic view of children, and we realized that family input was peripheral. We recognized that we needed a practice that better reflected our beliefs.

Early Learning Centre and the Teaching Team’s Core Beliefs

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By engaging in this reflective process we determined that our collective core beliefs include the following:

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• Children are born with an innate curiosity and a determination to understand the world around them. • Each child is unique and must be provided with learning opportunities that are adapted to individual needs, interests, and learning styles.


15 • Learning must provoke inquiry, critical thinking, and above all else, a joy of being. A comprehensive understanding of children’s development coupled with observations of what they express as their paths of discovery unfold are essential for intentional teaching to occur. Understanding the whole child will promote learning and development. • If we, as teacher-preceptors “listen” and “see,” children will “tell” and “show” us what they want to learn. • Through reflective practice, we can examine children’s main inquiries and interests. As coinvestigators with the children, their families, and their community, we collaboratively develop our program. • We value diversity, equity, and inclusion. These principles are integral to our program. • Families are the most important influence in children’s lives. Rich partnerships between teacher-preceptors and families strengthen our ability to meet the children’s needs and to understand their personal contexts for learning.

opportunity to lead their learning. The diagram below was developed for a presentation we delivered at the International Innovations in Early Childhood Education conference in Victoria, B.C. in July of 2012. It illustrates our cognitive shift from a goal and developmental outcome focus for the children’s learning to a more bottom up approach which follows the children’s main inquiries.

Upon reflection of these core beliefs, we discovered that our approach to social constructivism had shifted to an outcomes-based and developmentally focused program. From 2003–2006, we created a developmental continuum which continues to be an excellent tool for articulating child development. Program planning emphasized developmental goals that we had established for the children based on observations. However, we found that this approach breaks up the child’s learning into finite skills, thereby compartmentalizing each area of development. As our goal was to explore the children’s main inquiries, we took an inquirybased approach to planning. We now develop projects in consultation with the children that support their learning, leading to many interesting discoveries and exciting opportunities for the children.

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The teacher-preceptors had acknowledged the need for a shift in their beliefs and practice, expressing a desire to “let things go” —referring mainly to classroom rules and an activity-focused program. We now offer the children the

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As we were engaged in this reflective process we were also in the position to articulate our curriculum to student teachers. During our “Leading the Way” presentation, the teacherpreceptors noted:

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• We are experiencing challenges articulating our process to students while we are still developing it. • We are modeling what we are trying to achieve. • We are becoming researchers and learners with the children and students. • The way we are looking at children is helping us to reflect on how we interact with our students to encourage them to become critical thinkers.

External Stakeholders’ Expectations Families as Stakeholders

Families supply a wealth of resources that provide a context for children’s learning. As a result of the LAP project, we began to experiment with new ways to further increase parent engagement and to be more responsive to the voice of parents. The Parent Advisory Committee began to take its direction from parent feedback, and based on this information, we changed our approach to how we communicate with parents about their child’s learning. Portfolios for each child were created that include children’s stories, photographs documenting their experiences, their artwork, as well as quarterly reports highlighting the child’s strengths and next steps in learning. These portfolios also offer parents the opportunity to share stories and information with their children and the teacher-preceptors.


16

Community as Stakeholders Like all early learning and care programs, the ELC is influenced by policy development and the City of Toronto’s Operating Criteria that assures quality assurance with centres that have a purchase of service agreement with the City. All programs serving children and families in the province of Ontario have been affected by the movement towards the development of integrated models of service delivery. The release of the Ontario Early Years Framework (McCain, Mustard, & McCuaig, 2013) announced the move of all early learning and care and family support programs to the Ministry of Education. This had implications for the ELC as well as the Gerrard Resource Centre (GRC) and the School of Early Childhood Studies’ family support program. It also prompted a more concerted effort to integrate the two lab centres as we work toward actualizing our beliefs and core values about family partnerships and parent engagement. The Operating Criteria as set out by our local municipality has been an ongoing impetus for reflection by staff. Linda Hart, ELC teacherpreceptor, writes “…do they [Operating Criteria principles] really celebrate the child as being capable, self-directed and a competent learner? Do they recognize the professional abilities of teachers to be responsive to children and to

scaffold their learning”? In order to promote higher order thinking the teacher must be comfortable in ‘letting go’ of controlling children’s learning and begin to observe, document, facilitate, and plan provocations that challenge children. It is at this point in the teaching process where teachers must find a balance in planning intentional, guided activities and in planning provocations that will add depth to children’s experiences in which they practice critical, convergent, analytical, and divergent thinking. If we are truly allowing children to own and guide their learning, how can we as teachers preplan all experiences and claim we are following the children’s lead? With close to 50% of our revenue coming from the City of Toronto, how can we follow our mission and vision and still reflect the requirements necessitated by this stakeholder? Does the Operating Criteria reflect current research in early education, and is it adaptable to the various teaching and learning approaches being used in the field? These are questions with which we continue to struggle.

" " " " " " " "


17

The Establishment of the Ontario College of Early Childhood Educators While we considered other impetus for change, we examined the recently established Ontario College of Early Childhood Educators’ Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, enacted in February 2011. When asked to present at the 2011 Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario conference about this document from a child care perspective, we remarked that now our career has finally been recognized as a profession, and we have a new motivation to further examine our ideals and pedagogy. With this recognition came a heightened sense of responsibility as a lab school to demonstrate exemplary practice in the field. Operational changes, mainly due to staffing, freed money in our budget for group reflective meetings. Our team engaged in several sessions to discuss our interpretation of the document, and in the process we began to examine our own beliefs and practices about teaching children, supporting families, and about ourselves as educators. As part of an institution that values professional learning, we were able to examine the implications of the document and believed that we could sustain the increase in accountability for professionalism, learning, and leadership. Opportunities for professional growth, such as attending and presenting at conferences during the remainder of 2012, were numerous, and each opportunity provided our team with a chance to further reflect on our pedagogy. As we engage in reflective practice we find ourselves on a path to a philosophical approach that breaks away from our previous notions of teaching and learning. Through more holistic, inquiry-based, and reflective practices, we find that we are continually engaged in thinking about our pedagogical approach and how we engage with families, thereby offering children meaningful and authentic learning experiences.

" References "

Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2008). Early Bilingualism: Children of Immigrants in an English-Language Childcare Centre. Psychology of Language and Communication, 12(1)

"

Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2012). Linguistically Appropriate Practice. (1 ed.). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press Inc.

"

Ontario College of Early Childhood Educators. (2011). Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice: Recognizing and Honouring our Profession

"

McCain, M.N., Mustard, J.F., & McCuaig, K. (2011). Early Years Study 3:Making Decisions, Taking Action. Toronto: Margaret & Wallace McCain Family Foundation.  


18

An Approach to Student Training: Opportunities for Emergent Learning! "

Kathleen Brophy, Judy Callahan, Rachelle Campbell, and Lorna Reid University of Guelph, Ontario

History of Experiential Learning at the Macdonald Institute

"

At the turn of the 20th century, there was an increasing expansion of opportunities for vocational and educational advancement in response to the view that social problems could be solved through further education (Snell, 2003). At about this time in 1901, Adelaide Hoodless, president of the Hamilton Normal School of Domestic Sciences and Art, approached philanthropist Sir William Macdonald to support the development of a domestic science program at the Guelph campus of the Ontario Agricultural College. The program would promote applied and practical education into rural areas (Snell, 2003). The Macdonald Institute was thus established in 1903 and opened in 1904 as a school for rural women operated by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the Ontario Agriculture College in Guelph, Ontario. The Institute focused on teacher training with an emphasis on domestic science. Students completed their teaching observations and practice teaching in the nearby Macdonald Consolidated School, initiating a tradition of practicum education for women on the campus (Snell, 2003).

"

By 1932, a half day nursery school was operating at the Institute to facilitate the observation of

children and offer guidance for their mothers. In September 1959, the Macdonald Institute Nursery School was opened providing half day programs for children in the community (Snell, 2003). Macdonald Institute students observed the children and analyzed their behaviour as they engaged in daily activities. The school was renamed the Family Studies Laboratory School in 1968; here a practicum experience was provided for students enrolled in the new Child Studies major in the Bachelor of Applied Science degree program. In 1990 the University of Guelph Child Care and Learning Centre (CCLC) opened on campus delivering child care services for members of the University and Guelph community. At this time, a series of pilot studies were conducted to develop a model that would enable students in the Child Studies major to complete their practicum within the CCLC. After successfully developing such a model, in 1996 the Family Studies Laboratory School closed its services for children and families, and the practicum for university students was transferred to the CCLC.

" Experiential Learning "

The University of Guelph Child Care and Learning Centre (CCLC) embraced this training component of their mandate. The practical hands-on experience provided valuable opportunities for student and staff professional development by linking research, theory and application. Research in the field of teacher


19 training (Berliner, 1988) has long recognized that the complex world of human relations is dynamic and essentially a creative process, and that professional training cannot be based solely according to a list of competencies that have been previously defined (Brophy, Ryan & Stuart 1998). The primary goal of professional training beyond the provision of relevant knowledge and specific competencies is the creation in each student of a sense of themselves as professionals (Brophy, Ryan & Stuart 1998). One of the primary ways that students can experience the development of a professional identity is through the experiential courses offered in their respective programs. In particular, students must be placed in settings where their sense of themselves and their understandings of professional practice are required to undergo reconstruction and reintegration (Brophy, Ryan & Stuart, 1998). The various ways this can be accomplished may be viewed on a continuum that focuses on the intensity of the supervision provided. While all such approaches are used in training programs for early childhood educators, it is the distinction between the latter two approaches—field placement and practicum—that will be further developed (Unpublished Department Memo, Lero et al, 1993).

"

Field placements provide instructional opportunities in service settings where students learn through observation and develop skills by working alongside professionals. However, student learning is limited by what the field supervisor and/or the agency judge as appropriate

experiences in which students can be engaged (Unpublished Department Memo, 1993). In the field placement model, the course instructor meets with students in weekly seminars to discuss issues that have arisen in practice and to guide students in the resolution of such issues by providing personal insights and theoretical knowledge. The faculty/course instructor observes students in their placements anywhere from one to three times per semester and supports the work done in the field, but is not directly involved. There is a reliance on the onsite supervisor to provide direct feedback and instruction to students regarding day to day practice. Previous and/or concurrent coursework is expected to help the students function in their field placements. Faculty cannot arrange or structure student learning experiences, but they can offer their support. Although the course instructor will monitor the quality of the experiences provided in the field placement setting, and may support, troubleshoot, and evaluate the quality of the environment and the supervision provided, there is often great variability across settings and the resulting quality of student experiences. The role of the onsite supervisor becomes vital in providing support (Unpublished Department Memo, 1993).

