Getting to Belonging, Part 3: Navigating Participation and Evolving Perspectives
Rie Gilsdorf and Christy Spencer
Rie Algeo Gilsdorf, MS, MA, has broad experience as a principal, arts administrator, instructional coach, teacher of science and dance and parent in many settings, including the Reggio-inspired programs of Portland’s Opal School and The Blake School in Minneapolis. Rie is a past Board Co-Chair and Civic Engagement Committee Chair of the Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota and current member of its Resource Development Committee. She now provides racial equity seminars, coaching and consulting through Embody Equity (www.EmbodyEquity.com).
Christy Spencer, MA is inspired by children’s curiosities and perspectives, and roots her practices in relationships, deep listening, designing dynamic learning environments, observation and pedagogical documentation. Christy has worked in various Reggio-inspired contexts, including The Blake School, Boulder Journey School and the Minnesota Children’s Museum. She has been a RINM Board and committee member. Current professional interests include mindfulness practices, anti-racist theory, neuroscience around empathy and children’s rights.
Previously in Getting to Belonging, we’ve looked at embracing ambiguity (Part 1), dispelling ideas of developmental appropriateness, and taking on new mindsets and practices (Part 2) in order to welcome negotiated curriculum, discourse, and a view of the teacher as researcher. With these in place several other Reggio-inspired principles surface, each facilitating the next: (1) participation and pedagogy of listening and (2) group construction and multiple perspectives. These, too, are tools of designing for belonging. At the end of this article, we will highlight how these interact with each other to cultivate belonging.
Participation & Pedagogy of Listening
Equal Participation is a value statement that tends to float in the aspirational realm. Negotiated curriculum can actualize equitable participation in the here and now by facilitating and valuing participation of all stakeholders. Kelsey Blackwell (2018) argues for creating intentional ‘architectures of conversation’ to disrupt unequal participation perpetuated by the dominant discourse. She views this discourse as “the water in which we all swim. No one is immune. Those values dictate who speaks, how loud, when, the words we use, what we don’t say, what is ignored, who is validated and who is not.” By making everyone’s participation visible, a negotiated curriculum opens the possibility of a new architecture of communication.
Following the design steps Open Mind, Open Heart and Open Will, the next move is Co-creating. When co-creating we explore the future by doing, remaining open to feedback and reflecting on what’s working and not. This learn-by-doing process is also called prototyping. Reggio-inspired teaching includes a similar responsiveness between provocations and dialogue, as well as observation and documentation of the unfolding process. Engaging in the documentation process provides adults with feedback and opportunities for reflection that are necessary for co-creating. “The most ‘design malpractice’ happens when people are acting but not reflecting,” (Montoya, 2022). Reflection is an active choice that keeps us out of habitual thought and action.
The co-creating design step requires letting go of the role of the expert with a voice of certainty. In designing for belonging, it can be tempting to try to actualize idealistic value statements in one grand gesture. In reality, change is iterative and generative. Prototyping the smallest practical ideas will produce the clearest insights to inform next steps. We never ‘arrive,’ instead we inhabit a state of ‘perpetual beta.’ Certainty is a facade distracting us from acknowledging the complexity that is a constant in every context, including race and culture.
Children operate in perpetual beta. We expect conversations and encounters to be revisited as they acquire more information or experience additional interactions. Children will grapple with misconceptions and partial knowledge as they construct a coherent understanding. Our role is to hold space for children to return again and again to scaffold their learning. As adults we also must extend ourselves the same courtesy. When caught off guard by children’s expressions about race we may falter in the way we respond; however, we also have the opportunity to revisit and ‘repair’ those conversations with children (Haulcy, 2023). Like the learning process itself, the race conversation is iterative and generative.
In addition to their ideas, children’s vocabulary is in perpetual beta. They don’t yet have an adult vocabulary and we may misinterpret what they are trying to express. A pedagogy of listening grants a reflective pause to consider the child’s context before responding. In practice, we must choose to listen to the words and beyond the words to the emotional content and patterns of lived experience. This allows for reflective discourse, rather than projecting adult meanings onto children's words.
