The Kidspace Physics Forest

On a recent Saturday afternoon in January, the Galvin Physics Forest at Kidspace Children’s Museum (Pasadena, CA) was full of families with children of all ages, from babies in backpacks and strollers to “big” kids 9 or 10 years; in adult-child pairs; with grandmas and grandpas; and in families of families.

I’ve made several observations in the Physics Forest on two visits to Kidspace, on both a weekday and a weekend, in fall and in winter. Every time I have observed and listened, I have heard laughter, lots of laughter. Even belly laughs float across the site. Shouts of delight, like, ”I did it!” and “This is so cool!” also come through loud and clear over the chatter.

Physics experiments are not unusual in children's museums where children explore the forces and motion that shape our world. Active learners and enthusiastic players, children are interested in making things fly, bounce, spin, and roll. They are intrigued by what they can do to pop a ball, get more lift to a rocket, or blast the bottle. Physics experiments make children’s ideas and efforts visible to both them and to adults.  

In fact, many of the experiments in the Physics Forest are just like ones in many children’s museums. Several features, however, distinguish the Kidspace Physics Forest from physics exhibits in children’s museums as well as many science centers. It’s big, it’s outdoors, and it calls attention to how bottle rockets and tennis ball launchers, pulleys and air cannons are physics. Having a physics exhibit makes sense for Kidspace with the California Institute of Technology as a neighbor and Caltech astrophysicist Dr. Mike Brown as a KCM board member. (Check out an interview with him in Hand To Hand.

The Cool Fan as a merry-go-round

Designed by Hands On! Inc., the Physics Forest opened in summer 2012 with 13 physics experiments on a 26,600 square foot site. The 12 stations are: Bottle Rocket, Tennis Ball Launcher, Ball Bounce, Pulley’s, Wheel Roll, Magic Mirror, Roller Coaster, Ball Range, Pendulum, Air Cannon, Giant Lever, and Cool Fan. Sun Splitter, a 13^th experiment, was recently removed because it required multiple adjustments by staff daily. Generally, two staff were present in the Physics Forest. One moved around the site. The other was stationed at the Cool Fan, the experiment that seemed to invite the most creative use from children.   

The arroyo-inspired landscape is a natural site for exploring. Experiments are planted among native plants

Bridge across the dry creek

and substantial trees. Winding paths both define and connect the experiments sometimes crossing dry steam beds with immense slabs of wood. These same slabs provide generous seating around the site. Smaller play spaces with related activities, like building and sound makers, are scattered among the experiments and sunshade covered. Pasadena’s 70º sunshine completes the splendid outdoor conditions for exploring physics.

Multiple entrances to the Physics Forest allow children to start anywhere and easy visual access across the site makes it easy to navigate and be visually oriented. Pathways invite children and families to wander and follow their interests. Some children find and stick with one activity; others try a couple of experiments before discovering one that really engages their attention. Children call out to one another, “Abby, this is fun. Come to the Tennis Ball Launcher.”

While some experiments seem more popular than others and some seem easier to use, I was impressed overall by how engaged children and adults were in exploring, trying, talking, observing, and helping. Three qualities associated with engaging museum experience and learning come through in what I heard and observed.

• Everyone gets into the act

• Extended explorations

• More than physics in play

Everyone Gets into the Act

Children work together sometimes calling out suggestions to others, as a boy at the Giant Fan did, “Get some friends to help.” Getting into the act is made easier with multiple positions that most of the experiments offer: 3 inclines on the Wheel Roll and 3 seats at Pulleys; 2 stations at the Ball Bounce and 2 Giant Levers. An experiment like the Cool Fan requires extra pairs of hands and the combined efforts of several children. The generous space around each experiment accommodates several people to gather

When the ball escaped the Tennis Ball Launcher, one whole family worked together to get it back in the basket. The 2-year old cried, “Oh no!” The 4-year old asked her dad to lift her up and throw the ball in; “Too low” she observed. The 6-year old chased the ball and tossed it into the basket several times but missed. In the end the grandmother made the basket, and the experiment resumed.

A father's Air Cannon tips to his daughter

Adults who often hang back and watch children explore definitely were part of the action. One child called out, “Mom, help me,” when she wanted to be hoisted up at Pulleys. But parents also drew their child’s attention to an experiment with, for instance, “Look at the wheels you can roll over there.” Adults served as physics coaches for their children. At the Giant Lever, a father advised his 4 year-old daughter, “Use all your weight. Look where you are putting your feet.” At the Air Cannon, a father pointed out to his daughter not only how it worked, but some variations she might try. 

