look what i can do

look!
look at me!
look what i can do!
watch this!

did you see me jump so far?
did you see me climb so high?

see, i wrote my name.
i can write it backwards, watch.
i'll show you how i did it.

look what i made!
i made it myself.
i put it together and then it broke, but i tried again and it broke again
but then i tried a different way and this is what i made, see?
watch what it can do.
this part turns around and this part shoots lasers.
this is how it flies, watch this!

come and see what we made -
we did it together.  
i built the house and my friend made the garage.
this is where the animals live, and this is where they go potty.
if you want to come and visit, you have to knock on the door.

come and see what we are doing -
we are putting on a show.
you are the audience, you sit over there.
watch us dance, see what we can do.

this is what we're learning
this is what we're building
this is how we're growing
watch us and see

don't go away yet,
take a second look
take a closer look, lean it and examine
ask me some questions about how it works
ask me why i put that piece over there.

don't ask me what it is, because it's obvious to me -
ask me to tell you everything about it.
ask me to tell you what i was thinking about
ask me to explain the parts you don't understand

let me tell you all i have to tell
listen to my thinking, my reasoning
don't say "that's nice," and don't say "i love it,"
unless you want me to learn to only work for your approval.
tell me it looks like i worked very hard
tell me you think i must be proud of myself
tell me you notice how i kept at it, even when it was difficult,
and i figured out a way to make it work
i practiced and practiced until i learned how to do it
tell me, "remember when you didn't know how to do that?"
i will smile and say, "when i was little."
tell me you wonder what i'll learn to do next
tell me you can't wait to see

i'm making my learning visible every day
all you have to do is open your eyes
and look,
look at me.

baby steps

I'm always surprised when I talk to people and they've never heard of the Reggio Emilia approach, even other teachers.  I've been immersed in trying to learn about the Reggio way for six years now, and the more I discover, the more I want to understand. 

I started with a vague sense of what Reggio was about: progressive, emergent, project-based... the words floated around in the ether and made me feel good about working in a preschool with these values.  I was coming out of nearly 5 years of teaching in a very tough and under-resourced public elementary school where I had to follow the mandated curriculum, measure each distinct subject area in minutes per week, and administer standardized tests to at least 25 underprivileged 7-year-olds, some with serious problems in their lives creating obstacles to their success.  Yikes!  Almost any other teaching situation would have been a reprieve, but finding a Reggio-inspired preschool to work in was a dream come true.

We started off with some inservice training; a teacher from a well-established school came and showed us images of their project work and talked about what the children had done.  It was wonderfully impressive, but I came away with a lost feeling of "Yes, but how did they do that?" 

Since those tentative beginnings, I have joined NAREA (The North American Reggio Emilia Alliance) and attended two of their conferences featuring professionals from Reggio Emilia, Italy.  We took our whole staff to Salinas to view the Wonder of Learning exhibit, an inspiring display of Reggio children's project work that tours the world. 

These days I feel like I have wondered a lot, learned a lot, and have a much better understanding of what it is that I want to understand better!  My learning comes in baby steps, some bigger than others, some backwards... something like this:

- Visit a school, conference or exhibit, or 
- Read a blog, book or article
- Get inspired
- Change something about how our school looks or how it functions
- Get bogged down in the day-to-day details of a busy classroom and fall short of intended perfection
- Look back and notice what we could have done better
- Repeat

It's a never-ending cycle but definitely a forward-moving one, and that's the kind that's preferable when you're on a journey.

useful

when you are 4
anything is possible
everything is beautiful
disappointments are the worst thing ever
a knocked-over block castle is a disaster
a little blood on your finger makes you wonder
if you are going to die.

when you are 4
everything is original
naptime is unthinkable
under the table is your hiding place
and time is a snail

when you are 4
your stories get longer
your fingers get stronger
you laugh with abandon
when someone says "underwear"

when you are 4
a stick is a sword
     a violin
     a magic wand
     a mixing spoon
     a hairbrush
     a conductor's baton

when you are 4
everything is for climbing on
everything is for painting on
everything is for gluing on
everything is for banging on
everything is useful
if you use your imagination

when you are 4

----------------

One of the teachers got a new mixer for her birthday and brought the box and styrofoam packaging to school for the kids to use.

N. was leaving school with her mom just as I was returning from a parent-teacher conference.  She walked toward the front door with a big smile on her face and a large... something... in her hands, and announced, "Useful."

I looked at it more closely.  She had transformed the mixer's styrofoam packaging into a caddy of sorts, inserting things into its various nooks, crannies, and holes; mostly her artwork made of paper, but also wilted flowers (a.k.a. bells), a hair band, and an extra chunk of styrofoam that she'd colored on with pastels.

Then she noticed that her useful thing still had some vacant space.  There was a round hole on one side, about two inches in diameter.  She looked around and thought about it for mere seconds before she had the solution: on the table next to the fish tank was a small paper cup containing water and some half-wilted flowers that we'd been using in the art room.  She had relocated the flowers to this paper vase herself a day or two earlier, rescuing them from a certain glue-related fate, and decided at this moment that they were going home with her.  She gently and easily fitted the cup into the circular hole in the styrofoam, and giggled with glee.

"Useful," I said, to acknowledge her delight in her creation.

"Useful," she agreed, and off she went with her mom, easily carrying all of her useful things.

back to yesterday

'I could tell you my adventures - beginning from this morning,' said Alice a little timidly: 'but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.'

-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

yesterday
i was a dancer
i was an artist
i was a farmer
i was a scientist
i was a baker
i was an acrobat
i was a homemaker
i was a horseback rider
i was a hula girl
i was an explorer 
i was an architect

yesterday
i was a whale
i was a jack-in-the-box
i was an engineer
i was a baby swan
i was a passenger
i was a carpenter
i was a witch
i was a reader
i was a plumber
i was a storyteller
i was a paper airplane pilot

yesterday
i was a magician king
i was a jedi padawan
i was a firefighter
i was a tree spirit
i was a princess
i was a pirate
i was a train conductor
i was a blue crayon
i was a potion maker
i was a photographer

yesterday
i was a builder
i was a painter
i was a clown
i was a ladybug
i was a florist
i was a cartographer
i was a pianist
i was a ballerina
i was a judge
i was a model
i was a traveler






then my parents ask me, "what did you do at school today?"
it is hard work to remember.
i shrug my shoulders and say,

"i played."

 

here begins a journey

here begins a journey
out on the edge
     of comfort
take my hand
let's put our toes in.
it might be cold
we might sink down
     in
     the soft, black sand.
this world is huge;
so much to see
     and do
     and take in.
and we are small;
sometimes we are timid
sometimes we get tummyaches
     that we cannot explain
some people call us shy
but we are watchers
     we are seers
we are builders
     we are shapers
we are magic wand makers.
come along with us, if this is your path...
if you, too, can silently observe
ponder all you see
contemplate all you hear
and let it slowly form
     into questions and knowing
     in the growing of your mind
     as you sleep.

we are ready for the journey.
we are the journey.
here it begins.