Originally Posted in “Museum Notes” June 2018

Jeanne Vergeront is a museum planner interested in helping to move museums forward as they start up, expand, reinvent themselves, or deepen their impact. Museum planning intersects with professional practices, organizational processes, and planning approaches to engage visitors, make museums stronger, and increase community vitality. Jeanne has been an advisor and friend of the Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota since its inception and is director at Vergeront Museum Planning in Minneapolis.

Loose parts, or at least the term, has captured attention and imaginations in museums, early childhood centers, libraries, nature centers, parks, and playgrounds. The assorted, moveable, and found materials and objects that spark, enrich, and extend children’s play and imaginations can be almost anything: feathers, pinecones, corks, bricks, shells, spools, or sticks.

In a world where increasingly little is left to chance in childhood and play, loose parts are wonderfully unscripted. These uncategorizable pieces and parts come with no specific directions for what they are or what children might do with them. Tucked into pockets, resting as a sedimentary layer in the bottoms of backpacks, clutched in small hands, or reverentially collected at the shore, children find, pick up, and carry treasured objects. They combine, line up, take apart, exchange, and rearrange loose parts in countless ways. In their play, children are writing the operations manual for shells, a cache of pinecones, bottle caps, or buttons with their play and imagination.

Loose parts, however, are not just stuff, junk, or a jumble of pieces and parts no one else wants or can use. To be sure, there are treasures in discards and by-products of households, industry, and nature. But since children explore the rich possibilities of these objects, meaningful exploration relies on thoughtful selection of materials. Thinking with their hands, bodies, minds, and imaginations, they observe, ask questions, and have ideas. They arrange and change objects, their settings, or even themselves. These explorations and creations are beautiful, but they're not necessarily art.

When children build, collage, or trade objects, they are comparing, sequencing, and seriating. They are exploring and valuing color, size, shape, and materials. As they lift, move, and occasionally drop glass pebbles, marker caps, or paper clips, they are discovering the properties of glass, plastic, and metal. In building with tubes and discs, they deal with balance and stability, use spatial reasoning, and solve problems three-dimensionally. New words about shapes, texture, designs, and structures are essential to describing how the fabric feels, the certain flat blue disc that is needed, or the delight a child is feeling.

The value, however, is not in working with specific concepts, but in the curiosity, agency, imagination, and knowing the world that these materials afford.

We might think that only young children are inclined to explore possibilities and make discoveries with loose parts. In fact, regardless of age, exploring materials not only changes the material, but changes the way we see materials. Anyone with limited experience to freely follow their curiosity and ideas about interesting materials and loose parts–and to do so often–will engage in similar ways. As children of every background have fewer experiences of messing around with “stuff” from the basement workbench, sewing drawer, or the town dump, they have less fluency with materials, objects, and their own vocabulary of materiality.

What Makes Good Loose Parts? There are many objects that can be gathered for exploring in a classroom, an exhibit, home, under the bushes, or at the playground. Are all loose parts equal? What makes the difference between materials that foster meaningful, extended engagement and ones that fail or minimally engage children’s delight, imaginations, and experience?

As Without Windows blogger Misha asks, why not just shop at the dollar store? Cheaper materials do save money. But, he argues, their low cost is at the expense of child labor somewhere else. Why not make loose parts from scrap lumber? The measuring, cutting, and sanding are time consuming. Keva Planks/Kapla Blocks probably do it better with greater precision. Besides, loose parts are more than blocks.

Why not use toys or commercial play objects as loose parts? Usually these are single purpose play objects. Once a child has mastered the key function—pushing the button to make a pinwheel spin—the child is ready for more. Due to their cost, these objects are seldom in great enough quantities to combine in novel ways. Ultimately, however, when children use designed toys, even very well designed ones, they become consumers of someone else’s creativity. With loose parts, children exercise their own. Loose parts, especially natural loose parts, change with time and use. They acquire a patina, reveal something new about their nature; they decay.

