Showing posts with label materials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label materials. Show all posts

Monday, 21 March 2016

it began with a bottle cap - a story of beautiful stuff

This past week was our March Break. It was a wonderful week, full of short trips with the kids and meet-ups with family and friends, such as the ever-luminous pop-up play exhibits hosted by dear friends Simone and Aviva of "ThinkinEd". It also gave me time away from class to pull back from the day-to-day documentation, to look back over our year so far and to puzzle away over the unanswered questions or new patterns that had emerged since I last reviewed my notes (December, in preparation for reporting to parents). I found that many ideas spiralled around to collect in this big swirl, rather like  "the tangle of spaghetti"...
...learning is a process of constructing meaning while knowledge, in the words of Reggio's co-founder Loris Malaguzzi, is like 'a tangle of spaghetti' with no beginning, middle or end, but always shooting off in new directions. (quoted from The Salmon Speaks)
I love the image of those tangled-up noodles, all mixed-up and crossing over multiple others with no defined starting place. It rather elegantly describes how ideas get bumped up against other ideas and begin to connect, overlap, and tangle until it's impossible to sort out where one story ends and another begins. This is a perfect image for this past weekend, when my ideas about our past inquiries got jostled (as I reviewed documentation) and tangled up with the reading I had been doing, and the patterns of thought that became illuminated throughout the week through play. One such "noodle" running through my mind was the idea of beauty: What is beauty? What does it mean to enjoy something beautiful? Is beauty important to play? Is beauty important to learning? Are there shared ideas of beauty across the diversity of human cultures and across age groups? Do our notions of beauty change as we grow and learn?


I shared this photo on facebook on Sunday. I was excited to share my new finds with the class on Monday (though a new student arriving and a busy day meant saving this treasure for the next day). A friend of mine commented: "bones are beautiful". I wholeheartedly agreed - and when I mentioned I'd been thinking about the concept of "what is beautiful?" Linda replied; "beautiful is what we all are right down to the bone.'

On the last day of the break, I helped out at our local beach "spring clean-up". We filled many bags with recyclable materials and litter, much of it unrecognizable in its broken and wave-washed state. Most days at the beach I avoid the refuse unless it's dangerous like fishing line, nails or wire, which I always remove when I find it. I prefer to gather the beach glass and pottery shards which are softened by the waves. Sunday, however, was a fantastic day for finding bones: skulls, vertebrae, and parts unknown. I was utterly thrilled to find such beautiful specimens. My partner, Pooneh, appreciated the find but prefers to look at them from afar, much like the snakes we find in the no-mow zone which I adore. I realize my concept of beautiful includes things that many people find uninteresting or even abhorrent. Thinking about this makes me wonder about what others may find beautiful that may elude me. This tangle leads me to wonder about the meaning of feeling or identifying anything as beautiful, if it is a way of giving meaning to what we begin to understand in the world. Something so subjective, what could it mean to how we learn to read, write, and make sense of the mathematical patterns around us? And if we approach our practice as teacher-researchers, making meaning alongside our students, will our own concept of beauty expand as we learn to love what fascinates our students?

Many ideas about beauty in education are surely in my mind because I've read about Loris Malaguzzi and the schools in Reggio Emilia that he helped establish. Whether direct quotes from those teachers who grew their practice in that rich democratic experiment in Italy (that continues to grow and inspire educators the world 'round), descriptions by educators who've visited the city, or even those who are simply Reggio-inspired from afar - there is always a focus on the aesthetic in learning. One incredible story which had a great impact on my learning journey was the simple and yet magnificent book, "Beautiful Stuff":
Exploring materials is an evocative experience. It stimulates the imagination, inspires storytelling and interactions between children, and serves as a bridge to drawing, collage, sculpture, and construction.
In coming to understand what is meant by the aesthetic, I have changed my mind several times on the precise meaning of Malaguzzi's phrase, "the environment is the third teacher". I have wondered if it is the physical environment or the social, if it is the aesthetic in terms of beauty or in terms of feeling a sense of belonging, or some combination of all of those. Many North-American interpretations start with the sense of the physical surroundings:
The environment is recognised for its potential to inspire children. An environment filled with natural light, order and beauty. (an everyday story)