"

The practicum model such as the one offered at the CCLC offers a more direct approach to education in professional practice. Here students work within a context that has been specifically designed to offer instruction in practical and professional aspects of early education and care. In particular, the faculty/course instructor and the

INTENSITY OF SUPERVISION ______________________________________________________________________________ None

Low

Volunteer/paid

Observation in real settings

Medium Coop work

High Field placement

Practicum


20 lead teachers have the authority to design learning experiences to support the students in particular ways. The setting is designed to provide opportunities in which the faculty/course instructor can engage with the students daily and support their meeting of specific instructional needs and/or objectives (Unpublished Department Memo, 1993). Programming in general, and in particular for the children, can be adjusted within reasonable limits to support student needs at a precise time. Following a period of orientation, observation, and modelling by supervising teachers, students take on more direct responsibilities for the planning, implementation, and ongoing daily activity of the program, at which point supervising teachers withdraw to the background. The faculty/course instructor completes weekly observations of students in their programs and provides detailed verbal and written feedback on an ongoing basis. There is weekly direct and consistent consultation with lead teachers of the students. The content of weekly seminars emerges out of the ongoing experiences of the students, and while course objectives are outlined, students set their own goals and evaluate their success at attainment. Reflection on practice is vital as students complete weekly planning of activities, evaluate selected activities, complete child observations and a home visit, reflect on personal goal attainment, and present a personal narrative of their experience with written reflection. (Unpublished Department Memo, 1993)

" Transitions "

Change can provide challenges along with opportunities for growth and development. The transition from the original laboratory school in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition to the University of Guelph Child Care and Learning Centre (CCLC) had its bumps. From the perspective of the child care staff at the CCLC, their responsibilities expanded to include students; at the same time they were required to share their children. Students were planning activities, engaging daily with the children, and supporting parents! Staff were required to embrace these new relationships and redefine

their role within their program. In addition, they had to undergo training in providing supervision and feedback to university students, requiring them to engage in an additional role as adult educators.

"

Communication between all partners was essential. For example, in order make decisions regarding staffing and programming issues, the director needed to be aware of departmental curriculum decisions—in particular those that had an impact on student enrollment and curriculum changes. As a result, the director was granted adjunct professor status and attends curriculum and departmental meetings. The director was also one of eight directors responsible to the associate vice-president, student affairs. Support for student learning became a goal, equal to the importance of high quality early learning and child care. The CCLC supports the Student Affairs Division’s values: accessibility, accountability, civility, collaboration, innovation, and integrity.

"

Parents were concerned about possible changes in the quality of the program that their children would experience. Members of staff not directly involved with students needed to embrace the new demands on their time. Faculty had to adjust to a new role at the CCLC of being involved more directly in curriculum development and ongoing engagement in children’s programs.

"

Recent advances in technology show a movement away from videotaping students and providing written feedback to the use of iPads. This has enabled students to get immediate feedback on their actions with concurrent documentation of their actual engagement related to specific interactions observed by practicum supervisors. In addition, the CCLC has adopted an emergent curriculum approach which requires students to develop and use their observation skills and to integrate these into their planning with more immediacy. Linkage with theoretical course content needs to be timely, requiring close communication with departmental course changes.

"


21 The CCLC will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the University, the practicum and the child care sector. In September 2010, the Ministry of Education began a five-year implementation of Full Day Kindergarten (FDK), necessitating another remodel of the CCLC. As most 3.8- to six-year-olds will have access to FDK by September 2014, younger children will be the main focus of the remaining child care sector and funding. Practicum is now offered in these lower age groups.

"

Despite the initial reservations of parents and others, the model is now highly regarded. The connection to the university and the contributions of practicum students are valued components. “Practicum students have been an important part of my son’s experience at the CCLC. I like the extra supervision and contact with adults that the students provide and I especially like that the practicum program helps to promote and maintain a culture of reflective teaching at the CCLC.”(January 2013 parent survey)

References

"

Berliner, D. C. (1988). Implications of studies on expertise in pedagogy for teacher education and evaluation. In New Directions for Teacher Assessment (Proceedings of the 1988 ETS Invitational Conference, pp. 39– 68). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

"

Brophy, K., Ryan, B. & Stuart, B. (1998). Framework for Assessing the Quality and Character of a Children’s Services Training Program. Workshop Presentation to the Eleventh National Child and Youth Care Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 27, 1998.

"

Lero, D., Ryan, B., Stuart, B., Brophy, K., Marshall-Stuart, D., Wilkins, S., Myhill, J., et al. (1993). Comments on the Role of Practicum and Placement Courses in the Child Studies Major. Unpublished department memo,. University of Guelph, Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition, Guelph, Ontario.

"

Snell, J. G. (2003). Remembering the Past— Embracing the Future. Macdonald Institute. Toronto, Ontario: Dundurn Press.

"

" " Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

22

Children and Citizenship! "

Anne Grove and Tricia Lirette MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta

This is our place. These are our voices.

"

The following article is an attempt to capture the conversation that occurred during our presentation entitled Exploring Citizenship with Young Children at the Leading the Way conference at Ryerson University in March 2012. In this presentation we shared some of our reflections on our doings in which we unfold and uncover some of the complexities of teaching and learning with child citizens.

"

What follows is a multi-layered and ongoing, evolving, and deepening dialogue that represents our many voices: the children and their families, the lab school educators, and the faculty of MacEwan University Early Learning and Child Care diploma program. We hope the way the article is formatted helps depict how we went about trying to “interrupt the fluency of the narratives… making them stutter” (Rose, 1999, p. 20).

"

This presentation and the ensuing article are a work in progress as we continue, tentatively, to try to find the language to illustrate our new awareness about place, identities, citizenship, and communities in ways that transgress the theory–practice binary and trouble traditional views of children as only potential citizens. We offer it as a story of practice and hope it can contribute to a reconceptualist dialogue. Told from our unique place, we are excited to “practice expressing our theories” to others, believing, as does Rinaldi (2001, p. 79-80), “that sharing stories is a response to uncertainty”.

"

This is a story of political awakening. It is a record of children’s voices, ideas, actions in a preschool setting over several years. This is a history of emergent planning and negotiated co- constructed curriculum that survived, grew, and flourished over time and was the birth of a new

consideration of children as active citizens in this community.

"

The community is the MacEwan University Childcare Centre on the downtown campus of Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta—an urban campus in a city that is the capital of Alberta. The centre has been a demonstration site and lab school for the Early Learning and Childcare Program (ELCC) for over 40 years and has a reputation for quality care. Here ELCC students observe children and complete their practicum; their energy is part of what sets us apart.

"

We are a fortunate staff. We are well paid, respected, active participants of the university community. We have the time and opportunity to think and reflect with ELCC faculty and share ideas. Some of us have been to Reggio Emilia, Italy, to Boulder, Colorado in the United States, and to centres in Canada such as Capilano College B.C., Ryerson University and George Brown College in Toronto.

"

Into this pool of ideas, one day a stone fell. The ripples would lap against our practice and attitudes for the next few years…

"

“What is this stuff ?” E was at the snack table one day and didn’t like what he was eating. It was plain yogurt. The children had been accustomed to flavoured yogurt; clearly this new taste did not have many fans. With the children’s best interests at heart, the yogurt had been changed to a healthier choice. We noticed the children’s strong reactions, and it occurred to us that no one had consulted the children about the change. We had


23 long advocated for the children to have choice; now we wondered if the children would advocate for themselves. So began the yogurt protest, the first of three projects that invited children’s active participation in the life of the centre.

"

We began to see the children as citizens who could be activists on their own behalf, speaking out about what they didn’t like. Later we would see the children solving a problem to protect their environment. Finally children identified a project that involved taking part in the life of the centre. As we became more involved, we all began to see the richness of this notion for emergent planning, and there were many outcomes.

" The Yogurt Project "

Having heard the children’s dislike of the yogurt, we began to talk with them about ways of making dissatisfaction known publicly. We talked about protests and petitions—how the power of many voices could bring about change. The petition was a wonderful choice for the children because it carried the weight of each child’s name on it. It was a chance to participate in democracy at its most innocent and powerful—the voice of the people! It took courage and leadership from a few children to take on this project. They circulated from their own playroom into the other preschool room to find out what other children thought. As they went, these leaders had to explain what they were doing and invite participation as they campaigned for their idea. Days later, clutching a much worn and dog-eared petition, they arrived at the door of the director. Imagine children in serious conversation with an adult about what was served for snack, and why . . . not whining complaints, but an exchange of “why not” and “what if ”. The children returned to class with questions to answer about the dangers of too much sugar consumption, a research question about sugar, and the germ of an idea about mixing fruit into the plain yogurt. Perhaps more importantly, our director had wisely not answered the question with a yes or no, but had asked the children to investigate. It was an important part of our process that the children make an informed decision. Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

24

"

The team of children and educators set out to find answers—examining yogurt containers, learning about ingredient lists, looking up sugar contents on the internet, and representing the findings for others in different ways. There were charts, buckets of stones to represent grams of sugar, and trips to the grocery store. A nurse visited and talked about the effects of sugar; heart rates were monitored. At the same time, recipe testing was going on. Various fruits were added to yogurt and taste-tested, then tested again. The cook was consulted and respectfully asked if she had time to blend the yogurt. Votes were taken and decisions were made. Then the children were back in the office finalizing the decision, enacted into “law” by the director, and reporting back to the population with the result. We had seen our idea acted upon and realized. Once the centre had experienced this, we were never to be the same.

"

Most citizenship education is focused on ways to prepare and train children for future adult citizenship (Howe, 2005). Schools and curriculum material are future focused and less likely to address the child as a citizen in the here and now. We are attempting to view citizenship not as the outcome of educational efforts, but as a learning process in the present. Citizenship is not the final destination (Jans, 2007), the goal or outcome in itself. We want to view the child care centre as a locus for active citizenship through participation in collective action and the practice of democracy (Dahlberg, Moss and Pence, 2007, p. 73).

