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Learning Together

^{_{Materials, environment, pedagogical documentation. Working from these, we design opportunities in which questions can grow.}}

In-house sessions, online courses, individual consultation, study visit planning ─ the work takes many forms. What matters to me is sharing what I have learnt with the children I have met, among educators and among adults across different fields.
^{_{250+ participants ─ 35+ early years settings ─ up to 3 years of continuous work}}

Pedagogical Documentation

^{_{The Elephant Dialogue
The Constellation Dialogue
The Mirror Dialogue}}

Pedagogical documentation is a collaborative tool for learning, developed within the Reggio Emilia approach ─ an educational project known for its democratic and ethical practice. It grew into something indispensable to early years education: an occasion for educators to interpret what they have observed, and to share and reinterpret it with others. Drawing inspiration from the philosophy of Reggio Emilia, this course looks at documentation from three perspectives, and asks what it can mean beyond making learning visible.

Testimonies

The drawing of the elephant stayed with me ─ how difficult it is to grasp the meaning of something, and how what we see is never the whole of it. It made me feel the need to anticipate, and to think from different perspectives .
^{_{─ Course participant, early years educator}}

Documentation is a platform for questioning and dialogue from many perspectives. I learnt that it is a way into imagining the part of the iceberg we cannot see.
^{_{─ Course participant, early years educator}}

Documentation is a mirror that reflects yourself. In dialogue, I felt I could deepen my learning while looking back at myself reflected there.
^{_{─ Municipal programme, early years educator}}

Materials

^{_{Encountering materials that could become anything}}

In this course, we explore materials in front of us, through our hands, our eyes and our conversation. We step back from time with children and meet materials through all five senses. Once we are in deep conversation with the materials, we can sense that they hold memory, that they come from somewhere, that they carry stories — and from there we imagine how children might get to know them. Not as supplies for making things, but as fragments through which to know the world: a course about meeting again the materials that live on this earth alongside us.

Testimonies

I came to understand that the educator's role is to create an environment where wonder becomes visible ─ not to teach wonder, but to make openings where children notice it themselves.
^{_{─ Early years educator}}

Materials I had removed out of concern for safety could be offered once I had looked at children's development. They began to engage with them at length.
^{_{─ Nursery Manager}}

I learnt that a single object can be seen and thought about in many ways, depending on where it is placed.
^{_{─ Early years educator}}

Tailor-made Programmes

^{_{The perspective of a child, in your context}}

Every setting and every organisation stands somewhere different, and carries different questions. We begin by working out together what you want to hold on to, and design the content, the number of sessions and the format from there.

Sessions on materials, environment and documentation are not only for people who work with children. At their centre is a way of paying attention ─ noticing what is in front of you, and letting a question grow rather than closing it. That way of attending travels. When someone from another field meets the perspective of a child, the way they see their own work and their own life can shift. And for families, who already live alongside that perspective every day, it can make the ordinary newly visible.

Testimonies

I had been working with only a vague sense of the Reggio Emilia approach, but the presentations were clear and I learnt from examples of inspired practice. It made me want to become someone who can speak about the joy of inquiring alongside children. I want to keep learning and keep raising the quality of my practice.
^{_{─ In-house sessions, early years educator}}

I realised that because our setting sits within nature, that nature is telling the kindergarten something too ─ and that I had not been able to see this. I want to look for what can only be learnt here, and carry it into our inquiry work.
^{_{─ In-house sessions, early years educator}}

Long-term Consultation

^{_{Walking alongside, over time}}

In long-term work, as a learning community takes shape, we reflect on observations together, build a culture of reflection, and accompany the process by which a setting's own history grows. What do you want to hold at the centre? Where does it show itself in everyday life? It is the work of making that setting's own language, over time.

Testimonies

With each session, I felt less anxious about conversation and there were times when I found it a pleasure.
^{_{─ Group-wide sessions, early years educator}}

I learnt so much from encountering all kinds of documentation, and I was glad to meet the wonderful educators across our organisation. I have ended up wanting to read a particular colleague's documentation ─ so I hope we can keep learning together in this form.
^{_{─ Documentation / group-wide sessions, early years educator}}

Next Project

Family Green Atelier　→

Learning Together

Materials, environment, pedagogical documentation. Working from these, we design opportunities in which questions can grow.

Pedagogical Documentation

The Elephant DialogueThe Constellation DialogueThe Mirror Dialogue