Rich in Possibilities

While dollar store items and commercial toys may be loose and moveable, they lack other vital qualities that imbue loose parts with powers of attraction, fascination, exploration, and discovery. They are open-ended, beautiful, and plentiful.

As Antoinette Portis’ book, Not a Stick assures us, a stick is no single thing in children’s play. It is not scripted; it can be a wand, a baton, a fishing rod, or a snake—or combinations. Like other open-ended materials, it is responsive to children's questions, interests, and ideas and capable of changing use or meaning in a flash. Often an object’s very simplicity or its ambiguity lend versatility and provoke new ideas. Small tree cookies, for instance, are variously stacked into a tower, used for money, become stepping stones, or are incorporated into a design–all in quick succession.

Features like shape, color, texture, and smell make loose parts even more interesting, suggesting new paths to explore. A child may gather all the red objects or all those that sparkle; arrange keys in a radial pattern and then end-to-end in a train; set pine cones on end to create a forest and arrange them in a spiral. Loose parts sized for small hands allow children to pick up easily, bring close for careful visual inspection, and arrange in many ways. Adding paper and markers to the mix can further extend the exploration and thinking.

Beauty

While saying that beautiful loose parts are more engaging than “ugly” ones may seem obvious, deciding what makes some beautiful is not. In the eye of the beholder will always be at work, but some qualities tend to make loose parts intriguing, attractive, and promising, if not, in fact, beautiful.

When all of an object’s qualities are not immediately apparent, an object can become more extraordinary. Up close, tiny sparkles in the stones are apparent, as is the fringe of the Burr Oak acorn caps. The crack in the stone looks like a bird. Objects that are similar but not identical are intriguing; natural variations in color, pattern, shape, carry information, reveal the diversity in nature and invite new language.

 

Ordinary objects and materials also become more fascinating when combined, mixed, and set in different contexts. Light interacting with objects shines through, reflects off of them, and casts shadows. Adding mirrors multiplies objects. Water splashed on objects intensifies colors and makes them shiny. Combining ordinary objects points to new possibilities: shells arranged on an oval mat creating a mandala; sticks alternating with stones in a giant running pattern; a giant star defined by sticks filled with colored leaves; or multi-colored glass beads pressed into a large disk of clay.

Ideas about what is beautiful may be particular to the context. In a nature preschool, for instance, natural and local materials might be a high priority. Without Windows blogger, Misha, is particularly interested in “loose parts from the earth” that “can be disposed of in the earth.” Tree cookies, sand, rocks, and acorns might be valued over cardboard and buttons.

At the same time, manufactured discards and by-products can be compelling when carefully selected. Clear plastic colored shapes, especially when placed on a light table, or multi-colored plastic caps in great quantities can inspire designs, patterns, narratives, and self-portraits. Discarded objects like tubes, reels, and gaskets in similar shapes and sizes, and deliberately selected in only black and white invite exploration of shape without the distraction of other colors.

Abundance

As important as open-ended and beautiful materials are, seeing objects in great abundance jolts us out of our usual mindset. Perceptions of the object itself and what it can do change. Seemingly ordinary objects like buttons, brushes, cardboard tubes, or rubber bands suddenly seem remarkable. The abundance of objects feels contagious, infecting us with a sense of expanding possibilities. Vast quantities seem to confer permission to explore freely, take risks, make mistakes, and start again.

When time is also in abundance–when there is time to look closely at each pebble, feel and compare them, arrange them just so, and rearrange them again–then the possibilities for thinking and creating that loose parts offer also expand.

Reprinted from: https://museumnotes.blogspot.com/2022/07/there-are-loose-parts-and-then-there.html

From the early 2000s, Roberta has held workshops and courses about the creative use of artistic, natural and recycled materials, especially for educators and teachers, collaborating with social cooperatives. She then spent seven years working as an atelierista in a Reggio-inspired preschool, in addition to one year at the Loris Malaguzzi Center of Reggio Emilia, with study groups from all over the world. Currently, she works primarily as a consultant for personal and professional growth.