"

With this we recognize the inherent messiness of conceptualizing children’s citizenship (Phillips, 2010). We are aware of the need to examine how we construct the notion of citizen—especially if we are not constructing citizen as a stable and essential subject. By applying rhizomatic thinking, our intent was to examine what citizenship is or can be from as many variations as possible, “connecting it in nonlinear ways and in nonhierarchal assemblages to other things” (Chan, 2010. p. 46). What new elements can citizenship be linked to and/or transformed into (art, yoga, narratives, and symbols)? What kinds of new encounters with citizenship are possible? We began by watching to see how citizenship emerges as an assemblage in our very practices and how children are themselves part of producing new realities

(Olsson, 2009). This rhizomatic framing of citizenship as movement is seen as a continuous, dynamic, teaching– learning–experiencing process (Chan, 2010, p. 51).

"

The Stepping Stone Project

"

The centre had planned and developed a new playground. The children and families had been an integral part of the planning process, so it came as no surprise that the children felt a deep connection and interest with the new space. Older children had certainly left before the playground opened, but there was a climate of commitment to the space evident in the centre. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was a reflection of our dreams and ideas. This was our place, and we could say how it looked.

"

When the preschool children noticed toddlers walking over the plants one day, they expressed their concern. They thought about ideas to prevent this and returned to the idea of pathways, which had surfaced during the planning process. If we build a pathway, the children thought, it will be clear where to walk. These children had already evolved into citizens who would take responsibility for finding a solution and exercising their civic duty to protect the living environment in their community.

"

The children worked to discover how pathways were made, what materials might be both beautiful and durable, what shapes were pleasing. We visited garden stores and pathways throughout the city, making decisions about what pleased us and what was possible. We cast several patterns and shapes in concrete and worked with the centre to find a place to lay them. Many voices came forward, including staff who had concerns about the safety of the concrete stones. Now the children were experiencing the many voices in the community; making democratic decisions requires respect and compromise.

"

In exploring the tensions involved in expressing self and considering others simultaneously, we observed the children as they worked to “learn about the complexities of acting on


25 diverse ideas and perspectives in a democratic environment” (MacNaughton & Smith, 2008, p. 40).

" The Menu Project "

Food is so important to children. They tell the time of day by food. The hours tick by punctuated by snack, lunch, snack. One day four-year-old M asked me why we never had hot dogs. Did he want hot dogs for lunch? Possibly, but maybe he meant: Why do we have what we have? Who chooses? Can we choose? Was this a project coming on? And so we began to think about food. What do we like? Lots of opportunities arose to talk about what we all ate at home, what foods were our favourites, what was new to us. Did we like the menu here? What would we add or remove? If we could plan the day’s menu, what would we choose? A set of food cards helped us, as did a wide variety of cookbooks and family recipes. When the children were curious about a picture of polenta, we cooked and ate it for lunch one day. As it turned out, no one had ever had polenta, and this became the centrepiece for our suggested addition to the menu. We interviewed Betty, our cook, who shared some of the criteria for decision making around the centre’s food choices: how much does it cost; is it easy to prepare; is anyone allergic to it; does it follow good health guidelines. Here was a new idea for the children—eating a variety of food from different food groups. The children began to play

their own games with the food cards, piling them into categories or collecting their favourites. We cooked and taste-tested and together consolidated a day’s menu, then approached the director for a meeting. We felt it would be powerful for all of the children to experience the meeting, so we sent an invitation to the director and the cook and arranged to hold the meeting in the staff conference room, away from our usual playroom space. We prepared the children by discussing meetings, chairpersons, notes, and secretaries. We had a visual display of our proposed menu and recipes on hand for the cook.

"

Our choices were added to the menu! The children had successfully advocated for change over a period of time. They had expressed opinions, and we had taken each other seriously. Adult concerns did not push aside children’s ideas; rather all members of the community had worked to find solutions to problems with respect and understanding. We were beginning to see that everyone had a point of view that was unique and personal, yet we had goals that were common and communal.

" Everyone Has a Story "

The children had explored giving voice to their concerns and continue to do so when opportunities arise, but we are not always in conflict or solving problems. Sometimes we are merely expressing who we are. Culture is built with concepts such as language and art. Citizenship is comprised of aspects of belonging, safety, and self-expression. As a citizen it is your right and privilege to find a voice. We began a cycle of fine arts learning in which we explored how to express ourselves and find our “voice”.

"

Children began to tell us stories. We collected and posted them. In early learning classrooms, ideas sometimes reach a tipping point and catch hold. One day near Halloween we posted three stories that a child told about monsters. More children came forward with stories—some children wrote every day for months. Dozens of stories were collected. A book was produced. In story telling we heard hopes, dreams, realities, fears, Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

26 wonderings, theories… each story was infused with a piece of the author. What’s your story? Where do you come from? Who are you? All this leads children to deeper connections within the group. Like immigrants to a new country, the children came together to create something new in each classroom in each year. This is uniquely Canadian—a multi-cultural model that surpasses ethnicity and embraces the idea that we all have a personal culture that must somehow find a place in the community. Children discover who they are in the context of their community (Edwards, Gandini & Foreman, 1998).

"

Not every voice would be realized through print. We explored many forms of storytelling: if you were shy, you might need a mask; others could act out a story; we could sing out our stories, dance and wear costumes. We could paint, draw, and build. We began to see our activities in the context of culture and voice. One child wore her jingle dress and danced a story. Another child wrapped himself in cloth to express himself. One day we joined a university dance class in which the instructor had invited an Aboriginal street dancer to demonstrate some hip hop. The dancer explained how circles were important to his culture and figured in his dance. When he invited the class to participate, it was five-year-old J who was the first to step forward to dance. Later, J would characterize his dancing as “boy moves”. He had defined himself through dance.

"

We were painting to music one day, and began to see the separate voices of children in their work. N’s paint hopped across the page as she often hopped across the room, each colour separate and defined. M’s work grew from one corner of the page: following the music as it swelled and grew more complex, so did the colours blend together. And like D herself, her work was soft and quiet, with graceful lines.

"

We held a “dinner and art show” parent event to showcase the children’s art work, which was displayed in the lobby of the university in the same way the Fine Arts Department’s student art was displayed. We were reaching out to the community around us to show who we were.

"

We are inspired by Olsson to continue “creating the most favourable conditions possible for lines of flight and linkages to appear” (2009, p. 75).

" Desegregation "

What does it mean to be a child citizen? We asked this question of our families and colleagues. Their responses included:

" • • • • • • •

"

I belong here. I am accepted. I can help. I can express myself. I feel like a member of this group. I need to play. I care for the greater good of all.

As citizens, we had now experienced activism, responsibility, and participation. We had leaked out of the confines of the centre and were taking part in university life. Yet how could we participate more fully in our community. Could we expand our choices? Promote peer learning? How could we get to know each other’s stories when we were segregated for a part of the day? A retractable wall exists between the preschool and toddler rooms. If we opened the wall, could we migrate through the space freely? And so one January morning the borders opened. Tentatively some children crossed; others watched; some never left their home turf. A freedom was available for those who wanted it. Responsibility and acceptance could be lived out in that space where many stories would intersect.

"

We wondered how the new environment would be experienced by the children. Educators remained open to what was not yet known and what could not be predicted.

"

As per Deleuze (1978) we wondered what new relations to the space, the materials and to each other would emerge in the new space; what new rhythms and flows would become apparent?

"

There were many multi-age moments (Edwards, Blaise, & Hammer, 2009, p. 59) in which older children, acting as mentors and caregivers, helped


27 younger children. Younger children reminded older children of the sensory joys of water and sand, and older children returned to their past. “This is where I came from,” is how they describe the Toddler Room. “I used to be here, now I am there.” How were children defining their sense of place? What did one place mean to them, or another? Definitions frequently take place in the block corner. Spaces are defined, rebuilt taken down, enlarged. Constantly changing, like the world around us, the children adapt and readapt every day.

"

Younger children flooded into the preschool room, provoked and intrigued by the space, but more lastingly by the endless variety of experience provided by “others”.

"

Deleuze and Guattari (1987) frame children’s growth as occurring concurrently across a series of domains as an irregular, diverse and constantly changing process.

"

Instead of envisioning development as constantly moving forward and upward, older children were able to go back to revisit, reshape, and reframe their former experiences in the toddler classroom space. Children going back to play again was an intriguing dynamic.

"

In this multi-age world there is a complexity to life. The sameness of developmentally appropriate is passed over for the richness of diversity. In this environment children can think deeper, form complex world views, and comment sagely on their society. L was forming a face shape on the table with small figures one day. “Is it you?” she was asked. Thoughtfully she replied: “I am made up of people—the people who love me.” She had an image of herself in the context of her group. We are products of our community.

"

What lines of flight are enabled within this new space? A space where new action is possible? A space where young children’s participation can be set into creative and productive flight (Chan, 2010, p.48)?

"

This “experiment in movement” provided educators and faculty with richer, deeper, and more complex views of children as constantly negotiating their citizenships. It brought us a more profound awareness of children’s theories and how these theories complicate and make more complex our image of the child…the child as an active citizen who is skilled, accomplished, and socially responsible…

"

Our “experiment in movement” opened us up to the children’s views of self as active and engaged in broader community, as able citizens able to create change and play a role in their community and broader society.

"

We are “laying the path while walking,” as Varela (1999) says, as we continue to explore what it means to be a citizen and a member of a community.

" This journey will not end. It cannot. " References "

Chan, K. H. (2010). Rethinking children’s participation in curriculum making: A rhizomatic movement. In V. PaciniKetchabaw (Ed.), Flows, rhythms, & intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 39-53). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

" "


28 Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (2007). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Phillips, L. (2010). Young children`s active citizenship: Storytelling, stories and social actions. Retrieved from http:// www.actionresearch.net/living/ louisephillipsphd/louisephillipsphd.pdf

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (Brian Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

" "

" "

Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Foreman, G. (Eds.) (1998). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia Approach-Advanced reflections.Westport.CN: Ablex Publishing.

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Edwards, S., Blaise, M., & Hammer, M. (2009). Beyond developmentalism: Early childhood teachers understandings of multiage grouping in early childhood education and care. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 34(4), 55-63.

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Howe, B. (2005). Citizenship education for child citizens. Canadian and International Education 30(1). 42-49

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Jans, M. (2004). Children as citizens: Towards a contemporary notion of child participation. Childhood 11(1). 27-44.