While there’s a high level of engagement, not everyone is focusing on the experiments. One small girl delightedly plowed through the bark mulch on her belly near the Tennis Ball Launcher. At the Roller Coaster a 4-year old boy was far more interested in accumulating balls than constructing or testing a coaster. Oblivious to the physics focus, an older girl used the wooden planks across the dry creek bed as a balance beam.

Extended Explorations

Designed as platforms for open-ended science learning through play, the experiments encourage self- guided exploration. Children and adults talk, ask questions, investigate with levers and ropes; they watch balls pop up and roll down. Noticing the effects of what they do, they share tips, refer to the text, talk some more, building intuitive understandings about how things work.

In the Physics Forest, related physics content is near, clear and accessible. These bold, can’t-miss, two-sided graphic panels stand at every experiment. Their 4-part message–Try It!, Play With It!, It’s Physics, More at Home–follows a typical exploratory process.

Persistence and ingenuity at the Roller Coaster

Clear accessible text, however, has a hard time competing with active exploration as a source of information about what’s happening. Having other players to watch and talk with, loose parts to combine in multiple ways, and satisfying visual effects extend even casual explorations. This was most apparent at the Roller Coaster. Always filled with activity, 15-20 adults and children working in 3-4 family groups while more watched from the benches was not uncommon. Children shouted out ideas like, “Let’s try this curvy one,” upon discovery of a rounded piece of track. A 4-year old’s joyful, “I know, I know, I know” was followed by a flurry of extending track and testing the run. Children were impressed with longer runs after following performance tips about the height of the entrance. One girl’s persistence paid off with new strategies for starting the ball at higher and higher points. Another rolled a ball, watched it, fetched it, and asked, “What happened?” only to try again. Steady and extended activity was punctuated by, “That was amazing!”

More Than Physics in Play

Play and science learning assume many forms and reflect developmental differences among children, whether it is impatience waiting for a turn, making and revising predictions, or taking a systematic approach. 

Predictions and revisions at the Bottle Rocket

Three children at the Bottle Rocket filled the bottle with water to different levels, launched it, and watched it fly. The 4-year old boy suddenly waved his arms and announced that he knew that the full bottle would fly the highest. His 9-year old sister set about systematically testing 3 conditions. She hit the button to fill the bottle to a low level; the bottle flew up part way. The boy was very pleased with that. As the older sister prepared to fill the bottle halfway, their 2-year old sister dashed in and hit the full button. The full bottle flew up, rising only part way. The third bottle, filled halfway, shot to an impressive height compared to the other bottles, thrilling the boy. Pumping his fist, he shouted, "I knew the half-filled bottle would go the highest. I knew it!" Like a typical 4-year old, he was happy to revise his original prediction in order to be right.

The large-scale, highly interactive experiments are platforms for exploring how the world works, but they support many kinds of learning as well. Along with children making predictions, and engaging in trial and error, they are taking turns and asserting increasing independence as a 4-year old did with, “I don’t want any help” to dismiss his parent’s offer of assistance. Children engage in friendly competition announcing, “We won!” and express their sense of accomplishment with, “I did it!”

The Physics Forest also supports possibilities that designers and physicists are unlikely to have imagined. As a 3-year old peered into the Mirror Maze, his father asked, “What do you see? Does it look weird?” After a pause, the child replied, “Maybe I can see the sunset.”

Driving for Learning Frameworks

Photo: Washington Post

Imagine a museum that is developing its budget. A group of senior managers meet. “Our treasurer”, the executive director starts out, “would like us to challenge ourselves to get more new visitors”. She writes down an attendance figure for the budget. The membership manager mentions that she knows of several museums of about the same size that have 4,000 members and suggests that for membership. Another manager announces that a local foundation is interested in funding outreach and usually gives grants of about $25,000; he writes down $25,000. The head of programs announces they have lots of ideas for school programs and will be adding some. The discussion continues with figures and sometimes dollar amounts for income and expenses added to the page.