I am drawn to this idea of a beautiful space to work or play in, and yet I don't think that's what we have going on in our classroom. It is not necessarily pretty, with matching bins or boxes or items carefully displayed to highlight the visual quality. I have visited classrooms that stop me in my tracks - so attractive is the documentation, the inviting materials in an array of jars, or colours thoughtfully curated. I do appreciate this attention to detail, but I am not particularly adept at it. No, in our room we have materials in motion - the play defines what is available (thus on display) and where various parts will go when we tidy. Some areas go unloved a while before we notice them and question what new thing should happen there. Other areas become multi-use and jumbled, which isn't surprising in a class with quite high turnover (families move in and out over the year - we have four new students since the beginning of January) and nearly 30 students. It is, however, a place wherein beautiful things can happen: loose parts come together to become shadow-patterns on the wall, ramps, mazes and balance structures built by one or two students evolve into spontaneous large-group games with rules created on the fly, and plans are drawn up, materials negotiated, and experiments conducted with or without adult help or intervention. Students following their own notions of what is important to learn, and co-creating the conditions through play in order to learn them - that is beautiful, to me.

 My own experience with feeling like a bit of an oddball for what I find beautiful (what fascinates and draws my attention) helps me to remember the importance of learning what each one of our students finds appealing, interesting, boring, and frightening. It takes time to win over the most squeamish of students, those who find insects, spiders and other small creatures frightening. Modelling fascination and appreciation for tiny life forms eventually results in some understanding, if not outright interest in them. Finding value in both mess and order is another concept that takes time to develop through play. Another big idea naturally flows from the concepts of beauty, of order and chaos, and of our role in learning: life and what it means to be alive. I believe it's this idea that makes me so attracted to things like bones, fossils, fallen leaves, shed antlers, and other evidence of life's passing. So this weekend when I read the latest "teaching on the verge" post about educators recognizing their students' interests as they emerge, I realized that it was a big part of what I had been pondering, simply described in different language. Are we able to see what is interesting from another point of view? Do we see the wonder in what they see?





Before I delve into the story that brought me into this tangle in the first place, I first find myself pondering this trace I left myself back in November when I first starting gathering the documentation for this post:

The art of listening... not a big spark but a big question...

  I suppose I thought if I listened well the common thread would appear, or new directions would make themselves visible to me. I wonder if I was just reminding myself not to rush into a project, but to continue to play, and discuss with the group, and listen for resonance in the play. There were so many separate explorations going on at the time, including the volcano project, inquiry into building tall structures, our adopted tree, and life in the long grass of the no-mow zone. I do remember wondering if conversations alone would lead to meaning-making, because so few students were exploring the materials outside of large group meeting times. Now, looking back, I think I worried about how to extend the thinking, to make the philosophical questions explored into ideas we could tackle in day-to-day play. I don't recall exactly what I had in mind but it may come back to me so I leave it in - another noodle tangled up in with the rest.

Here, then, is the story of how a single bottle cap found outside lead to some pretty big thinking.

Back in the fall I saw a pattern emerging from several small themes being explored by students in our class. It began early in September when we were spending much of our days outside, often in the no-mow zone or taking walks around the schoolyard. When I realized that much of the notes and photos I'd been taking were coming into focus, I decided to gather glimpses to share with our families, to further the conversation outside of the classroom. The collage below was the first I shared using the newly created #capspark hashtag.


A few interests have been colliding into one big inquiry into the world around us.

That our students would stop and observe something so small was not unusual - indeed, looking closely is a big part of our class culture for several years now, with senior students teaching their new junior classmates the skills and attitudes of young scientists exploring their world.


Pooneh brought these intriguing green and brown balls (walnuts) that had fallen from her tree at home. We looked closely at them during our morning meeting, then moved them to the "look closely" centre by the window. Here students explored the nuts, looked them up in the tree guides and other resources, and observed as they changed over time in the open air.


Part of looking closely involves observational drawings. These often hang over the item being observed so we can watch for changes and compare notes using the drawings (for example, our current garden centre under the window). Here are drawings of the walnuts and an acorn cap.


These students are opening up the leaf press to see what treasures I've pressed inside. Usually they would have collected and pressed their natural items themselves, but this press had just come out of my bag from home, and as such had a nice variety of late summer finds: wildflowers like Queen Anne's lace, vetch, wild morning glory, various maple leaves and seeds.


The colours of the pressed leaves and flowers were intriguing, so we turned on the light table and spread them out to look closely at their delicate details.