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MacNaughton, G., & Smith, K. (2008). Engaging ethically with young children: Principles and practices for consulting justly with care. In G.

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MacNaughton, P. Hughes, & K. Smith (Eds.), Young children as active citizens: Principles, policies and pedagogies (pp. 31-43). Newcastle, Australia: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Olsson, L. M. (2009). Movement and exploration in young children’s learning: Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education. New York, NY: Routledge.

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29

The studio project: Creating a collaborative space of inquiry! "

Sylvia Kind, atelierista Capilano University Children’s Centre, British Columbia

Jonah Lehrer (2012), in his book Imagine, discusses Bob Dylan’s process of composing. He describes how Dylan understands his creative process as one of love and theft, and how it begins when he finds a sound or song that “touches the bone” (p. 246). Through close study he then tries to deconstruct the sound to figure out how it works. In the same way, the studio work in Reggio Emilia has “touched the bone”. Many of us have been inspired by how they have embraced the arts as central to children’s learning processes. They have engaged with the arts not as an add-on or extra, a subject of study, or even as a brief experiment, but as a deep and sustained commitment to artistic ways of knowing and being. In doing this they have shown that the studio, or atelier, and the atelierista are at the heart of learning. (Vecchi, 2010). Their work continues to remind us that there is an aesthetic dimension to learning, and that aesthetics and beauty matters.

"

Beauty, for instance, is a deep human need (Winston, 2008). Elaine Scarry (1999), Stuart Richmond (2004), Howard Cannatella (2006), Joe Winston (2008) each propose that a delight in beauty should be at the core of education. The arts, Maxine Greene (1984) argues, are unique and necessary in that they transfigure the commonplace and open up unique dimensions. The languages and images we find in art “make perceptible, visible, and audible that which is no longer or not yet perceived, said, or heard in everyday life” (Marcuse, quoted in Greene, 1984, p. 129 italics added). The arts allow for a pedagogy of intensity and affect, open us to the unexpected, and the possibility of the “not yet”. (see also Vecchi, 2010). It is difficult not to acknowledge that work in Reggio Emilia has touched the bone and touched the heart.

My concern, however, is in how this is often approached. In Reggio-inspired schools and practices, there is a tendency to try to make things look like Reggio rather than trying, as Lehrer describes, to figure out how things work. Perhaps there is nothing particularly wrong with imitation. Many good ideas are born from copying, borrowing, or replication, and as Scarry (1999) writes, these are some of the effects of beauty. She emphasizes that beauty has the ability to inspire and “brings copies of itself into being.” (p. 3). But my interest is in doing more than simply bringing copies of Reggio into being. Not just because the work has to find its own expression here, but because it frames the studio as something already known, with the process primarily implementing an already known idea. Imitation misses the not yet of art.

"

At Capilano University Children’s Centre we have tried to stay close to the idea of not yet; to follow the rhythms and movements of the studio and wonder, “What is the studio?” rather than know in advance what it is or should be.

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The evolution of the studio

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The studio project at Capilano University Children’s Centre has evolved slowly and began without a dedicated studio room. Much of my early work as an atelierista took place during the daily activities of the centre and focused on nurturing dispositions to watch and to listen. Watching how paint, fingers, and brush transformed the paper, or how the paint moved from easel to window, or how the light played with the paint, trees, and plexiglass painting surface when we painted outside on the deck. Paying


30 attention to how clay, when rolled in a ball, seemed to want to move along the floor or be carried around in buckets. We watched the choreography of bodies, paintbrushes, and containers of paint moving in and out and around surfaces and attended to rituals of painting and washing, covering and recovering. We noticed and responded to how the colours of paint or the material of clay echoed with the trees, sky, weather, and earth. And of course, as we paid attention to these things, we began to shift how we thought, talked about, valued, and responded to children, the materials, and their artistic processes.

the lived/living relationship between bodymaterial-surface-and-space. These have been somewhat risky and often messy encounters, yet full of joy and adventure; the traces of these explorations have resonated and been felt long after the event.

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After a time it seemed important to move in other directions and to follow some of the smaller, more intimate movements of the materials and children’s processes. We continued with the larger experimental work, but felt the need to create a place for more focused attention where we could open to other ways of being.

We questioned rather than accepted what things were. We asked, “What is (a) painting?” rather than trying to facilitate or plan painting projects. Holding back for a while on an emphasis on representation, on what the marks and imagery represented. We attended instead to how our understanding and perception of the processes could be enlarged and altered. We wondered: When does a painting begin? When does it end? What are the rituals, rhythms or tempo of painting? And we experimented, sometimes rather wildly, with materials. We spent months in intense experimentation with charcoal, encounters that connected rooms, teachers, children across the centre, and left resonances and traces throughout the space. And there were many other experiments as we explored, for instance, the intersections of body, dance, and painting, stretching the possibilities and feeling a sense of

" The Studio "

We claimed a small area of the resource room that was connected to the early childhood education students’ classroom and it became a dedicated studio space. It was adjacent to the centre and became a shared space between the Early Childhood department and the Children’s Centre. It was a space committed to small group, more intensive and focused artistic engagements and inquiries, where it was possible for small groups to create, invent, and think together. Initially my purposes were to help children and educators develop a greater sense of fluency in graphic languages, to pay careful attention to small details, and to invite a more sensitive way of being with materials.


31

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The studio invited us to slow down, to listen to the intricate visual and sensorial details, to attend to the particularity, or the “thingness” of things, and to treat things tenderly and gently. The studio was a quieter place where children could pause with us to notice the movements and invitations of the materials, to follow the sounds of their drawings, negotiate ideas, and follow lines of thought; to be with, or dwell with, ideas, processes and materials. In so doing we hoped to develop a more textured and descriptive artistic language and a space where we could work well with delicate and fragile materials in addition to those that were strong and robust; so our movements and encounters with materials, spaces, surfaces, and processes could be multifaceted, complex, and full of life.

"

The room to begin with was quite empty: one glass brick wall, two blank pink walls, a clock (which has since been put away), two low tables, small chairs, a selection of pods, seeds, sticks, barks, and rolls of paper and various drawing media. This was not a rigid place, a container for creative acts and materials, but an emergent space itself inherently creative and creating. I was not interested in filling the room, preparing it, or creating a specified “art space,” but wanted to see how it would take shape in its use.

"

Tim Ingold (2011), borrowing from both Heidegger and Marx, frames the difference between building and dwelling. Builders have plans, drawings, and a framework for what they are about the build, so a built form is the outcome of a prior design. “Dwelling by contrast,” Ingold writes, “is intransitive: it is about the way inhabitants, singly and together, produce their own lives, and like life, it carries on” (p. 10). Dwelling then, is not just about occupying structures; it is about being immersed in the currents of the lifeworld. Humans, of course, do build things. But the idea of dwelling takes into account processes of working with materials and not just doing something to them, and of being part of the emergent processes of bringing something into being.

We settled into a slower rhythm in the studio. There were times when the studio was lively, full of activity, and times when it appeared still, with just the materials. Yet even in the room’s “emptiness” things were always moving: the drawings on the wall, hanging sculptures of leaves and twigs, the diffused sunlight coming through the glass bricks changing with the time of day and the weather. The seedpods and leaves moved slowly and almost imperceptibly, but still in processes of decay, drying, curling, occasionally picking up the faint breeze from the circulation of air in the room. Tim Ingold (2011), discussing Merleau-Ponty’s concept of perception and the sentient world, writes: “To be sentient…is to open up to a world, to yield to its embrace, and to resonate in one’s inner being to its illuminations and reverberations….the sentient body, at once both perceiver and producer, traces the paths of the world’s becoming in the very course of contributing to its renewal.” (p. 12). The room itself invited us to open up to a world of beauty, artistry, and wonder.


32

Nomadic movements

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In the last several months we’ve been engaged in a collaborative Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) project, Encounters with materials in early childhood education, an arts-based inquiry into the role of materials in early childhood. Through this project we have become much more attentive to and deliberate in our attention to movement. The studio has taken on a new intensity as we have looked at the intractivity of materials, children, spaces, places, and bodies. We’ve been curious about how materials move within and between the studio and the rooms in the Centre and are experimenting, inventing, playing with, and taking time to dwell with materials such as paper.

acting, a function and collection or rhythm of movements. It takes shape, moving, changing, becoming when we gather to listen, watch, question, respond, invent and experiment. It is not yet. In this way it is, in a Deleuze sense, becoming what it is. And so there is a great sense of anticipation. We wonder what will happen next. What could the studio become?

" References "

Canatella, H. (2006). Is beauty an archaic spirit in education? Journal of Aesthetic Education 40(1), 94-103.

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As we have played with paper, the studio has become a lot like paper, taking on its characteristics, transformable, not containable, flighty, at times airborne, malleable, multiplying, and spreading; something quite ordinary yet magical in its effects as teachers and children join together in assemblages of invention.

Greene, M. (1984). The art of being present: Educating for aesthetic encounters. Journal of Education 166(2), 123-135.

I still don’t know what the studio is. It is an idea. It takes shape, sometimes temporarily outside in the field or in the forest, and is characterized by forces and energies rather than places, rooms, and walls. We need the room to remind us, and others, that the work exists. The room also allows for pauses and times of dwelling with ideas. But the studio itself, the room, is only part of the project. Over time it becomes more like a verb, an action and

Lehrer, J. (2012). Imagine: How creativity works. Toronto: Penguin.

"

"

Ingold, T. (2011). Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge, and description. New York: Routledge.

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Richmond, S. (2004). Remembering beauty: Reflections of Kant and Cartier-Bresson for aspiring photographers. Journal of Aesthetic Education 38(1), 78-88.

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33 Scarry, E. (1999). On beauty and being just. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Vecchi, V. (2010). Art and creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the role and potentials of ateliers in early childhood education. New York: Routledge.

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Winston, J (2008). Beauty and education. New York: Routledge.

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34

Navigating Change Through Wonder and Dialogue! "

Deanna Elliott and Sherri-Lynn Yazbeck University of Victoria, British Columbia

The University of Victoria (UVic) Child Care Services has been providing care to the university community for over 40 years. Child Care Services is made up of six centres with 138 licensed spaces and 26 full time staff. The children of Child Care Services range in age from six months to 12 years of age.