There are many ways to develop a budget, but this isn’t one. This is, however, how many museums develop a museum framework for learning or interpretation. Interests and ideas about learning and audiences come from staff, board and funders in conversations and brainstorming sessions. As a grant deadline approaches, the list migrates to the development office and is enshrined somewhere between the museum’s mission and the project goals. Such an informal list might include creativity, STEM, and more 7-10 year olds. These are likely to be worthwhile ideas, but they don’t serve as a robust framework for planning exhibits, developing programs, conducting evaluations, or demonstrating the museum’s value as an informal learning resource for the community.

Looking for Learning Frameworks in the Museum Field 
My museum planning work and professional service with various types of museums across the country suggests that the list approach is wide-spread in small and large, new and established museums. I used to think it was much more typical in children’s museums. Without a discipline base to guide (as well as limit) their focus of learning, children’s museums work on a relatively blank canvas. Several big ideas, often starting with play, serve as a working draft of a learning framework. Still, I know of about a dozen children’s museums with learning frameworks, including a few start-ups and several who update theirs regularly; I know of just 2 science museums that have one. Recently. I asked the program director from a large, established science museum if her museum had a learning framework or the equivalent. She said that currently it did not, but the education division was starting one–and so was the exhibits division.  

The lure of lists with attractive ideas and categories is also strong in an art, science, natural history–and any–museum defined by a subject matter area. Content areas often serve as proxies for a museum’s learning approach. A commitment to STEM, on one hand, establishes a focus on content, but poses dozens of questions on the other: Are science, technology, engineering, and math areas of comparable significance? Individually or in an interdisciplinary mix? What role do the arts play? How do skills, behaviors, or attitudes fit in? What STEM processes does the museum want to encourage? Why? How does STEM learning look different across the lifespan?

In spite of establishing that education is central to museums’ public service in the Association of American Museum’s Excellence and Equity (1992), there has been an absence of clear statements and guides about the value of education and interpretation planning in museums. Others have noted this as well, including Marianna Adams in her article, “Where Do We Need to Go Next?” in the Journal of Museum Education (Summer 2012).

AAM’s 2008 National Standards and Best Practices Standards for U.S. Museums includes a list of 8 standards related to education and interpretation. Elizabeth Merritt’s commentary first notes that, “Considering that education and interpretation are the core of all museums’ activities, it may seem a bit surprising that there is little in the way of detailed standards, beyond the above Characteristics, elaborating on what museums must do to fulfill their basic obliga­tions in this area of operation.” (p. 59) She then suggests that museums are pretty good at education and interpretation. She also notes there’s no consensus on what constitutes “good education” or “good interpretation” in museums.

The Association of Children’s Museum’s updated Standards for Professional Practice in Children’s Museums (2012) lists 11 Standards for Exhibits and Programs. Several mention that children’s museums have expertise in learning theories and “bodies of knowledge are incorporated.” None, however, promotes a museum's intentional development of a shared framework to consolidate its most important ideas about learning. The Association of Science-Technology Centers website has information on science standards, but not on science center standards related to learning.

A few field-wide frameworks or components related to learning in museums exist. Learning Science in Informal Environments (LSIE) provides a framework on learning science in non-school settings. Grounded in research and centered on the learner, it focuses on the distinct capabilities of informal learning environments to promote science learning. A set of recommendations is explicitly designated as starting points for practice.

Many art museums use Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) as a component of their education programs. With a focus on thinking and learning through discussions of visual arts, teacher-facilitated discussions encourage learners to develop aesthetic and language literacy and critical thinking skills. Museums, Libraries and 21st Century Skills (2009) published by IMLS offers a framework for museums. Presented as a self-assessment and high-level planning tool, it outlines a role for museums in learning, a set of four skill areas and five 21^st century themes.  

In actuality, LSIE, VTS, and 21^st Century Skills are not fundamentally different from casual lists; they are just better ones grounded in research and thoughtfully organized. Along with other lists and taxonomies, these frameworks and strategies are starting points––good starting points, but still starting points. Whether a museum commits to or borrows from one of these, or has its own set of learning areas, it must explore, apply and adapt, and make it meaningful in the particular context of its community, its purpose, and its audience.

The Limits of Lists 
Without standards or even a drumbeat from the profession for museums to develop a learning framework (or interpretive or education plan), lists of learning styles, taxonomies of play, guiding principles, or broad, field-wide frameworks will remain attractive alternatives to museums developing their own learning frameworks.

