Curtis – sharing documentation with children

In the centre I was in we were studying the roles teachers might play with children to extend their learning and investigation and these two children had been like for a really long time watching a ladybug be on the ground and follow it around. And the teacher was there with her notepad and her iPad and she was taking photos. And it went on for a really long time. At the end of it when they were wrapping up to go inside she called them over and said “hey, I want you to see what you just did”. And so, she opened up her iPad and she showed them images of themselves studying. “You were looking so closely, look at-there’s the ladybug”. So, just in that moment to help them see themselves and this interest they took to show it back to them was making their thinking and learning visible to them. So, that’s a short quick thing you can do in the moment.  

I’ve done that same kind of thing but with project over time and this was with toddlers where I decided to offer them’ flubber’ -it’s that cornstarch and glue material that turns into this stretchy cool stuff. And I think it’s a really great substance for toddlers because it responds to them. What I did over time is, I in the moment I just describe to them what I see them doing. “Oh look, when Karen put his finger in the flubber it made a hole”. So, I’m just kind of not overwhelming them with narration or description of what I see them doing and what I notice is that when they hear me and they see each other, their repertoire grows of play. So, they all start sticking their finger to make the holes or they all start stuffing it into something. But they all sort of take up this new way of doing it and I’ve just been describing to them what they do. So, to me that’s a really simple form of documentation and you’ve got to be careful because you don’t want to talk to them the whole time they’re playing but you’re just careful about offering these things you see, some new idea.  

And then from that I was taking images. And so I went back and I started a little binder, tiny-one of those little half binders because they were toddlers-of pictures of them doing these things to study. And I’d have it out whenever we’d put this flubber out on the table and they would spend some time looking through it and I would see things like them imitating the behaviour in the picture with what they were doing, like putting their finger where people’s fingers were. And then again, I think what that does is grow their repertoire of possibility. This project with flubber lasted like the whole entire year with this group of kids. You know, initially they stay for a few minute;  by the end of the time they were staying for over a half hour. And these are like under 2 year olds, 12 to 24 is what this age group was. 

I think documentation can change children’s lives by- I think it develops their identity. It’s like this conscious intentional way to offer children a positive, confident identity. So, you show them back themselves, you show them back their skills and their competence. And they develop a confident identity. And then I also think it helps them, it changes their lives by helping them be better learners because they become more aware of their own thinking and their own ideas right? So, if somebody has shown me my idea and they’ve shown me a picture of what I do and I can see it, I have this notion that I have ideas. And once I have that notion I have ideas I can come up with more ideas.  

And that’s what I find when I offer children back their ideas, they always come up with more, right? Because they get oh yeah, well I had that idea and now I have this idea. So, I think it changes their lives because it’s a confident portrayal that you’re being really intentional about showing them in a real competent light. And then they gain competence by seeing their own ideas and being able to use their own.  In fact I think that’s your job as an early childhood educator is to see everybody’s ideas and make them visible, that you spend your day noticing what people are paying attention to, what they’re doing.