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In 2009, child care advocates from across campus joined together to launch the UVic Child Care Action Group to strategize ways to increase the number of child care spaces at UVic. This action group became quite vocal and presented before the University Board of Governors the need for more child care spaces. In response, the board of governors began to look into the for-profit Kids and Company (University of Victoria Board of Governors, 2009). This proposal was met with much controversy, and the action group began creating a buzz around campus and the community regarding the need for quality not-forprofit child care. “Don’t burst our bubble play ins” were organized, and several families brought children to wait outside the Board of Governors chambers as meetings went on. The Board of Governors eventually turned down the idea of bringing in an outside child care provider and ordered an expansion working group be formed to examine the need for child care on campus.

care” to offering the children an enriched learning environment. Thanks to these reviews, we found ourselves on the university’s radar and in the hands, if you will, of the School of Child and Youth Care—where change for us really began.

"

We slowly started to work with Professor Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, PhD, and Denise Hodgins, PhD candidate in the School of Child and Youth Care. They brought forward new ideas by way of articles, questions, the BC Early Learning Framework, and a connection with others who had been undergoing change. Workshops and professional development days were organized around the idea—difficulty, excitement, and challenges of change—and a dialogue opened up for us that we never had before, not only with Veronica and Denise, but also with each other as educators, management, families, and children. It

"

Using various lenses, a closer look was taken at the existing child care centres through an external review of Child Care Services followed by the Expansion Working Group review. The common thread in both of these final reports was that while quality care was provided, it was time to rejuvenate the existing Child Care Services programs, strengthen partnerships with the university, school districts, and the Ministry of Education, and move beyond providing “quality


35 is this dialogue of navigating change that began our deeper inquiry about our practice with children, families, the environment, and each other.

was at the first Leading the Way conference that I got my inspiration. Janet MacDonald and Jen Moses (2009) described a state of inquiry as stated by their pedagogista Cristina Delgado:

What follows is the story of two centres and their encounters with children that have challenged, changed, and opened up the way we work. We will discuss how our year-long interactions with charcoal and paint have expanded our experiences with the children and families, spilled over into our ordinary moments in the centres, and led to the examination of materials in the space. We will show how our work with these materials has led to an environment of deeper inquiry, exploration, wonder, and dialogue.

“To pose with questions, to be comfortable within the uncomfortable, having questions, to be taken over by questions and not wanting to immediately reply with an assertion or solution, to think and act alongside a question, to love a question...this is the force that facilitates our work and lets us continue.” (Cristina Delgado)

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Wonder and Dialogue with Charcoal Sherri-Lynn Yazbeck

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Prior to attending the first Leading the Way: Recognizing the Role of Early Learning Lab Schools conference in October 2009, I had been feeling conflicted with my work as an educator and questioning my practice. I felt that for our centre, it was time to question. We needed something to shake us up and challenge us to think and communicate in a different way. And it

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There was something about that statement I couldn’t shake; it still ruminates within me and has set the stage for much of my work and my observations of children at work.

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In January 2011 at our centre for three-to-fiveyear-olds, we started to work directly with Veronica and Denise. They came to the centre, observed, interacted with the children, and asked questions that made us uncomfortable. Why…, What if…, and How come you… were the beginning of many questions we pondered.

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During this time, we decided to explore the use of charcoal with some of the children. We asked a small group if they would like to participate, telling them nothing about the materials unless they asked. The exploration occurred outside of the classroom in a different building on the


36 campus. Once a week for a few months we hiked up the hill to explore.

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Movement fascinated me as I watched the children and charcoal in action. Munnelly (2010, p. 16, quoting Bergson, 1929, p. 196) describes the experience of drawing: “The body acts as a place of passage of the movements received and thrown back, a hyphen, a connecting link between the things that act on me and the things upon which I act”; Munnelly says that Bergson’s statement “eloquently captures both the corporeal and cerebral experience of drawing where the body is governed by a triumvirate of movement, cognition and material” (2010, p. 16).

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I began to think of the body and mind as the link between charcoal and the act of exploration. I saw movement as a representation of thought, intent, creation, destruction, and re-creation of the work done by the children and the material— a necessary link for the children to understand the material and the material to understand the children. As sessions progressed, our understanding for the need of movement continued to grow, and we invited a trained modern dancer to join us with sheer scarves, charcoal, and dance. The children learned that dancers move through space in areas of high, medium and low. These words immediately triggered images of past charcoal sessions— watching children move about the room, standing on chairs, stretching their bodies to the limits to reach that one spot on the paper, or lying flat on their bellies to swim, foreheads to the ground, in the dark black sea. All of that past movement observed had now become a dance in the connections among charcoal, body, and mind.

the children and the dark, intense colour of charcoal. Conversations among the children ranged from listing all things black, to superheroes; from fire exploding to the amount of black clothing. As time went on they discussed, explored, and moved about the room with the charcoal describing: “it was a big black cloud,” “it was magic,” “dancing on the black stage was amazing,” and “it is my black beard.” While sitting amongst the swirl of charcoal and children, I started to see the relationship changing between material and the children. Initially, the children were describing the process and its effect; for example, one child was overheard giving instructions to another, “draw like this, then rub it like this [with your hand] and it looks like that.” As the explorations continued, I began to notice a shift—the relationship was changing from what the material can do to the relationship with self, body, and mind becoming something else, such as a big black cloud of magic or a stage to dance. In the beginning, the children were changing the material, but through exploration a connection formed and the material was now changing them.

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Movement was not my only fascination during these sessions. Relationships also intrigued me. During the first interactions with charcoal the children seemed to be exploring the link between the properties of charcoal and how it can be manipulated with thought, body, and movement. There was a lot of discussion about using the material and what it does when smeared, thrown, stepped on, and crushed. Immediately upon entering the room a relationship formed between

"

Conflict also existed within this new found relationship. For some, colour was challenging ideas and the children seemed to be forming connections to charcoal with colour in mind. Some comments included: “pencils were a good idea because my hands didn’t get dirty,” “I didn’t like the charcoal because it was black and got on my hands.” Interestingly, there was a juxtaposition


37 of those comments as the children who did not want to get the black charcoal on themselves could be seen using charcoal pencils to draw on the bodies of others. This led me to wonder about the children being in a state of inquiry, asking questions and finding a place of being comfortable within the uncomfortable. During the sessions a few children would explore for a bit and then seem to lose interest and would play off to the side. We wanted to draw them back in, but it was more than that, we wanted to understand the relationship that was going on between the children and the charcoal. Some natural items (pine cones, flowers, and sticks) were introduced. We were also exploring natural items in the centre, so this wasn’t a huge leap from what they were used to. For about a month before, one of the children had been drawing and building flowers as a large part of her interactions in the centre. Bringing flowers to the charcoal exploration drew her in; she seemed to redevelop a connection with charcoal. I wondered if the flower brought her to a place where she could be comfortable with charcoal.

and the children and the materials. As cited by Kind (2010), Lella Gandini, suggests,

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Our sessions with charcoal were not timed. They lasted as long as the children showed interest, and the children were free to come and go from their work with the material. Each child formed a relationship with the material differently, yet there were elements of solidarity, information sharing, and a dialogue that existed between the children and each other, the children and the educators,

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“Drawing, painting (and the use of all languages) are experiences and explorations of life, of the senses, and of meanings. They are expressions of urgency, desires, reassurance, research, hypothesis, readjustments, constructions, and inventions. They follow a logic of exchange, and of sharing. They produce solidarity, communication with oneself, with things, and with others. They offer interpretations and intelligence about the events that take place around us.” (p.121)

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Wonder and Dialogue with Paint Deanna Elliott

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During the summer of 2011, the toddler classroom in our centre was fortunate to have an outdoor play space redesigned into a natural environment. Slides were built into our hills, creek beds became our water play, and logs and other natural materials surrounded us. Natural materials slowly began to trickle into our indoor environment as well. At the same time, we as educators were adapting to a trial of part time spaces for children as well as new child-toeducator ratios. Prior to this, the program had revolved around the clock, scheduling for a consistent, predictable, secure day for the children and educators. Although many efforts were taken to follow the children’s interests for set up, the daily schedule of snacks, circle time, outdoor play, lunch, nap time, and educator breaks was fairly rigid to allow for the ever changing subs to have consistency. Educators felt safe in the familiarity of the program, falling back on what had worked in the past. We realized through meetings and a workshop on change that we were in the middle of a big transformation, whether we wanted it or not, and that we all had differing approaches to and comfort levels with change. Two of the educators had the opportunity to work with Veronica and Denise the previous year, participating in projects with the children and learning to incorporate


38 pedagogical narrations into their practice. It was very clear that for these two educators, a new inquiry into our practice was essential to their satisfaction at the centre. Our team decided to try something new and welcome the Child and Youth Care program into our centre. In September of 2011, along with Veronica and Denise, we began an exploration in paint.

"

We were curious how paint creates invitations for new relationships. We began to ask questions: What is art? What will the children/educators “get” from the experience? How is painting on bodies art? What are our comfort levels with paint? What risks does paint bring? How is the classroom transformed (or not) with paint?

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With these questions on our minds we leapt into our first week with new, high-quality brushes, trays filled with non-toxic, child-friendly paint, large sheets of paper, and a willingness to allow the children and materials to guide us through the experience. An area was clearly laid out with the materials; the children were invited to paint. The team had previously decided that one educator would dedicate attention to the painting experience while the others helped with cleaning the children involved and supervising other areas of our program. The painting began, and I found I couldn’t stop myself from being involved in the experience. I wasn’t in the middle of the activity, but the sounds, laughter, questions, and colours were a magnet to me that I hadn’t fully expected. The children engaged with the paint in different ways. They stepped in, ran through, gently dipped long brushes, stabbed, dripped, and slipped in the paint.

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Many children surprised us at how they used the paint; however, one child engaged in a way that we had all predicted: he tasted the paint. We assumed at the start of this project that he would eat the paint, and as a team we made the decision to allow it; nevertheless, we were very uncomfortable watching him. This uneasy feeling allowed us to realize that we all had boundaries and limits, and it was important for each of us to accept, embrace, and voice them to one another.

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Each week we continued to experience new surprises, challenges, and revelations. Paint travelled onto most of our bodies, invoking differing reactions in each of us. I had underestimated the children’s ability to adapt to different situations. An early “truth” I held was that if we let the experience go too far, each time the children saw paint they would want to rip their clothes off and a chaotic free-for-all would follow from that point on! However, the children were more playful, helpful, respectful, and creative beyond my expectations. I felt the sense of our small community becoming more united. Many times throughout the project I felt pride in the children as they learned to ask one another if they could paint each other’s bodies and respected decisions to allow it or not.