In September and October this basket was often lugged outside in the wonder wagon (along with magnifying glass, bags for collecting items, a little first-aid kit, and assorted tools) so that students could draw or take notes outside. This day it included the rings of colour-swatch cards and an invitation to find matching colours.


We wondered about this bounty we found, mid-September - who gathered so many acorns and left them here? Was it "the big kids" at recess? Was it squirrels? Do birds eat these too?

Our bottle cap story began in September, when we were all still learning about each other and discovering the boundaries of our wonderfully green school yard. In order for our newest students to gain a sense of what our school grounds have, and how we interact with nature (hint: gently and with great respect for living things), we go for many walks together before we break off into groups to follow our different interests. Below was one such day, shared here as a collage for our class twitter page.




Later this day or perhaps the next day, Pooneh took a smaller group to the far side of the school where the "tall trees" are (the oaks) while some of us remained in the kindergarten yard with bikes and ball games. Her group brought bags so that each student could make their own collection. One item collected caused us all to look closely, and think about categories such as nature, and not nature. Pooneh showed me after school and we both agreed it would be a fantastic provocation for our next morning discussion. What I captured of that talk is shared below.


This is how it began: a bottle cap intrigued us. We wondered how it got in nature.


There were so many ideas and questions to explore after our discussion. Play and learn time follows our welcome circle (morning meeting), and students broke off to follow their interests in groups or alone. We had our notes (used to create the collage above) and I wrote "bottle cap" in our day plan under "possible sparks" for the rest of the week. Note: When I started to share the documentation with families I began by numbering the days, but somehow switched in later weeks to using dates.  These first few days took place during the 3rd week of school. As well note that most of the collages will show up too small to read in many formats, so click on any to enlarge.

The next day, we discussed the bottle cap all together at our welcome circle. We had so many questions and connections!






The cap inspired to much thought. Students were talking about our exploration at home with their families, and bringing more questions to the class. We wondered: what is this made of? The request to tweet "Ranger Rob" came up, as it often does in our class - he is one of our favourite resources when it comes to learning about nature.




AC's idea, to ask everyone her question: "Nature, or not nature", was well-received by her classmates. She made up her chart and we all took a turn showing our opinion of the bottle cap.




AC's question about the cap showed us that we didn't all agree, that we weren't certain about what the cap was made of and that further study was needed. This reminded Pooneh of another item in our class that had confused someone (we weren't sure whom). It was a toy pear, but she had found it with a very clear bite out of it. If it wasn't a pear, what exactly was it? Now we were really challenging our categories!




A wonderful addition to our classroom conversations came in the form of tweets from other classes that follow our class twitter. These tweets below lead to more thinking, and we wondered if other classes would begin to question their environment by looking closely, too.











That Friday I wondered how I might keep the conversation going, even if only at our large group meeting time. I asked my friend and our Kindergarten neighbour, Lada Duric, if she had any poems or songs about materials, recycling, or living vs. non-living things. She found the perfect one to help us go deeper into our inquiry. On Monday we read the poem together, then talked about the words that the poem said "we all know". Did we all know those words, know what they meant? No! Onward...




We were thrilled to see that our class conversations were leading to families conversations, too. One bottle cap, studied and considered by our class, was creating change!



With several other questions and sparks for projects developing in our class, it was a few days before we discussed #capspark all together again. *Note: the date on the page below is wrong, it should read October 2nd. I wrote these documentation pages from my notes, a few weeks afterwards, and must not have flipped the calendar to locate the Friday of that week.




This first weekend in October, I had a whirlwind trip to Boston with two Hawkins-inspired educator friends to attend a conference about learning through play: "Cultivate the scientist in every child: the philosophy of Frances and David Hawkins". It was an amazing weekend that deserves its own post, but it bears mentioning here because it is the reason the documentation took a while to produce, as well the gifts I received from online friends we met face-to-face there added much to the exploration of materials and the ideas about nature and not-nature. 

The 3R's poem went home and sparked family conversations, too. Students came back after the weekend bursting with ideas. The first page below documents a conversation amongst a few students who came to chat with me rather than explore the discovery bins that begin each day before our welcome circle.





We continued to look closely at materials and make connections when we came to morning meeting. I told students I'd had a wonderful time on my trip with Helen and Julie, and brought out the gifts from my new friends Ann and Nan, both teachers in the U.S.A.