Lists, taxonomies, and principles alone say nothing beyond, “this is of interest to someone here at this time.” Revealing nothing about how it supports the mission, why it is important, under what circumstances, and for which part of the audience, the document is of limited value. It could apply to virtually any museum. There is no clarification of which ideas are of greater importance, whether one is a driving idea that others support, the relevance of ideas to this community and its priorities, or what practices the museum intends to follow. All opportunities look virtually the same when reviewed against 6 strands, a set of 21^st century skills, or 12 exhibit criteria.

The more limited input is in identifying, sharing, and exploring ideas about the museum’s learning value, the more the set of ideas (generic framework or study) is essentially privileged information with a narrow base of support. It is likely to shift when new interests or trends arise or when a local organization is doing something well that is receiving attention. Ideas might be driven by an executive director or the whim of the education director after a conference on family learning. The nature of favored lists and taxonomies is to tacitly encourage a kind of personal advocacy rather than broad-based ownership.

The more informal the set of ideas, principles, or priorities remain, the less likely it is explored with any depth, against relevant data, or considered as a whole. Time and information are necessary for testing the possibility of serving more 7-10 year olds or more professionals and experts and determining whether they are potentially a "core" audience. Until a set of compelling ideas is considered together, there's no sense of whether they engage in powerful ways or if key pieces are missing. Where's the family? How does visitor identity fit in? How does our learning approach fit on the local learning landscape?

Lack of a shared framework simply makes planning harder during master planning, exhibit planning, or developing an initiative. Initial enthusiasm for an attractive idea like innovation often requires time to clarify its meaning(s) and relate it to other ideas and skills; creativity is important? What about critical thinking? This is time that could be better spent on capturing innovative ideas, surveying visitors, or learning from experts. Backing up and hammering out ideas inevitably comes at an inconvenient time.

Adapt, Activate, Apply 
If a museum intends to deliver learning value in exhibits, programs, and outreach, it needs a sound and shared understanding of what learning means for whom, how, and why it matters in this particular setting. 

A museum-wide interpretive plan, learning framework, or education plan are several options a museum has for consolidating its most important ideas about learning, learners, and where it will focus its resources, distinguish itself, and deliver learning value.

How a framework is put together matters a great deal to its long-term benefit and value. Many lists, or perspectives, are needed from many people on topics that intersect. Notes and titles that link to articles, articles that several staff have read and discussed, conceptual frameworks that relate, and studies from the field are needed to hammer a framework for learning that fits the museum.

This is guaranteed to be hard work. But ideas capable of assessing and supporting meaningful work and powerful experiences deserve to be explored, questioned, challenged, prioritized, imagined, and exposed to the strong light of mission, vision, values, and, ultimately, the value to children, families, and the community. Moreover, a framework will not come alive–or survive– without thinking, discussing, organizing, and sharing. It will not be understood by those wanting to contribute expertise and support where the museum’s work matters most, and will not be valued by the staff who implement it without their widespread involvement.

A framework of this caliber helps a museum assess and manage its opportunities, supports decision-making and allocating resources (which offerings to grow, keep or let go). It informs questions of practice, the focus for staff development, pursuit of a research agenda, and deepening its understanding of its audience. Pressed to demonstrate and communicate the value of their informal learning approach, as museums increasingly are, a framework for learning becomes an invaluable and essential organizational tool along with a strategic plan and budget or business plan.

With time, more museums will hopefully value and develop a learning framework in the same way they value learning for their visitors and view themselves as community of learners. And, as more museums do, perhaps the profession will recognize the practice of developing a learning or interpretive frameworks as a field-wide museum standard. Learning is, after all, the core of a museum's value to its community.

2014 Resolution: Shiny Questions

 

Each new year is a grand question that unfolds over 365 days asking, “What does this year hold? During the course of the year hundreds of smaller questions appear, hover, perplex and delight. Hopefully many are answered.

In the spirit of a new year, I resolve to ask more and better questions in 2014. Power tools for thinking and listening, questions make connections, unleash creativity, and help solve problems

Statements can be clear and concise, elegant and even poetic. While good statements have their place, they can also give the feeling we have accomplished work only imagined. But when we ask questions, we begin to know what we want to learn about and what we need to find out. Questions direct our attention, open us to possibilities we can’t yet fully imagine, and help in managing uncertainty about the future. Questions make us learners. Questions developed with others make us part of a larger community of thinkers and learners.