Group Construction & Multiple Perspectives
As adults model this deep, reflective discourse, children learn to construct meaning as a group. In a climate of group construction, children feel agency and enhance their capacity to listen and weigh ideas. The standard power dynamic of adult-as-expert is disrupted and children are more inclined to express their thinking. An atmosphere of ‘perpetual beta’ supports divergent thinking. By contrast, environments where a singular ‘correct’ way of thinking is implied engender cynicism in children. Why express ideas when there’s only one that’s right? Current societal shifts, including shifts in public discourse about race, bring us to a place of uncertainty. In Design for Belonging, Susie Wise highlights the example of group construction by reflecting back to constituents that “their inquiries mattered and they were indeed participating in a civic process,” (2022).
Group construction of meaning requires us to hold and value multiple perspectives. This applies to both children and adults and is embedded in the definition of the Reggio collective design process, progettazione. When participants have equitable but distinct roles, a rich array of results are apt to arise, honoring their individuality within the collective. As in the folktale of the blind people and the elephant, no individual perspective is complete, yet all provide important insights.
Because human systems are dynamic, we now employ the final design step of Co-evolving. In this step, constituents create flexible infrastructure that adapts to an ever-evolving context. This requires letting go of the voice of certainty (Scharmer, 2018a). The educators of Reggio Emilia refer to their schools as an ‘an evolving educational project.’ Their infrastructure is a set of principles that are not prescriptive, but rather promote nimbleness. As a result, the educational project of Reggio has adapted in response to societal shifts as they arise, beginning at its inception in the aftermath of World War II. Leaning on the flexible infrastructure of the Reggio principles positions us to co-evolve.
Belonging via Broader Consciousness
In addition to providing a flexible infrastructure, the Reggio-inspired principles that we have outlined are cumulative. While there is benefit to practicing even a single principle, the impact is multiplied by their synergy.
Further, just as understanding each of these Reggio principles helps us navigate the complexity of the whole, understanding multiple perspectives helps us navigate the complexity of human systems and leads us to develop a broader racial consciousness. A narrow consciousness may persist in both children and adults unless we become more aware of others. Broader consciousness disrupts habitual patterns of attention, increasing the capacity to notice patterns of interaction, contribution and flow. Design thinking provides a road map to belonging: when we listen deeply to all constituents, we can be confident enough to take the small next steps to prototype inclusivity, knowing that they are not the end point. We must continue to listen and adapt, both individually and programatically. In essence, to cultivate communities of belonging for adults and children “means creating a learning environment in which the learner can step into his or her highest future potential in the context of hands-on societal challenges,” (Scharmer, 2018b).
Drawing from the Reggio and design thinking concepts we’ve discussed in Parts 1, 2 and 3, in Part 4 we will continue with the idea of ‘getting to belonging’ by focusing on practice. What might ‘getting to belonging’ look or sound like in adult conversations when talking with young children about race.
Resources
Blackwell, Kelsey. (2018). “Why people of color need spaces without white people.” The Arrow Journal. https://arrow-journal.org/why-people-of-color-need-spaces-without-white-people/
Haulcy, Diane. (2023). “White Parents Navigating Anti-Racist Parenting in Minneapolis.” Early Risers Podcast. https://www.mpr.org/episodes/2023/03/22/white-parents-navigating-antiracist-parenting-in-minneapolis Accessed 8/17/23.
Montoya, Louie, quoted in Andrea Small and Kelly Schmutte. (2022). Navigating Ambiguity: Creating Opportunity in a World of Unknowns. Stanford d.school guide. Ten Speed Press.
Scharmer, Otto. (2018a). The Essentials of Theory U: Core Principles and Applications. BK, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., a BK Business Book.
Scharmer, Otto. (2018b). “Education is the kindling of a flame: How to reinvent the 21st-century university.” Huff Post, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/education-is-the-kindling-of-a-flame-how-to-reinvent_b_5a4ffec5e4b0ee59d41c0a9f Accessed 8/17/23
Wise, Susie. (2022). Design for Belonging: How to Build Inclusion and Collaboration in Your Communities. Stanford d.school guide. Ten Speed Press.