How does one find the right balance between rules and freedom, in order to support the creative process?

The image above is part of a 100 x 70 cm composition made by three five-year-old children with some loose parts. How do you think the creation process developed? What was the proposal (if any) and the role of the adult? First of all, consider it was the last of a series of atelier sessions dedicated to these materials.

This is quite significant, since the first time children meet a new material, they like to freely explore it for a long enough time, to know its potential and limits. So it’s better to postpone more specific proposals. But let’s start from the beginning.

I would have liked to offer an experience with loose parts – small pieces of plastic, metal, wood, cardboard, buttons, stoppers, scraps from industrial and artisan processing – all collected in various containers. But how to present them? As a completely free exploration? I could imagine how inebriating the wealth and multiplicity could become, a confusing jumble in a few seconds... So how to “contain” children’s activity and stimulate a rich personal research at the same time?

My solution was a kind of game with a few simple rules: a small group of children at a time, the materials neatly arranged on a table. Every child had a small container which they could use to “shop” for their chosen materials. On other tables, there were white cardboard bases, where children “played” with their materials.

Once the game (and the composition on the cardboard) was finished, the children could optionally take a picture of the final composition and give it a title. Then they put all the used materials back into their personal container and divided them in the different respective containers. At this point, children could start the process again and again.

Another solution I tried is putting all the containers in the center of a large table, where the children could take the materials they needed from time to time. Maybe it was my need of order... Anyway, it worked. The rules were gladly accepted as part of a game and allowed children to manage themselves independently, respecting individual times. Even the final step of “destruction” of the work was “naturally” welcomed by children, immersed in a fast and intense research, without needing to “hold” a result. A demonstration of how the “attachment” to the product is more frequent in adults than children.

As the children liked it very much, we repeated the same activity several times and I gradually introduced some variants, for example cardboard bases of different formats or a selection of a certain range of materials (according to tactile, chromatic or other criteria). Some variations were stimulating for children, others were not. So I chose the next variant observing children’s responses. It was also interesting to observe how different materials influenced the composition and, at the same time, how the personal style of each child was recognizable through the diversity of materials: personal style and material characteristics are elements that are always intertwined in every work.

As a last step, I proposed a group work: three children at a time, on a large format of 100 X 70 cm. Of course I knew that the format was too big to be “controlled” and organized with a shared project a priority. So I invited the children to start individually, from the side they preferred. Then each group followed a process that organically unfolded, bringing the various contributions together. Inspired by the forms that were gradually created and by some questions of mine, children gradually connected the three parts, both aesthetically and narratively. In this case, I proposed to fix the final composition on the sheet with glue, as a tangible conclusion of a long process and enhancement of a collective work. Product and process are both important: it’s up to us to understand when it’s time to focus on one rather than the other.

Every game has its own rules, which are willingly accepted by those who freely choose to play. Sometimes the rules “allow,” sometimes they “limit,” as well as total freedom can be an obstacle or an impetus for the creative process. There are no solutions that are always good. Each time we have to look for the right balance, taking into account the context and the objectives. It is a flexible dance between two necessary opposites. Listening empathically to children can help us be attuned to their rhythm.

Reprinted from: https://www.robertapuccilab.com/the-grammar-of-matter/playing-with-unstructured-materials/ Look here for more articles from the Roberta Pucci Lab:http://www.robertapuccilab.com

The North America Reggio Emilia Alliance publication, Innovations, asked Lani Shapiro to write about the Network’s Open Book Study, in particular The Wonder of Learning. The piece that follows was first published in the Summer 2022 issue of Innovations. Lani Shapiro serves on the Network’s Board, Communications Committee and is the editor of this quarterly newsletter.