Over the next year, I hope to make the most of different types of questions, ones that deepen understanding and ones that clarify information; open-ended questions, research questions, questions to get a conversation going, and questions to revisit. And I resolve to ask more shiny questions in particular.

Polishing Questions

A shiny question starts off like many questions intended to guide a project or extended work. When, however, the question is tossed, tumbled, and polished by a group of people working together to explore and understand its intent and potential, the question is strengthened, its meaning is sharpened, and its language made explicit. It becomes shiny.

The original shiny question emerged through a lively, collaborative process among members of several groups gathered to develop a research question for community camps in a St. Paul neighborhood. Nearly 10 years later, the shiny question has become the gold standard of questions for many of us who participated. Fortunately, two members of the group, Nan Kari and Lani Shapiro, captured and shared the conversation and related thinking that produced the shiny question. The following description highlights pivotal shifts in the 2-hour discussion and the 5 versions that the research question assumed.

The process of developing the shiny question begins

Context

When a group of neighbors from St. Paul’s West Side and the Neighborhood Learning Community (NLC) at Augsburg College began planning neighborhood summer camps, they approached steering committee members of the emerging Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota (RINMn) to develop a research question to guide planning and learning from the camps. The groups, NLC, RINMn and, Minnesota Children’s Museum, enjoyed shared interests but had limited experience working together.

Inspired by the neighborhood as a “living classroom,” All Around the Neighborhood’s (AATN) free camps would serve children 5-11 years living in or attending school on the West Side. Children would explore the neighborhood in weeklong camps that highlight contributions from the cultures of people living in the neighborhood. Community members would serve as teachers for the camps.

Opening Discussion

Background information about the camps helped to both launch discussion and surface the need for additional information. 

An AATN planning team member shared two themes to be woven into each camp: learning about people and places in the neighborhood; and building and experiencing successful intergenerational and intercultural learning communities. She also shared questions AATN was curious about.

·       What do children learn in a neighborhood-based learning environment?

•       What competencies do children build through informal learning in a multicultural, mixed-aged group of people? 

·       How do people, children and adults, learn about democratic principles/practices in a neighborhood-based learning environment?

•       What skills are developed when children are engaged over time in an intergenerational learning community?

•       What do children contribute to “place-making” on the West Side, when they are invested in a neighborhood learning environment?

Following initial consideration of the themes and questions, members of the group expressed a need for clarification and additional information. How do the questions relate to goals? How would AATN focus research? Would the questions actually tap into the interests of community teachers? One suggestion was made to distinguish “what” questions from “how” questions. Four criteria for framing the research question were also identified.

·       Simple language

·       A straight forward question

·       Worded to allow making simple hypotheses

·       Lead to a compelling story that can be told to others

Incorporating this group’s perspectives on the themes and questions and adding criteria shaped an initial research question.

First version: How do children become connected to the neighborhood?

 

Developing the Question

With a question to focus on, discussion shifted to its capabilities. Thinking about working with the question, members of the group suggested that it should address:

• How children might express being connected

• Indicators adults use to interpret children’s connections to the neighborhood? (This accounts for adult filters)

• How we will know connectedness and what it looks like (Indicators)

• The nature of the child’s connection to the neighborhood

In generating these questions, the group identified several factors at play. First, there were, in fact, two perspectives: those related to children’s experiences and those related to adults’ noticing children’s expressions of their connection to the neighborhood. This distinction helped highlight the difference between “connecting” and “experiencing.” Finally, distinguishing between adults and children prompted consideration of age-related differences. The next version of the question reflected these distinctions.

Second version:  How do children of different ages experience their community?

Peering into the Question

The group shifted its attention to making finer distinctions. If differences in ages could affect children’s experience of community, the group agreed it was also possible that children may be connected to the community differently and they may not be connected to the neighborhood. Connection to the neighborhood was likely a function of children’s experience. The group wondered what knowledge children create about their neighborhood, and how do they construct it.

At this point in the conversation the group felt that the word community seemed to carry more complicated meanings than neighborhood, especially considering that AATN is a neighborhood learning program. This shift appeared in the next iteration of the question.

Third version:  How do children experience this (neighborhood) space?

Honing the Question

Consideration of children’s prior experiences, their agency, and the conditions for building connections to the neighborhood shaped the evolving question.