The conversation continued as we opened and examined the next parcel, the package of "beautiful stuff" from Boston.





We examined the gifts briefly, but by now we'd been together at carpet for longer than usual. This new addition to the class, however, meant that our conversation about materials would continue into play and learn time, and become a part of the play.





The gifts lead students to make theories, sort, and arrange in various ways, as they looked closely at the details of each piece and found the ones that attracted them. I stayed as long as I was able, and captured the following ideas. It was one of the days I wished I could have left a recording device at the table while I attended students elsewhere around our busy classroom.

Touching, looking closely, sorting, examining from various angles, creating with the beautiful stuff.


Sorting, identifying favourites, drawing, making connnections, explaining theories about the beautiful stuff...


While other projects began to grow, the #capspark story continued to make us think deeply about things around us. We wondered about nature, about litter, and about health.




Projects often grow when a few motivated students take leadership, do research, design and conduct experiments, and teach their peers what they learn along the way. The little bottle cap continued to inspire thinking about materials and our responsibilities as people in the world.







We talked about what the news story meant. We agreed that to learn more, we might need to ask an expert. 









As I revisited this part of the story, I remembered that AC and NA wanted to record their ideas about recycling, to share with the class and with our families. The two students started a digital book, with their drawings and photographs of items in and around our classroom. This book project fell dormant, needing more quiet time for recording their story. I shared a news story (above) in hopes of sparking more interest from others who might help with their book, but as often happens in our emergent curriculum classroom, other interests rise to the foreground and others sink, sometimes for good, sometimes just under the surface awaiting a new spark.


The legacy of many projects in our class that come back to how we love our local environment and what it means to be a good steward of nature: we care deeply about our naturalized area, the "no-mow zone". 




These materials continue to be a part of exploration in class.





To me, this story isn't at an end. It leads me to wonder about what new questions and connections will be made over the rest of the year and beyond that, for students who carry the ideas with them. It
reminds me of one of my favourite metaphors for learning in an emerging, inquiry-based way: the Japanese art of Kintsugi:

Kintsugi (or kintsukuroi) is a Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy behind the technique is to recognize the history of the object and to visibly incorporate the repair into the new piece instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful than the original. (from "this is colossal")

How that makes sense for me is a post unto itself, but to put it simply here: everything has beauty if you know how to look. Taken as a part of the larger aesthetic, "wabi sabi", kintsugi is a beautiful image for how we create gold: by mending our ideas as old concepts "break" in light of new findings. As we learn, cognitive dissonance may be difficult, or may be treasured as evidence of new wisdom. The discarded bottle cap and collection of "beautiful stuff" allowed us to examine what we think about materials, about garbage and "waste", about beauty, and about life.


I wonder if you'll wonder along with me... what is beautiful? What is nature? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to take care of the earth? What is important to teach children? and many, more more questions.



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Wednesday, 9 December 2015

what a puddle taught us

 "When a curious child and a knowledgeable teacher explore the phenomena of the real world, genuine science begins." Frances Hawkins

Water leads to wondering... wondering leads to engagement... engagement leads to learning.

I love SS's story. It highlights her determination and growing self-regulation skills, the learning that happens when you look closely and observe changes in the local natural world, and most of all, the joy of playing in a puddle.

A photo I've shared in the past, when describing the "decisive moment" in capturing a mood in a photo. I couldn't help but notice how many of the photos I chose to illustrate moments of learning involved water.

I have long used the term "puddle jumper" to describe a certain type of person, a kindred spirit... someone who embodies playfulness and joy well into adulthood. Friends know I'm likely to go out when it rains, looking for snails or following rivulets that run down the street over leaves and stones. My penultimate post was an extended metaphor for documentation, seen through the lens of reflection on water. It was inspired by the idea that reflection is always changing, based on one's point of view. A few days later, I shared the incredible learning journey of a friend and colleague who embraced full-bodied exploration of a puddle with her students, and was changed by the experience.

Our class adopted a puddle last year - two, in fact. The year before, my AM and PM classes had each adopted a tree to visit weekly, but the idea just didn't catch on in our new FDK class. The water that gathered near the walkway to the buses, on the other hand, fascinated all. One puddle, near our neighbour's classroom gate, appears and disappears at the whim of the weather. It grows to a small pond after a hard rain, and dries up with nearly a trace after a day or so of sun. It is a wonderful thing - reflecting the school or the sky, depending on where you look. It grows large and deep at times, and later leaves only a darkened shadow of itself, a mere grey trace.