The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children

By Vea Vecchi, Ilaria Cavallini, Tiziana Filippini, and Lorella Trancossi, Eds. Translation by Jane McCall

The Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota’s (RINM) “Open Book Study” participants have gathered on the third Sunday of every month for 15 years to engage in an ongoing conversation about Reggio-inspired publications. A flexible and ever-changing group, we arrive as individuals with diverse perspectives—parents, students, teachers, administrators, and citizens—who work or learn in varying contexts, in homes, preschools and childcare centers, schools, graduate schools, clinics, and civic institutions. We have met at coffee shops, and we have convened more recently via Zoom and consequently assembled participants from both near and far with numbers ranging from two to 15. Each meeting we form a flexible learning collaborative without a fixed destination with the intention of cultivating a context that can welcome uncertainty, diversity, and complexity. We have become a learning group. This learning together in groups is highlighted in the following quote from Wonder of Learning: The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition catalog:

Learning in groups which provide a space for argumentation – for sharing interpretations, emotions and reflection - creates favourable conditions for subjective learning; acquisition of content; and awareness of ways of learning: a capacity for understanding that “viewpoint” has a pluralist nature. Learning in groups gives rise to social forms of knowing and knowledge which are essential to an idea of citizenship for the world today and the world tomorrow. (Pedagogical Co-coordination of Preschool and Infant-toddler Centres – Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, 2011, p. 15)

Our goal has never been to “finish” our texts. Instead, our intention has been to practice working with Reggio values and dispositions. We listen carefully to one another, examine content, read closely, formulate questions, wonder, and speculate about what is included or excluded while

examining the structural details of the text. We read methodically, never more than one chapter per month. Sometimes we repeat a chapter if we don't feel finished. This has afforded us an opportunity to grow our capacity to listen generously and practice building knowledge together in an environment that welcomes “roomy ideas.”

We have explicitly discussed ways we approach a text: How will we work with each other? Where do we start? What do we notice about the structure of the text (table of contents, bibliography, graphical details)? We ask each other: What stood out for you? What questions are you holding? We probe: What do you want to understand better? What is it about this selection that is salient for you? We bring our attention to the specific page, passage, or image of interest. Then we can explore: How does this inform our work? How do you consider these provocations in light of your own context? In a discussion with Carolyn Edwards (2015), John Nimmo, Loris Malaguzzi, and Vea Vecchi, Tiziana Filippini illustrates the importance of educators thinking and asking questions together:

Yes, the important thing is not just to hear diverse points of view, but instead to go so far with the discussion that it is clear that each person has taken something in and moved in his or her thinking, as a result of what has been heard. (p. 19)

Book study participants have asked and noted:
“What does the text mean? How does it relate to our own context?”
“How do we put these ideas into practice?”
“The pedagogues of Reggio Emilia think about how children think and think about their own thinking.”
“Book study transformed how I read and how I view my practice as an educator. I find myself reflecting even more deeply about my practice. I changed from thinking how I can make an activity better to how I can create conditions that will help me see children’s thinking processes.”

Over the last 2 1⁄2 years, following a RINM-organized trip to Madison, Wisconsin to visit The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children exhibit, the RINM’s book study immersed itself in the exhibit’s catalog, The Wonder of Learning: The Hundred Languages of Children. This volume, published in 2011 by Reggio Children, is a lively synthesis and distillation of experiences, representations, interpretations, and re-interpretations from the infant-toddler centers and preschools of Reggio Emilia. This book, like other Reggio Children publications that derive from an exhibit, is characterized by captivating glossy images and poetic narratives of the children and their theories. The publication speaks in the languages of graphics, images, photography, and text. The chapters are brief, generously illustrated excerpts that highlight children’s thinking, drawings, and constructions that represent a distillation of previous work, re-considered and re-written. The delightful work of the children is bookended by essays that introduce the exhibit, the catalog, the principles of the work, the collaborative working journey, and the historical context.