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Their language with the paint expanded. The chaos that I had created in my mind was overtaken by a sense of calm. Our earlier decision to have one educator only involved in the paint disintegrated without discussion, as at times it was impossible to remove ourselves from the exploration or to turn down an awe-inspiring invitation. The children had a wonderful way of creating their own invitations when words just wouldn’t do. Sharing a back and forth communication with gentle touches and chant-like songs are just two examples of their engagement with each other and the material.

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As the children’s languages expanded throughout the project with differing invitations and games,


39 the educators began to question our own newfound silence. Although we didn’t want to speak for the children, we wondered, “Is there a point at which a child may become uncomfortable and be unsure how to exit a situation?” We stopped ourselves from stepping in when we would have before, and only did so in moments when we felt it clearly necessary.

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We had explored something over a longer stretch of time than ever before, giving ourselves the opportunity to go into a greater depth of critical reflection in one part of our practice—and we found ways for the children to do the same. The experiences with paint were joyful, amazingly creative, fun, and peaceful, with moments full of goose bumps, astonishment, and pride. There were very few times when the educators felt the need to step in or redirect behaviour. The children took ownership of the project by determining when they were finished, what they (or the paint) needed, and what they could try next. We followed their lead and let go of our perceptions and assumptions, and allowed ourselves to be in the moment with the children. We began to question how this part of our practice differed from the rest of our day. Sylvia Kind (2010) writes, “Thus to create is to step into the unknown with improvisation at the heart of the endeavour. Failure, struggle, uncertainty, and not knowing the outcomes in advance may be difficult concepts for education to embrace, yet these are essential elements of artistic practice.” (p.114)

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Once we had embraced the unknown, it rippled out of our artistic practice and into every aspect of our engagement with the children. These struggles and uncertainties of not knowing were suddenly surrounding every aspect of our practice. By releasing the idea that we “knew” what may happen in a moment, or how a child might respond to a situation or material, we opened doors to endless exploration, opportunity and creativity.

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Navigating Change after Charcoal and Paint

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Charcoal and paint explorations were catalysts for many changes that have occurred in the centres, perhaps even some without us realizing. Andy Goldsworthy (VonDonop, Davies, Hills, & Riedelsheimer, 2001) describes art as a way of understanding, seeing something you never saw before that was always there, but you were blind to it—like touching the heart of the place. That is what happened to the educators of the centres as we discussed and observed the work as it took place; it was like we touched on the heart of the children, the material, and ourselves, understanding all a little better. Our explorations did have challenges and at times created unsettled feelings in all of us, and yet there were light-bulb moments where we saw things that were “probably always there, but we were blind to”. Kind (2010) suggests, “Art is not easy, it is not always calm and nice and pretty. It can be messy, disruptive, and unsettling. It works with the excesses, in the openings and the ruptures. It pushes boundaries and it has the potential to disorder, transform, and bring in the unthought and unimagined” (p.119). Our work with charcoal and paint pushed boundaries, caused disorder, transformed, and ultimately brought the unimaginable to our centres. We surrendered to a state of inquiry and question, a state of being comfortable in the uncomfortable to see where it led us, all of us—the children, the educators, the families, the materials, and the environment.

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We broke out of our old patterns and allowed new discoveries to be possible (Wein & Kirby-Smith, 1998). As educators we started to engage in a dialogue surrounding the idea of movement and a shift from our typical days in the centres. This proved to be a challenge because we were questioning our past education in the field of early childhood, as well as our past work experience. With movement in mind we changed our daily schedules to more free-flowing ones. We don’t deny there is tremendous value in predictability


40 for the children, therefore some aspects of our daily routine follow a predictable schedule (e.g., nap time happens in the afternoon, lunch is eaten mid-day, etc.). But there is also value in being able to move with the children and the flow of their particular interests and needs each day. We observe the children individually and as a group to determine what program routines will be appropriate for that moment. At any one time in our centres, you may see children at free play, snack time, group time, outdoors, or on an adventure. We immediately noticed a change: the children now have co-ownership of the programing; there is less waiting for the children, and they are able to fully engage or connect to their play. As educators we feel calmer, no longer herding children through the day, and our interactions, observations, and engagement is greater with the children. Our flow of movement through time feels comfortable.

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We also began to see the movement of children as a dance, a way for them to know themselves and make connections with other people, materials, and the world (Boyd, Chalk & Law, n.d). Materials have become an integral part of our centres and our interactions. As this shift in our thinking has pushed us to look at what is in our environment, we wonder about how we use things, how they feel, how they smell, how we act on them, and how they act on us, how play is affected, and how connections are made. Materials are now seen as one of our languages to express ideas and thoughts and choose those that provoke inquiry, interaction, and connection.

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Since the explorations with charcoal and paint, our dialogue with each other as educators, with the children, families and the environment has changed. We definitely are not all in the same place on this journey, but as educators we are open to the idea of taking it and being comfortable in a state of inquiry. We have opened ourselves up to see the extraordinary in the routine. We have begun to question and constantly wonder. We have a new-found respect for our place that surrounds us and who this space is intended for. We celebrate this by surrounding ourselves with narrations of everyday moments.

We have let go of a preconceived internal idea that we need to understand everything about the children, what they want or need, and how they would respond to different situations. By letting go of this need to have all the answers we have found a feeling of freedom that anything is possible. We now spend less time answering questions of what will be and focus more on the journey of questioning where we can go. Our relationships with the families have also changed. They are becoming a greater part of our community, sharing materials, food and stories from their homes, holidays, and lives. Families are spending more time in the centres, interacting with all of the children and materials. They are experiencing the rooms differently, with a greater connection to space, materials, educators and children.

"

Our connections with the other centres and the university are on a different level now. In the past, each of the six centres was often isolated, each doing their own thing. Now we are sharing ideas, thoughts, and questions, making an effort to connect with each other inside and out. We are working with the School of Child and Youth Care, also with some students from visual arts and environmental studies. We are involved with the student society food bank, bike kitchen (repair shop) and the university community garden. We are making ourselves more visible on the campus and becoming part of a community from which we were disconnected for too long.

"

Exploring and interacting with charcoal and paint has challenged, changed, and opened up the way we work with children, families and each other. As educators, these experiences have been transformational, spilling over into ordinary moments, creating an environment of deeper inquiry, wonder, and dialogue—enriching us all. 

" References "

Boyd, K. S., Chalk, M. S., & Law, J.S. (n.d.). Creative Movement: Delighting in the Child’s World. Retrieved February 15, 2012 from http://creativekidsonthemove.com/ dance.htm


41

"

Kind, S. (2010). Art Encounters: Movements in the Visual Arts and Early Childhood Education. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw (Ed.) Flows, Rhythms, & Intensities of Early Childhood Education (pp. 113-131). New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

"

MacDonald, J., & Moses, J. (2009, October). Crossing Borders to create Commuities of Inquiry. PowerPoint presentation at Leading the Way: Recognizing the Role of Early Learning Lab Schools in Canadian Universities and Colleges, Toronto, ON.

"

Munnelly, L. (2003). Dialogues in proximity. Retrieved from http:www.materialthinking.org Volume 4 (September 2010).

"

University of Victoria Board of Governors. (2009, September). Board and Senate Chamber Meeting Minutes. Retrieved from http:// www.uvic.ca/universitysecretary/assets/ docs/minutes/OpenMINS29Sep09.pdf (February 2013).

"

VonDonop, A., Davies, T., Hills, L. (Producers), & Riedelsheimer, T. (Director). (2001). Rivers and Tides [uTube]. Germany: Roxie Releasing.

"

Wein, C. & Kirby-Smith, S. (1998, September). Untiming the Curriculum: A Case Study of Removing Clocks from the Program. National Association for the Education of Young Children, 53 (5), 8-13.

" " " "


Entangling and Reconceptualizing Research/ Practice Binaries in   Laboratory Schools in British Columbia!

42

"

Denise Hodgins, Kathleen Kummen, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, and Deborah Thompson British Columbia

The focus of this paper is to reflect on our roles as academics-instructors-pedagogistas-researchers working in childcare centres linked to university institutions (laboratory schools); specifically, how we practice and conduct research. Our primary intention is to provoke discussions on how we might understand our work as it relates to postfoundationalism—one of the many elements we have in common in our professional and academic lives. While we work in different locations associated with different universities in British Columbia, and we conduct our research in different roles, our work is connected by our use of pedagogical narrations drawing on postfoundational perspectives.

"

We begin with a brief history of lab schools in North America, followed by a discussion on pedagogical narrations as a methodology to engage with postfoundational ideas both with educators in early childhood centres and with student teachers in their university classrooms. We conclude with some considerations about how we conduct research in lab schools and the potentiality of pedagogical narrations in this process.

" "

Looking Back: Laboratory Schools and their Effects

"

The emergence of lab schools in Canada, as Donna Varga and Veronica Strong-Boag tell us, took place in the early 20th century through the child study movement and their nursery schools. Historians have documented the practices of these nursery schools through the analysis of their curricula and research practices (Varga, 1991; Strong-Boag, 1982). In our own reading of this history, we became intrigued, and somewhat troubled, by the regulatory and disciplinary functions that lab schools have had. Using the work of philosopher Michel Foucault, several historians have traced the ways in which lab schools acted as forms of governance. For example, they note that lab schools were initially developed to order the social and physical spaces of young children, to define the development of children (specifically middle class children), and to construct the responsible parent and the professional teacher. Varga eloquently writes:

"

It was believed that scientific investigation of development would provide essential knowledge about children, enabling the solving of ‘problems of development’—that is, knowing what are the typical behaviours displayed at particular ages, and what promoted or inhibited them. The recommended Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

43 sites for such study were to be the specialized environments of university nursery schools. It was proposed that the outcome of scientific child study in nursery school settings would reveal genetic patterns of child development and show how children’s environments could be arranged in order to ensure that optimal development occurred. (p. 40)

"

To address how lab schools and their developmental theories respond and contribute to social movements (Burman, 2008a, 2008b), Rose (1996) argues that psychology, particularly developmental psychology, has been used in laboratory schools as a political strategy for the purpose of enhancing and regulating a democratic way of life. He suggests that the discourse of psychology has been advanced to support or deny discourses in a wide variety of circumstances including, but not limited to, those in the social, cultural, political, and economic realms of children (Miller & Rose, 1993). Psychology, in particular through nursery schools, provided the techniques and tactics for the creation of self-regulated individuals who would act in accordance to government objectives. It granted what Miller and Rose (1993) call the procedures of inscription: “particular technical devices of writing, listing, numbering and computing that render a realm into discourse as a knowable, calculable and administrable object” (p. 79).