In September our returning SK students quickly taught the new JK friends what our class does after a good rain - here's a group of kids well dressed to enjoy the sometimes puddle with my teaching partner, Pooneh in the back (pink boots).

One day this fall several students were excited to discover how chalk reacts to getting wet, and conversely, how our puddle reacts to getting coloured on. The traces of this joyous play were beautiful for days afterward.

When I find a quote meaningful and wish to share it, I look for a photo from my own experience that illustrates the idea for me. It struck me this year that nearly half of the pictures I've used in the manner have involved discoveries or exploration of water. Noticing our environment means finding patterns, traces, and surprises in nature.

The other puddle, a little strip of water that forms beside the concrete bunker just outside our gate, is affectionately known by all in our class as the "muddy puddy". My teaching partner and I have joked that this puddle is the reason many students beg their parents to buy them rubber boots. Mud is magnificent stuff. We explore it near and far around the schoolyard.

The beloved "muddy puddy" is a perfect illustration of one of many quotes from Ann Pelo that speak to me of eolithism - learning in and from the immediate environment.


The picture above rather beautifully captures our learning one day  - a cold, muddy puddle can be utterly delightful, or utterly misery, depending on how well dressed you are, and how well you pay attention to the details: how deep the puddle, how high your boots, how thin the ice, how sloshy the mud, how splashy the other kids in the puddle with you. By encouraging self-regulation, we allow students to figure out for themselves whether or not the mud puddle is an appropriate place for them to play. These students on this day listened to their bodies and to the situation, and had a marvelous time. Many other students watched from a safe distance on the hard ground. We applauded both choices.

The muddy puddle exploration on this day left an indelible mark on my mind - and I believe it will be remembered by those students for a long time, too. We learned about bravery, made mistakes, and played on. It was a grand outing, even though we were only out on the yard.

Sometimes the rain winds up creating new puddles, like these deep craters in the post holes around our kindergarten playground. This girl tested the height of the water against the height of her boots, and was happy to find that her feet stayed dry. Math and science was all the talk around the puddle this day.

More math play happened when this student found a cup for scooping and tried to empty the deep crater that her friend had been standing in (see above). I didn't stay long enough to capture how many scoops she had to do to fill the wheelbarrow, but it was already 15 when I left to explore elsewhere.

It was the collage below that lead me to believe it was time to look back over our learning thus far this year, and try to get at the big ideas students were exploring in their fascination (and mine) with water. Several projects and inquiries are ongoing in our class at the moment, and the year is winding down towards the winter vacation, thus making new conversations harder to facilitate during our short knowledge-building-circle time. I knew there was a theme emerging, one I'd want to remember and be able to share with the children later in the year when it came up again (as naturally it does when snow melts and freezes anew).


A recent water wonder from our class. I can't help but wonder where the arrival of snow will lead us in our questioning.


This wonderful day at the park last year remains another favourite memory for several students, now SKs.



Puddles seem a perfect metaphor for emergent curriculum. Even more so in a difficult year, when the social curriculum seems the most important lessons being highlighted each day, the need to "get one's feet wet" remains. Through relationships forged over messy play outdoors, friendships and trust are born. If you see a problem to solve, learning is inevitable. I thank my friend Nadine for sharing her puddle story, and inspiring me to look back over my own. I will consider it a success if this inspires even one reader to invest in a good pair of winter rubber boots. If you've learned something from a puddle, please consider leaving a comment here. 


 
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Monday, 24 August 2015

inspired by things both great and small

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must
keep moving.” Albert Einstein
 
A and friends consider the delicate balance they have achieved. The varied sized in the wood blocks make symmetry, and balance, a challenge. 

