Image of the Child

Malaguzzi (1994) wrote "there are hundreds of different images of the child. Each one of you has inside yourself an image of the child that directs you as you begin to relate to a child. This theory within you pushes you to behave in certain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child, listen to the child, observe the child. It is very difficult for you to act contrary to this internal image" (52). The image of the child and Malaguzzi's article "Your image of the child: Where teaching begins" provided the context for our discussion at our June 9th meeting. We read, reflected and webbed images in teams of teachers. Present were 3 teams of infant-toddler teachers and 2 teams of preschool teachers. To begin with the task was to web as a team an image of the child with the challenge of coming up with at least 100 words. This challenge encouraged us to go deeper into all of the components of a child, from gender and temperament to children as learners and their interests. The webs showed some common threads such as temperament, but each was unique to the teams and the children with whom they work.  Teachers working with infant-toddlers saw from this developmental perspective just as the preschool teachers did, allowing for some rich discussions and understandings among the different teams of teachers.

This was followed with reading Malaguzzi's article (1994), small group and large group discussions.  Through our dialogue we discussed many pertinent topics which included:  the importance of relationships with the children as well as with families and colleagues; the understanding that children should be able to question and that teachers respond to questions; the point that early childhood is unpredictable; addressing the child who doesn't seem to engage socially with others and letting them learn in their own way; changing the role of the teacher to that of facilitator and waiting on the child; the constant value for the child to know he/she is being observed and is honored to be observed; teachers seeing themselves as researchers; the need to have an alliance with our families; and understanding that it is a child's right to be recognized for their strengths.  This rich discussion really provided the space to begin our summer investigation of the Project Approach as teachers.

We then moved into a discussion of the Project Approach with an introduction to The Project Approach study guide written by Sylvia Chard.  All of us on the study group had attended a conference in May with Sylvia Chard and so some discussion was related to this conference and what was for some an introduction to this curricular approach.  We then began work on webbing project ideas where some worked on webs for projects they would like to begin or had done some preliminary work on which included 2 garden projects; one investigation into a creek in connection to working in the garden; one project thinking about water (an infant toddler classroom where they know water is of great interest of the children and one with which they know the children have experience).  One infant-toddler teacher has been taking walks around the center with her children and so she webbed the surround area of the building and campus on which they are housed, generating ideas on where the project could go.  These were webbed and then each teacher worked with art materials to do a preliminary or anticipatory drawing connected to their project ideas.

 

 

We left with a web on our project ideas, resources such as the study guide to support our understanding and implementation of phase 1 and tasks to write reflective journals to bring back.  We also have project portfolios that have a space for resources, reflections, but also a section to document Phase 1, 2 and 3 with descriptions and elements of the phases as a way to guide our work and documentation.   Each team also had examples of projects in relation to infant toddler and preschool classrooms to become more familiar with how other teachers and classrooms engage in the Project Approach.

There were also two questions posed by the teachers to which we should all respond and investigate, find above in the following post.