"

In this context, we reflect upon our work in lab schools as politically positioned and neither neutral nor innocent. We asked: How are dominant discourses embedded in our research/ instructional practices? Who benefits from our research/instructional practices? What kinds of regulatory and disciplinary early childhood discourses are perpetuated and reproduced through our work?

"

Thinking and Working with Pedagogical Narrations

"

As a perspective to engage with postfoundational ideas, we address how we work with pedagogical

narrations to challenge and resist social relations of power in our practices as researchers and teachers in lab schools. In British Columbia, Canada, the provincial Early Learning Framework adopted the term pedagogical narration to refer to a process of observation, documentation, reflection, and dialogue (Government of British Columbia, 2008). It is a term inspired by the concepts that have evolved from theorizing about and engaging with pedagogical documentation. The term narration highlights the dialogical aspect of pedagogical narrations, while the plural form, narrations, underscores the ongoing and multiple nature of the process (see Berger, 2010; Hodgins, 2012).

"

The process of pedagogical narrations is built around the values of relationality, collaboration, and plurality (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005, 2010; Rinaldi, 2006). It is a process that produces multiple interpretations which can lead to a rethinking of practice and an implementation of new practices and new questions. This is not simply a matter of adding more voices; ideally, multiple perspectives help us to recognize that our stories are always partial, always incomplete. As Berger (2010) points out, “these narrations provoke us to think anew and to resist normalized and habitualized conceptions” (p. 58).

"

Disrupting Practice Deborah Thompson

"

Connecting the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) with pedagogical narrations, we describe a research project that considered the dominance of developmental theories to inform practices. Specifically, the research examined practices beyond the limits dictated by theories of child development and ages and stages. The study incorporated Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of lines of flight with understandings of pedagogical narrations. Lines of flight are “thoughtmovements that … creatively evolve in connection with the lines of flight of other thoughtmovements, producing new ways of thinking” (Lorraine, 2005, p. 145). A postfoundational challenge, with regard to


44 foundational child development theories, produced lines of flight generating questions about caregiving, teaching and learning, projects and play and beyond.

"

The study integrated the idea of “little stories” into the project for the purpose of creating pedagogical narrations. Cotton and Griffiths (2007) proposed that “little stories” can be worked to show “how it is to be here.” The stories lead to actions and hold the possibility of challenging philosophy’s big abstract questions (Cotton & Griffiths, 2007). A rhizomatic thinking process (developed though thinking with Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy) informed the process of little stories becoming pedagogical narrations.

"

The little stories became pedagogical narrations when a group of early childhood educators critically examined video-stories to reveal assumptions and theories the educators held about children and child care practices. Videorecordings were made of events in four child care centres. Later, a group of early childhood educators who worked in the centres viewed the videos and engaged in a group discussion about their theories and assumptions regarding the events. The discussions were recorded and the videos and the accompanying discussions became pedagogical narrations in the research study.

"

Rather than producing a truth validated through the inclusion of multiple voices and authoritative texts, the pedagogical narrations revealed contradictions. Each question, each interpretation taken up bent the lines of flight introducing ideas not previously considered. For example, one story examined risk and responsibility, while another considered the role of the caregiver. In the pedagogical narrations, the practitionerresearchers noted exaggerated self-critical judgments and wondered what that meant for their understandings about relationships and children. The pedagogical narrations revealed ideas about development inherent in their theories and practices. The conversations revealed not only common assumptions, but also different beliefs previously unexamined. Each emergent idea provoked both resistance and acceptance.

Most importantly, this research process disrupted thinking and offered the potential of more thoughtful practice.

"

For the participants (practitioner-researchers) in this project, generating pedagogical narrations as a specific method of researching practice created new ways of thinking; lines of flight yielded different analysis and understandings of events. Working with pedagogical narrations produced a practice of research in the caregiving work. The inclusion of multiple stories or versions of events as research of caregiving practices transforms those practices even in the midst of the research. By engaging with pedagogical narrations postfoundationally, we brought resistance to habitual ways of thinking into practice.

"

The experience had a significant impact on all participants beyond the original purpose of questioning age-based practices. At the end of the data collection and the beginning of the data analysis, the group began to wonder how to incorporate the research process, specifically working with pedagogical narrations postfoundationally, into ongoing practices within their larger organizations in order to maintain the richness introduced through the process. Pedagogical narrations position practices as ongoing actions that follow a line of flight becoming something else. Pedagogical narrations as research methodology transform practices even in the midst of the research.

"

This research project highlights how research and practice could be linked in lab schools. In this project, I connected academic research with centre practices. I am a student at a university and the centre I work in does not have an official connection with that university. However, my experience as a researcher in my own centre demonstrates the potential that lab schools contain to join academic research practices with centre practices.

" " "


45

Practicing of Disruption Kathleen Kummen

"

My research project engaged with pedagogical narrations as a pedagogical practice in the postsecondary classroom. In this study, the reconceptualized perspective was extended from early childhood settings to lab schools and classrooms where future early childhood educators engaged in inquiries of childhood. Using pedagogical narrations, I hoped to reveal the tensions, contradictions, and disruptions in the thoughts, feelings and actions that occur in students when images of children and “real” children collide. The intent was to make space to consider the implications of these contradictions for practice in early childhood settings. I did not see pedagogical narrations as a tool that would cleanse thinking, but rather as a practice that offered the possibility of disturbing thinking. However, when reviewing the literature, I found it replete with studies asserting that student teachers (and I added to this early childhood education students) have problematic beliefs and assumptions around education and the role of the teacher that, according to some authors, requires eradication. Yet, from my perspective, these studies assumed a modernist understanding of knowledge whereby the “right” identity and the “right” understanding of children can be achieved if only the appropriate pedagogical practice is employed. Toll, Nierstheimer, Lenski and Kollof (2004) allude to this when they describe their desire to purge students of undesirable beliefs as an “urge to ‘wash them clean‘ from the ideas they have learned” (p. 164). Yet, they admit that this goal is troubling in that it assumes that knowledge is a truth rather than a social construct, and that a universal consensus on, for example, the role of the teacher or the nature of childhood can be reached. Further, the urge to “wash away” a set of beliefs and create a clean new subject, as expressed by Toll et al. (2004), assumes that the “cleansed” subject is a stable, unified entity who can choose to stay clean.

"

This tension was present in my study, as I hoped to disrupt ECE students’ existing beliefs, ideas, and assumptions, while avoiding practices that attempt to purify and instill the “correct” image of the child. To make visible the potential tensions within my own research, I attended to the questions posed by Davies (1990):

"

How is an individual's subjectivity, their idea of who they are, and their particular way of making sense of themselves and of the social world, developed? How is it that we find the words, the concepts, and the ideas, with which to say who we are? How do we become one who takes up or resists various discursive practices, who modifies one practice in relation to another…who chooses between the various positions and practices made available? (p. 345)

"

In considering my response to these questions, I reflected on the work of Haraway (1997) in which she talks about the students “who are hailed, interpellated, into technoscience, where they are subject to and subjects in a world-making discourse within an apparatus committed to culturally rich and historically specific liberty” (p. 115). How might the lab school, as an apparatus, call students to take up particular discourses, practices, and positions as future early childhood educators? How are the conditions of the lab school today reflective of the lab school in the past in which parents were subjects of study whose participation was necessary to the existence of the lab school, but whose behaviour required modification in order to promote the healthy development of their offspring? In my research, I was conscious of the ease in which I might position students as stakeholders in my work; yet I also see them as inadequate and in need of intervention. We would argue, therefore, that while pedagogical narrations offers space for collaborative practice, the process should not be mistaken for the path that ensures collaborative and democratic practice.

" " " "


46

Final Considerations

"

Applying postfoundational theories to pedagogical narrations takes this methodological approach well beyond a simple assessment of children’s development or of pedagogical practice (Berger, 2010; Olsson, 2009; Lenz Taguchi, 2010, 2011). Postfoundational theories that trouble the material/social binary and consider materiality from a postfoundational perspective—one that recognizes the material as agentic and everchanging rather than predetermined and static— changes not only what we pay attention to in the process of pedagogical narrations, but how we think about the process itself. Documents used within pedagogical narrations (e.g., notes, photos, video clips, children’s art work, and writing) are recognized as “tangible objects,” traces that make visible moments of practice. These “tangible objects” act as a catalyst for dialogue, contestation, interpretations, and sometimes transformation. As Prior (2003) asserts, documents do something, engaging with documents does something. Lenz Taguchi (2010) considers pedagogical documentation as a “materialdiscursive apparatus” (p. 63) that needs “to be understood as a performative agent in itself and as such also a ‘methodological’ tool for learning and change” (p. 10). To recognize pedagogical narrations as a performative agent is to recognize both the possibility and the danger of this methodological approach. Foucault (1984) wrote:

"

My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism. I think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main danger. (p. 343)

"

We suggested that determining “which is the main danger” should be recognized more overtly in the practices that we take up as researchers, educators, practitioners, and students in the work that we do in, with, and in relation to lab schools. In Olsson’s (2009) consideration of the role of the

researcher, she draws on written correspondence between Foucault and Deleuze in which Foucault argues that the academic should no longer “position him or herself outside or above practice” (as cited by Olsson, 2009, p. 103). Deleuze responds to Foucault’s point as one that teaches a "fundamental lesson . . . [about] the indignity of speaking for others" (as cited by Olsson, 2009, p. 103). With Deleuze’s phrase, “the indignity of speaking for others”, Olsson (2009) argues that “within such a statement there is no longer room for giving voice, or making people aware of their own ignorance. It is a matter of working together to produce new constructions of what we are all part of ” (p. 103, emphasis added). Working together to produce new constructions of what we are all a part of is not easy work. We offered pedagogical narrations as a methodological approach, one that holds tremendous potential to supporting a practice that is conducive to living in the discomfort of ongoing questioning, including the ongoing questioning of our own researching practices. Pedagogical narrations are not about determining the story or a consensus of one answer, but they speak to what Mol and Law (2002) call, “stories about what happens to complexities in practices” (p. 6, italics in the original). Pedagogical narrations are not about working to “get it right”, for as St. Pierre and Pillow (2000) suggest, “we have never gotten it right” (p. 4). But perhaps, as Olsson (2009) asserts, “encounters between these practices marked by collective, intense and unpredictable experimentation might be capable of letting new things be born" (p. 104).