This particular story has been bumping around in my brain for almost two years now, though the desire to challenge gravity in various ways seems to express itself every year in my teaching experience. Something was different in the school year of 2013-2014 (my last year teaching in a half-day program with a morning and afternoon class). I've pored over photos and documentation from that year, and it seems to me that the decisive element was the presence of a boy *referred to as A in the documentation. Note: There were five children beginning with "A" in the morning class, and three "A" children in the afternoon. I soon regretted my choice of single initial for our shared digital documentation, but students were used to it and were quite happy to tell their families at home who all the players in their inquiry stories were. In fact, I took it as a sign of pride that students were going home, asking their families to show them the class twitter, and pointing out their stories: "No, that's not my building. Yes, that's it, see my shirt there?" Last year we decided to go with full initials, thus A in this story (who is now going into grade two in a few weeks), would be AK. There were other technical challenges as well; lost dates, problems with storify, lack of hard copy documentation (locked at school for summer). This post illustrates one of my favourite inquiry stories, but also gives insight to the process of collecting and reflecting upon the story. As I delve into my learning journey about documentation, I can't help but make my learning visible.

I too, like A, am fascinated with structures that seem too precarious to stand still. I have long been a fan of a local balance artist, Peter Riedel (mentioned in previous posts here and here) whom I finally got up the courage to approach and chat with one day while he was at work on a beach near my home. I told him how I'd shown photos taken at the beach (over several years) to my students, and how an incredible inquiry unfolded (in previous years before A was in Kindergarten). I asked if he minded me using my photos and his on his website in PD, showing the beauty of exploring with loose parts. I am grateful that he welcomed the idea.


A treasure left on my local beach this summer by stone balancer Peter Riedel. I was delighted to find it, but sad I'd missed seeing it the day it was created. Often 15-25 of these sculptures appear, and over a few days some are knocked down (by large waves or more likely by human hands). When I found this one it was one of four remaining.

My own rock play - not a gravity-defying tower, certainly, but the patience and perseverance required to balance the top stone gave me a thrill, when I managed to set it just so. I think I may be "catching the balance bug" - I wanted to play here all day after a family swim last week on this very stony stretch of shore in Oakville.


A structure inviting perspective taking - as I picked up the bricks to stack, I turned them in each direction to find the flat side, the slope, the holes. Peering through at each point gives a different view of the horizon and the waves. Students often relish the opportunity to include such elements in their structures, inviting their peers to look through this door, this window.

In fact, it was discovering Peter on twitter last week that led me to revisit this story once again, after he suggested he could someday visit to do a demonstration. To say I was excited at that prospect is an understatement. I dug through old photos to find evidence of his impact upon my students.


And so it is, re-inspired, I came back into this year-old draft and found the title, the captioned photo below, and seven point-form notes about what I intended to share (in blue).

First week of school: R's recreation of one of the "Marilyn Towers" which we can see clearly from our schoolyard.


A and the building challenge
balance
representational work and whimsy
perseverance
reflection
audience
critical eye

My words intrigue me, now. Even my title seems like a lost story: was I thinking about how students found inspiration in great works of art and their own creations? Was it a reference to materials, both enormous stones and tiny beads or beach glass? Was it a reference to "looking closely", so much a part of the culture of our class, and how students needed to both look closely and look from afar, in order to recreate those structures as challenged by their peers? I no longer know what made me think of the title, but I feel the need to honour it as part of the journey.

There were so many inquiries ongoing in the last months of school: line in design and in nature, symmetry, mandalas, birds and bird feeders, spring change (#Kndspring), beyblades, potions, nature weaving, number patterns, and incredible caterpillar-to-butterfly experience. I remember being amazed at how often ideas from one inquiry would spin off into another, though the players were different. I see in the list I'd made those themes repeated: balance appeared in so many ways, and perseverance developed as students deepened their study of one or another idea through the use of their choice of materials. Reflection was apparent as students commented upon their peers' work, either finding solutions to their problems or finding inspiration for their own work. Most exciting was the way in which the morning and afternoon classes communicated with each other as they looked at the documentation unfolding from each others' work.

There were other teachers, too. It was before our school joined FDK, but I was fortunate to have a fantastic ECE student join our class in spring. Daniel Kerr was much like my wonderful current teaching partner, Pooneh - an adult with a serious love of joyful learning and no fear of fully-engaged participation as a co-learner with students. Another player in the way the inquiry grew in the spring was Kelly Wright, an inspiring educator (and now friend) with an FDK class in nearby Clarkson PS. Our classes connected often through twitter, but it was her thoughtful action in April that transformed the building inquiry into an exploration of design and an exercise in critical thinking.

As this is an old story, many of the photos from that year are assembled in albums saved in dropbox. I was able to find only the upload dates, and thus no timeline. Physical documentation in locked up safely in class, so my next step was a visit to "tweet tunnel" to find old tweets. The furthest I could go back was February 2014, so the earlier photos I found can't be dated accurately. These photos give some idea of how materials and ideas came into play over the year.