 

The group picked up earlier discussion about children having a range of prior experiences related to age, cultural group, school experience, etc. While AATN would be one way they could experience connection to the neighborhood, taking into account multiple prior experiences was important as was providing various ways for children to express their experiences.

With children as the subject of the question, there was a focus on the child’s experience; this, the group realized, also included the possibility that children might not have the experience adults intended. The research question, they agreed, should allow for this. Yet, the next version of the question actually reduced children’s agency when the group thought about experiences the camps might create for children that build or strengthen connections.

At this point the group wondered how children become connected to the neighborhood. Referring to the original set of questions, it identified 2 major pathways:

• Experiences leading–or not–to connectivity

• Children’s knowledge and competencies that build understanding of their neighborhood

Fourth version:  How does AATN allow children to experience the neighborhood?

Questions Inside of a Question

Critical elements of the research question became clearer in a set of sub-questions.

• What ideas do we have about children’s connections to the neighborhood?

• What constitutes connections?

• What details do children notice?

• How do they represent the details?

• What do we provide that facilitates their expression?

• How do they respond to each others' interests (Social connections)?

These questions helped draw the group’s attention to relatively small changes in wording that signified meaningful shifts in the next, and final, version: the child is the subject; building connections is an active, on-going process; “the” neighborhood became “their” neighborhood; and AATN’s role is identified.

Fifth version:  How are children of different ages and cultural groups building connections to their neighborhood through AATN?

 

The final three versions of the question

 Final Reflection

A final review of the question considered both content and language. A critical look at this version considered how it allowed for different starting points; acknowledged children as active learners; and accommodated variations in the pace of learning. The group also noted that it also created an opening for children creating knowledge about the connections they make which the research should capture.

• Each word in the question reveals something about our assumptions about children and ourselves 

• Bridges/barriers facilitate children making connections

• Recognition that AATN participants will look at the research question through different lenses

An iterative process of framing a question, discussing and reflecting on it, and recasting it moved through these 5 versions.

# 1: How do children become connected to the neighborhood?

#2: How do children of different ages experience their community?

#3: How do children experience this (neighborhood) space?

#4: How does AATN allow children to experience the neighborhood?

#5: How are children of different ages and cultural groups building connections to their neighborhood through AATN?

Thank you to the May 2005 group: Kelly Finnerty, Barb Murphy, Lani Shapiro, Patti Loftus, Sandy Burwell, Erik Skold, Jeanne Vergeront, Linda Melcher, Nan Kari

Reggio After Images

A striking idea; a persistent after image; connections engaging with multiple and foundational ideas. Together these are the first indication that a new idea has staying power.

Over the years Reggio educators and their pedagogy have been a source of provocative ideas. The museums group study tour this year was no exception. Ideas were presented and unfolded. Thought leader and wonderfully quotable Loris Malaguzzi was often cited. One month later, I am holding onto some ideas and some ideas are holding onto me. Those with the greatest staying power and that engage with projects, practice, and pedagogy are ones I will likely explore them in future blog posts.

1.     The social value of materials. The significant role of materials exploration in the Reggio schools is well known and well documented. Educators select materials for children to explore with their hands and imaginations, as tools, for their expressive potential and to make connections between languages. Less obvious is selecting a material for its social value, its capacity to build a sense of group or to encourage cooperation among children. Distinctions among materials may consider how they build the child’s familiarity, relationship, and confidence with the material. A material may also be selected because it enriches a child’s elaboration of their ideas and desire to share them with others. No doubt other carefully considered dimensions also help extend exploration and I have yet to discover them.

2.     Connections as learning. Clarity about learning through connections threads through Reggio pedagogy. Consistent with a constructivist learning perspective, decidedly interdisciplinary, and congruent with the interconnectedness of the world as we experience it, connections recognizes learning as actively engaging multiple senses, construction across different dimensions, and forging links between experiences and ideas. In this way, we actively build understandings of social and physical relationships operating in the world. Connections start where the learner is and go everywhere and anywhere. Neither limited by nor respecting subject matter boundaries, they follow interest, and encounter the unexpected.

3.     Prepared to follow. To be able to follow children’s explorations–with light, movement, air, or the city–the adult must be familiar with a wide range of concepts that children might explore in the classroom, the museum, outdoors. Thoughtful preparation acknowledges the child's significant capabilities and natural curiosity as well as opening the adult to the possibilities of the context, the project, the studio, the exhibit, the activity. The adult becomes a learner and researcher along with the child who is a ready learner. In the role of following, the adult extends children’s exploration; gets a sense of what is and isn’t happening; and activates, especially indirectly, the meaning-making competencies of children (Bruner).