"

References

"

Berger, I. (2010). Extending the notion of pedagogical narration through Hannah Arendt’s political thought. In V. PaciniKetchabaw (Ed.), Flows, rhythms, & intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 57-76). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.

"


47 Burman, E. (2008a). Deconstructing developmental psychology (2nd edition). New York: Routledge.

"

Burman, E. (2008b). Developments: Child, image, nation. New York: Routledge.

"

Cotton, T., & Griffiths, M. (2007). Action research, stories and practical philosophy. Educational Action Research, 15(4), 545-560.

"

Dahlberg, G., & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. London, UK: RoutledgeFalmer.

"

Dahlberg, G., & Moss, P. (2010). Introduction by the series editors. In H. Lenz Taguchi, Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy (pp. ix-xx). New York, NY: Routledge.

"

Davies, B. (1990). Agency as a Form of Discursive Practice. A Classroom Scene Observed. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 11(3), 341-361.

"

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

"

Government of British Columbia. (2008) Early Learning Framework. Victoria, Canada: Crown Publications, Queen’s Printer for British Columbia.

"

Foucault, M. (1984). On the geneology of ethics: An overview of work in progress. In P. Rabinow (Ed.). The Foucault Reader (pp. 340-372). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

"

Haraway, D.J. (1997). Modest witness@second millennium femaleman meets oncomouse: Feminism and technoscience. NewYork: Routledge.

"

Hodgins, B.D. (2012). Pedagogical narrations’ potentiality as a methodology for child studies research. Canadian Children, 37 (1), 4-11.

"

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge.

"

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2011).Investigating learning, participation and becoming in early childhood practices with a relational materialist approach. Global Studies of Childhood, 1 (1), 36-50.

"

Lorraine, T. (2005). Lines of flight. In A. Parr (Ed.), The Deleuze dictionary (pp. 144-146). New York: Columbia University Press.

"

Miller, P., & Rose, N. (1993). Governing economic life. In M. Gane & T. Johnson (Eds.), Foucault’s new domains (pp. 75-105). London: Routledge.

" "

Mol, A. & Law, J. (2002). Introduction. In A. Mol & J. Law’s (Eds.) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices (pp. 1-22). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

"

Olsson, L. M. (2009). Movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education. New York, NY: Routledge.

"

Prior, L. (2003). Using documents in social research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

"

Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia. New York: Routledge.

" " " "


48 Rose, N. (1996). Governing “advanced” liberal democracies. In A. Barry, T. Osborne, & N. Rose (Eds.), Foucault and political reason: Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government (pp. 37-64). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

"

St. Pierre, E.A., & Pillow, W.S. (2000). Introduction: Inquiry among the ruins. In E.A. St. Pierre & W.S. Pillow (Eds.), Working the ruins: Feminist poststructural theory and methods in education (pp. 1-24). New York, NY: Routledge.

"

Strong-Boag, V. (1982). Intruders in the nursery: Childcare professionals reshape the years one to five, 1920-1940. In J. Parr, Childhood and family in Canadian history (pp. 160-178). Toronto, ON: McClellan and Stewart.

"

Toll, C., Nierstheimer, S., Lenski, S. D., & Kolloff, P. B. (2004 ). Washing our students clean: Internal conflicts in response to preservice teacher’s beliefs and practices Journal of Teacher Education 55(22), 164-176. doi: 10.1177/0022487103261625

"

Varga, D. (1991). The cultural organization of the child care curriculum: The University of Toronto Institute of Child Study and day nurseries, 1890-1960. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

"


49

Canadian University and College Early Learning Lab Schools

"

Alberta

"

Contact

"

"

"

"

University of Alberta

Grant MacEwan University

" British Columbia "

Dr. Anna Kirova Professor and Graduate Coordinator Department of Elementary Education Faculty of Education 438 Education Centre South University of Alberta Edmonton, AB T6G 2G5 780 492-0912 [email protected] Joan MacDonald, Director  MacEwan Demonstration Child Care Centre  Room 7-153, City Centre Campus  Grant MacEwan University  10700 – 104 Ave.  P.O. Box 1796  Edmonton, AB T5J 2P2 780 497-5195  [email protected]

"

Contact

"

"

Capilano University

Tia Smith Manager Capilano University Children’s Centre 2055 Purcell Way  North Vancouver, BC V7J 3H5  604 984-4950 [email protected]


50

British Columbia continued

"

"

University of Victoria

Sherri-Lynn Yazbeck Supervisor, Child Care Services, Centre 4 Campus Services, Student Affairs University of Victoria PO Box 3025 STN CSC Victoria BC V8W 3Y2 Tel. 250-721-8499 [email protected]

Manitoba

"

Contact

"

"

Linda Anderson University College of the Instructor, Early Childhood Education North University College of the North P. O. Box 3000 The Pas, MB R9A 1M7 204.627.8655 [email protected]

"

" " New Brunswick  "

Contact

"

Dr. Pam Whitty University of New Early Childhood Brunswick Education Centre (Fredericton does, St. John Faculty of Education campus doesn’t) University of New Brunswick P.O. Box 4400 Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3 506 447-3113 [email protected]

" " " " Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

51

Ontario

"

Contact

"

University of Guelph

Lorna Reid Director Child Care & Learning Centre University of Guelph 50 Stone Rd. East Guelph, ON N1G 2W1 519 824-4120 ext. 52682 [email protected]

" " University of Toronto Elizabeth Morley Laboratory School Principal " Institute of Child Study 45 Walmer Road Toronto, ON M5R 2X2 416 934-4509 [email protected] Ryerson University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" Algonquin College "

Kim Watts Manager Early Learning Centre School of Early Childhood Studies Ryerson University 350 Victoria St. Toronto, ON M5B 2K3 416 979-5338 [email protected]

"Leslie Kopf-Johnson Program Coordinator Early Childhood Education  Ottawa Campus Algonquin College 1385 Woodroffe Avenue Nepean, ON K2G 1V8 613-727-4723 # 5230 [email protected]

 


52

Ontario continued   Algonquin College continued

"

Canadore College

Donna Winacott Program Coordinator Early Childhood Education Pembroke Campus Algonquin College 1 College Way Pembroke, ON K8A 0C8 613-736-4700 ext. 2727 [email protected] Brandy Champagne Program Co-ordinator Early Childhood Education 100 College Drive North Bay, ON P1B 8K9 705-474-7600 ext. 5208 [email protected]

" Centennial College " "

"Linda Thibedeau, Manager

"

"

Conestoga College

Early Childhood Education Centre   Centennial College 550 Mortimer Avenue Toronto, ON M4J 5C2  416-289-5104  [email protected]

Conestoga College Goranka Bukelich Child Studies Program, School of Health, Life Sciences and Community Services 299 Doon Valley Drive Kitchener, ON N2G 4M4 519-748-5220 ext. 3393 [email protected]


53

Ontario continued

"

"

"

"

"

"Patricia Chorney-Rubin

Confederation College

Fanshawe College

George Brown College

" Humber College "

Anita Price Manager, Children & Family Services Confederation College P.O. Box 398 Thunder Bay, ON P7C 4W1 807 475-6652 [email protected]

Carol Tracy Field Co-ordinator Early Childhood Education Fanshawe College, London Campus 1460 Oxford Street East, Box 7005 London, ON N5Y 5R6 519-452-4224 [email protected] Director, George Brown College 99 Gerrard St. East, Box 1015 Station B Toronto, ON M5T 2T9 416-415-5000 [email protected]

"Bridget Woodcock Director Humber Child Care Centres 205 Humber College Blvd. Toronto, ON M9W 5L7 416 675-6622 ext. 4144 [email protected]


54

Ontario continued

"

Niagara College

"

Sault College

"

Seneca College

"

Sheridan College

"

Sir Sandford Fleming College

"Pat Eversden

Child Care Centre   Niagara College   300 Woodlawn Road   Welland, ON L3C 7L3   905-735-2211, Ext. 7587 [email protected]

"Nancy Leindecker Sault College Children’s Programs  443 Northern Ave  Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6B 4J3 705 945-0890 [email protected]

"June Williams, Supervisor Seneca College Lab School  Seneca College, Newnham Campus 1750 Finch Ave. East Toronto, ON M2J 2X5 416.491.5050 ext. 4710 [email protected]

"Linda Chud Manager, Early Childhood Centres 1430 Trafalgar Road   Oakville, ON   L6H 2L1   905 845-9430 ext. 2326 [email protected] Cheryl Herder Coordinator Early Childhood Education Program Sir Sandford Fleming College, P.O.Box 800, 200 Mary Street Lindsay, ON K9V 5E6 705-324-9144 # 1871

[email protected]


55

Ontario continued

" St. Clair College "

"Brenda Huff Coordinator, ECE Program St. Clair College - Chatham 1001 Grand Avenue West Chatham, ON N7M 5W4 519-354-9714 ext. 3252 [email protected]

"Wendy Mitchell " St. Lawrence College Coordinator, Early Childhood Education " St. Lawrence College 100 Portsmouth Avenue Kingston, ON K7L 5A6 613-544-5532 ext. 1292 [email protected]

" Prince Edward Island " Contact

"

Holland College

"Kim Gillis Learning Manager, ECCE Holland College 140 Weymouth St. Charlottetown, PEI C1A 4Z1 902-566-9524 [email protected]

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " Leading the way: Recognizing the role of early learning lab schools in Canadian universities and colleges

56

Quebec

"

Contact

"

Concordia University

" Newfoundland "

"Fiona Rowlands Observation Nursery Concordia Observation Centre Dept. of Education Rm LB 579 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. Montreal, PQ , M3G 1M8 514 457-6461 [email protected]

"

Contact College of the North Atlantic

"

Brenda Robin, Dean School of Academics, Applied Arts & tourism Grand Falls-Windsor Campus 5 Cromer Avenue Grand Falls-Windsor, NG Canada, A2A 1X3 709 292-5636 [email protected]

Please contact Rachel Langford at [email protected] if this information needs to be updated.