A provocation from fall 2013: photos of large balance structures found in a park near to my home. Early on A demonstrated an interest in form, matching images and later seeking new inspiration in books we found together in the library.

One of the reasons I so loved this inquiry was the way in which it allowed me to see A's true character. He had been my student for a full year already, but in his first year he was a quiet, cooperative boy who made friends easily and joined in a variety of explorations: a beyblade inquiry, a months-long marble-run project, indoor and outdoor cooperative games. He was not yet, however, a leader. What developed in A's second year of Kindergarten was his ability to follow his interest at great length - he was entirely happy to work on his own but equally patient when others wished to join in with his increasingly complex structures. A became a leader, though very quietly and without ever dictating roles. He demonstrated for me so very clearly the importance of embracing the theory of "the hundred languages". I had already begun to understand and relate to the theory through several other types of learners - those whose need for motion in order explore an idea, those who learned to use language later than their peers but whose mathematical understanding excelled early, those who were 'young' socially but full of ideas and mature expression when focused on their interests, those whose passion for nature made them comfortable and confident outdoors even if they experienced difficulty remaining calm while inside the classroom. These students who "stood out" in a highly-structured classroom, whose natural way of interacting with the world would be seen as "behaviour" when the student was required to do something difficult for them (such as lining up, sitting to listen to a story, completing a task such as putting on a snowsuit) were those I most delighted in seeing with fresh eyes, years ago when I first read "The Hundred Languages" poem. Students like me as a child, wearing my emotions on my sleeve and interrupting constantly when an idea popped into my head. But here was A, a well-adjusted student who demonstrated interest in many things but rarely spoke about it or asked to share his ideas, showing great maturity, creativity, and capacity. It must have been there, in the year before, when he explored similar ideas with his friends, all senior students. His parents laughed to hear how he was quiet, during that first year interview. They assured me that at home he was the one who told his older brother what to do. I missed it... had he been leading the play back then, or at least influencing the direction of their explorations through the materials he brought out to use? I cannot know, but what I do know is that through "listening" to his play, watching and asking questions and supporting his communication by taking pictures as he directed ("Now from here. Let me see. No, this part.") I witnessed something wonderful: A found his voice. Perhaps it would be better to say I heard his voice. An inquiry unfolded, crossed over into other inquiries, cooled down like a dying campfire only to have a spark catch anew... and A grew, and with him we all learned so much. As an educator I am greatly inspired by the theories of David and Frances Hawkins. I see how important it was for me to be present, if not actively involved at least actively listening and observing A at play.
"We who have been involved in the study of science and children have ourselves been changed in the process. In some ways not easy to express, we have been liberated. Those of us who knew children before science (are) now seeing the former, children, and ourselves as well in a new light: as inventors, as analysts, as synthesizers, as home lovers, as lover of the world of nature. Those of us who knew science first, and children after, have an altered and more child-like view of science, more humane, more playful, and even at its most elementary, full of the most unexpected delights".
David Hawkins as quoted by Karen Worth

Some ways in which balance and symmetry came into play in our class that year: at top, A and friends on their "motorcycles", several late-in-the-year examples of balance structures, and at bottom left, an example of how an idea inspired an entirely different expression of balance in the afternoon class: body balance challenges.

Several girls challenged each other to stack the clay curves in tall towers. J, on the left, counted each piece. N, blurry in the right corner, estimated the height of the two stacks in order to judge which was taller. I don't recall who mentioned it but there was a discussion about how they couldn't compare number of curves to decide which was tallest. The conversation gave me much insight into their understanding, as they pointed out side-by-side curves (thus not taller) and also the differing sizes of each piece. Math play happens everywhere in Kindergarten, but if you want to find it, go looking in the blocks and construction area.

A structure by A and friends. Note the printed documentation on the whiteboard, at left. This places it sometime after April, as those images are messages sent to us by Kelly Wright's class, @KinderWonders  during our collaborative inquiry around balance. That story is told in more depth below.


Documentation by Daniel Kerr, made in collaboration with A. Note: due to another tweet by A on this day (see below) I know that this collage was from  March 3rd.