4.     A helpful disruption to the play – learning connection. Calls for more play in the lives of children in the US, born of grave concern about the lack of play in their lives, come from many voices and sources. Appeals for more play often argue for its value by equating play and learning, linking it to more recognized public health issues like well-being or obesity, or elevating it to children’s work. Inadvertently, this undersells play by reinforcing unproductive dichotomies, suggesting that a simple equation (play=learning) can explain a rich and dense relationship, and concealing the very complexity of play that makes it valuable. Opening up the connections and pathways between play and learning and other important processes such as creativity help expand the idea of play, reveal the power within play and why it’s valued. Can we speak of playing without learning? Creativity without play? Play without stories and narratives?

5.     When a drawing is not a drawing. “Can you draw a picture of a …” is a question adults often ask a child. Because of the way it’s stated, it may convey a sense of expectation of the child; the child thinks the adult wants her to make a specific drawing–a chair that looks a certain way or that very tree out the window. Inviting a child to draw is not necessarily about the child drawing the object, the dog, the bike, or the shell. Rather, it may be about the child getting to know that object, seeing the shape, noticing how the petals of the flower touch, or attending to the spiral of the shell–and translating that knowledge into a drawing. A question posed or a request made frames the experience for the child. Will it be an experience of looking and thinking or an experience of guessing what the adult wants?

6.     Stakeholders in children’s learning. We often refer to a museum’s stakeholders: partners, supporters and friends, both individuals and groups, who are likely to affect or be affected by the museum. These are valuable relationships that can be even more valuable when they focus on what is of highest priority to a museum. Shifting the focus to children and, more specifically to their learning, applies a powerful new lens, invites additional considerations of current and new partners, and opens opportunities for increasing impact. Stakeholders in the museum might be interested in the foot traffic it generates for local businesses. Stakeholders in children’s learning, on the other hand, might be interested in engaging children’s ideas and giving visibility to their thinking. They might be interested in advancing these interests with the museum. Thinking about stakeholders in children’s learning might bring new partners to the table and allow the museum to set a different table.

7.     Aesthetics and ethics. The most intriguing and provocative idea of the study tour–and in a long time–was atelierista Vea Vecchi’s assertion of the “emphatic” relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Referencing poet Josef Brodsky’s statement, she placed this powerful connection in the culture of the atelier, the context of Reggio pedagogy, and the lives of children around the world. She further related aesthetics and ethics with struggling against indifference. She did not, however, explain the connections. In exploring how these apparently unlikely ideas might engage with one another, it seems that the aesthetic dimension keeps alive in us a search for beauty and an attitude of being attentive. What we attend to with a particular sensibility, we value: loveliness, harmony, nature, exchange with others, a sensibility in the moment. What we value, we care about and we care for. We are not indifferent to what we care about and what matters. How do you understand and imagine this relationship between aesthetics and ethics?

8.     “Imagine it before being asked to do it.” A comment shared by Tiziana Filipinni, pedagogista in the Reggio Schools in the first sessions has proven to be a Matryoshka doll with many and intriguing meanings. It is, certainly, advice to be alert and prepared across a range of situations. This includes bringing a pro-active stance to considering the long-term, strategic interests of a museum, a school, or a city: paying attention to the time and community we live in and updating our understanding of the present. An unusual vision of leadership is also carried within this statement. When we use our capacity to imagine what’s possible and what’s next, we are able to construct the future. Our “imagining it” puts us out in front to shape what comes next and allows us to bring others along, something the educators in Reggio seem to have been able to do over the last 60 years

Thanks very much to members of the Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota that came together on December 15 to hear about the study tour and discuss many of these ideas: Tami, Christy, Tom, Lani, Eileen, Michele, Alaina, Katie, Stephanie, Erica, and Andrea

 Reggio-related blog posts on Museum Notes:

• Journey to Reggio 

•  Seeing Children In the City  

• The Children of Reggio Welcome You 

• Documentation: From Reggio Schools to US Museums 

• Poetry and Precision and the Language of Reggio

• Reggio Study Tour and the Children’s Museum Field