Learning Journeys
Judith Julig 
Judith Julig is a retired early childhood teacher and parent educator. She worked with young children and their families in many different settings for more than 40 years. A highlight of her career was working with other teachers and mentors learning and practicing the Reggio Emilia Approach. 

After serving as a literacy coach in an urban public school district for a number of years, I returned to a Pre-K classroom in the same district with great anticipation. I recalled my visits to two Reggio-inspired colleagues’ spaces, which contained rich layers of documentation, communicating the children’s interests and studies. I noticed evidence of reflective practice with the team and connections to the children’s lives at home. I recognized a level of teaching in their work that I had never achieved, but strongly aspired to.  

The children and I came together with shared anxiety. They were all new to school, very few spoke much English and I knew little of their languages. They were very brave, and I also had to be very brave. I soon learned that most of the limitations were my own because these children were eager and curious learners. I had to readjust my way of “being” in the classroom. 

The meaning behind “100 Languages of Children” began to make sense to me as I paid greater attention to the varied ways the children communicated with me and with each other. This was more challenging than I thought it would be. It had been easier to set up simple “arts and crafts,” send them home at the end of the day and then start all over the next day. I soon realized that without making their work visible and revisiting it, something was lacking. 

We learned together. I began inviting the children to regroup and revisit their day’s work by sharing it with their classmates and making plans to revisit it the next day. They learned that what they did was important, that their work was safe at school and that we needed it for continued study.  

My growth and understanding as a teacher paralleled the growth and understanding of the children. I learned that I had to carefully “listen” to the mélange of activity within the room. There are always many stories a teacher can choose to tell. To support the context for learning, I encouraged social interaction, provided fresh “raw materials” as provocation and privileged particular work in order to elicit questions and sustain interest.

A study of owls and birds in our neighborhoods emerged from reading the book, Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. It became a pivotal spot in my growth as a “listening” teacher and documenter of children’s learning. The book makes clearly visible the worries of child-parent separation. The children were drawn in by the story, enjoyed repeated readings, participated in the refrains and showed great interest when invited to draw owl babies. 

We could have stopped there. I could have sent the drawings home and chosen a new book for the following week. But, the children had questions and this was the point at which I started paying more attention to their voices and ideas. 

What could I do with this interest? A child asked, “What kind of food does she bring back?” I said, “We can find out.” I brought back an armful of books about owls. The children were fascinated by pictures of an owl with a fish or mouse in its talons.

In a meeting with Reggio-inspired colleagues, we studied the traces we collected, considering what we might offer back to the children to ignite deeper engagement. Questions about practice emerged: How do we “regroup to revisit?” How do we connect a child to their first effort to elicit more detail? In what ways do we draw the attention of other children into this process? I returned to the classroom with renewed interest and courage to attempt more with the children. 

The children and I began to create a documentation panel of our work. They used a variety of two and three-dimensional media to express what they were learning about owls and other birds. 

The children began to select work and requested tape to attach additions to the growing documentation. Their drawings became more detailed as the children studied real owls and their habitat. With encouragement, they wrote about their ideas and a vocabulary about owls emerged. As their vocabulary grew, so grew my skills as a documenter and transcriber of children’s thinking.

I came to realize that the standards that I was accountable to teach were met, and often exceeded, as a result of this rich, engaging collaboration between and among the children, the adults and the materials. 

I noticed the children spontaneously talking about owls and other birds, and I wondered how to capitalize on their responses. A colleague, in an email exchange, suggested ways I could scaffold the conversations by offering questions like, “Have you seen owls?” or “Do owls live by this park or by the pond?” 

In the exchange of emails and reflections with colleagues that emerged from studying the children’s work, we also considered the children’s parents. What role can the parents play? How do you draw the parents’ voices in? What do you send home with the children to entice these voices? How might we encourage a reciprocal exchange? I recalled the daily pages that other Reggio-inspired teachers sent home and realized that I had not yet made many family connections. 

Early on, to connect with parents, I sent home book bags. During spring conferences, I added the children’s work about owls and birds, some images and transcribed conversations. I also sent a note asking families to look for birds in their neighborhood and to draw and write with their child about what they saw. This work from home became part of our study.

Again, I asked, “Where can we go from here?” and colleagues suggested slowing down, examining ways to “enrich the terrain” to deepen or extend the children’s work. The public library became a resource, including their urban birding activity. 

The trajectory of this work began with the intimate and ended with the public – from the intensity of parent/child separation (described in the book, Owl Babies), to owls in general, then on to other birds, to wildlife in our neighborhood and finally, urban birding. 

As I reflect on this experience, I can see the emergent process that came out of working with trust and curiosity at the heart. I offered more “languages,” saw potential beyond isolated activities, trusted the children, conferred with colleagues along the way and welcomed family input. The result was a much deeper and more coherent experience for the children and enormously satisfying for me as an educator. I was able to make a deeper connection for the children to the place they now live.