From the photos above you can see the patterns that had emerged since the beginning of the school year: play with symmetry (while using not perfectly-matched materials), balance, recreation of known structures, beauty, function and form. Below, reaching back as far as I could using tweet tunnel, I gathered examples of how A's passion for building, and in particular for balance, inspired his classmates and those students in the afternoon class.






















It was not long this time that I realized something big was unfolding in class and that I'd need to share it with families, beyond the tweets we'd been sharing all year. I started compiling a thread in storify, saved in draft. Now, before I can move on to that story, I need to offer an explanation, and a caution. Storify can be a wonderful tool, but it has limits. It is not able to reach back very far, like tweet tunnel (the examples above could not be found by using storify). It also requires a link for each tweet, which contains your handle (name) within. Herein lays the problem I encountered when I went to publish the story last year: when our class became an FDK class with two educators, I wanted to change the name to reflect this. My own name was the previous handle. I considered starting a new account, but this wasn't best for the families, especially those senior students who'd been with me while the account was called @FynesKs. Thus I changed the name on the active account. I only discovered later, when I originally went to publish the story, that my storify draft was no longer functional. It had a long list of these no-longer active links, such as: https://twitter.com/FynesKs/status/453243389396258816 (first tweet below). 
Last year I was disappointed to see the story disappear. I'm thankful that I didn't delete the draft. I saved it, more for the comments I'd added at the beginning of the story than for the now-defunct links. This morning I copied the introduction I'd written (see in blue, below), then got an idea... just as a test, I substituted "109ThornKs" in the link where "FynesKs" was. It worked. It meant tedious copying and fixing each link in a new window, but the story came back into view before my eyes. Here then is a window into that large balance inquiry as it grew over spring.
An amazing balance challenge unfolds in our class.
Balance is one of the big ideas we explore over the year in our class, and it shows up in many ways: body balance, testing materials, challenging one's self or working with friends. Students became truly proud, & even more motivated, when other classes joined in & challenged us to greater 'heights'.

The balance and building work has gone on since September, with skills and ideas deepening each month. Storify won't allow me to reach that far back, so I pick up the story here, in early April, when my favourite clay curves (which had been sitting unused for over a month) were brought out by both my AM and PM classes on the same day. In the first tweet we were responding to class friend (an outdoor educator and coordinator extraordinaire) Rob Ridley, who sent a tweet to show he'd gone to visit the source of my students' beloved clay pieces (broken and water-softened clay pipe bits from a nearby foundary).













































































































A powerful illustration of the Hawkinses theories: eolithism, "messing about with materials", "I, Thou, It", and "Teacher as Learner"; science and math ideas are evident in deeply engaging, socially constructed play. Their desire to share with their families and friends in other classes made this a truly exciting inquiry. This image repeated from the tweets above. 


I look back at my original draft, my list of words and the title I left as a trace, and I know that how I see the story now is influenced by all the learning that has gone on since that time. I've been joined by a truly delightful, incredibly talented teaching partner, Pooneh. I've seen another year of students, (some who were in that class as year ones) tackle the challenge of balance in their play, many of those students inspired by the work that went on the year before. I've deepened my knowledge of the works of David and Frances Hawkins, through reading and discussions with fellow Hawkins-inspired educators. I am constantly amazed and delighted by the minds of the students I work with, and by those fellow educators, like Kelly, who embrace the wonder and thus make the classroom a place where magic can happen. Or, as I often say about our always-evolving (and let's be honest, not the prettiest, we're always catching up with our documentation) classroom, "It's not a beautiful place, but a place where beautiful things can happen".
 

“One of the very important factors in [meeting and talking with children] is that there be some third thing which is of interest to the child and to the adult.” David Hawkins
“In sharing enjoyment with a child there is a communication of the fact that as observers and learners we are of the same stuff.” Frances Hawkins
“Without a Thou, there is no I evolving. Without an It there is no context, no figure and no heat, but only an affair of mirrors confronting each other.” David Hawkins

The tweet below, created and sent by a student very proud of her ability to write about her discoveries, says it well.

    S typing: "we call it play and learn because we learn while we play" wow, S summed it up beautifully #reggioplc

    — Beyond 4walls (@109ThornKs) May 7, 2014

And so I ponder that first quote, the one that spoke to me today:
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein
and I wonder if it isn't a good metaphor for being teacher as researcher, learning from students through pedagogical documentation. To keep understanding, I must keep moving through the ideas. I must keep reflecting.


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