Readers may be tempted to leap into the visual story of the children’s experiences in volumes laden with imagery. However, to overlook the essays and narrative is to read only half the book. Our book study tradition is to read and discuss the book cover to cover, mining the insights and perspectives of various contributors beginning with the introductions. The voices that precede the visual narrative in The Wonder of Learning catalog include Graziano Delrio, the mayor of Reggio Emilia from 2004–2014, Jerome Bruner, and Howard Gardner. As noted, we go slowly, considering and mulling over each point of view. In subsequent meetings, we delved into the stories of the children’s work. We were surprised and curious about the children’s observations and their use of metaphors and creative interpretations. We were both impressed and intimidated, asking, “How does this work happen?” We find the answers to our wonderings within the text, images, narrative and especially the reflections of the educators.

A deceptively straightforward declaration by the pedagogical team highlights principles that underpin the Reggio Emilia educational project and are reflected in the exhibit and essential to the text. Each section is introduced with a brief narrative that identifies the rationale for the “big idea” of the section and the specific projects selected to represent children’s nuanced relationship to place, materials, light, and mark-making. This way of working highlights educators’ decision-making nodes and illuminates their thinking, resulting in a map of the unfolding project. This provides a privileged window into the thinking of the Reggio educators as they initiated a project, maintained momentum, and searched for clues to relaunch the work. It’s all there!

For example, in the section of the book titled “Dialogues with Places,” the educators declare their assumptions and rationale. They wanted to better understand how children approach a place and the processes children use to build relationships with that space. Introducing the section, educators make their ways of working visible. They chose a place, the yet-to-be completed Loris Malaguzzi International Center, placed themselves (as adults) in dialogue with its sensory aspects and, after that, invited the children “to think of a gift which would please them and please the place” (Vecchi et al., 2011, p. 19).Then they identify their process, summarized in the following steps:

• Educators visit the building (to experience the context).

• Invite children’s thinking about “listening” to a place (What does it mean to listen?).

• Take small groups to visit the center and suggest the children look, draw, photograph, and then choose a particular detail they find interesting that could receive a “gift.”

• Children’s work proceeds. Each group has a unique encounter with the unfinished space and creates a gift through their work.

• Educators meet, consider the work generated, and relaunch.

• Educators reflect and refine their documentation tools, interweaving visual and written traces.
  
• Educators select projects that highlight children’s recurring strategies: physical movement, sensory input, attention to detail, creating stories, and games.

Through dialogue, we grappled with this behind-the-curtain view of the structures and processes that support project work in Reggio Emilia. Examining these details together gave us a map or a compass to make sense of the results.

We began to contest the common understanding that Reggio-inspired work always follows the child’s lead. The educators explicitly made proposals to the children. They identified possibilities worth pursuing, listened generously to the children’s responses, and then supported their thinking. With these insights, we inquired about our own processes: What essential understanding informs our proposed projects? What do we need to understand to be useful to the children’s investigation? What essential knowledge, understanding, or experience precedes our work with the children? What are we, as educators, interested in understanding? We noticed that the children’s questions and the educators’ inquiry are not always the same.

The animating force and foundation for everything we have read is daily documentation, without which there would be no small traces to reflect upon, no projects to share with families, no exhibits to share with the community, and no books for international readers. The reflective process of the educators, as authors, invites us, as readers, to revisit, rethink, and reconsider. This results in a refractory reading with angles that reveal many possibilities, not just one. This reminds each book study participant to capture small traces and use them to reflect, not to prove a single story but to make space for many perspectives.

As I write this, we are nearing the end of The Wonder of Learning catalog, a journey that pre-dated Covid-19. Some of the other books we have studied to date include Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners; The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation; Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care: Postmodern Perspectives; Dialogues with Places; Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the Role and Potential of Ateliers in Early Childhood Education; The Diary of Laura; Children, Art, Artists: The Expressive Languages of Children, The Artistic Language of Alberto Burri; and In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, Researching and Learning. We have decided our next text will be the Digital Educational Toolbox, which includes readings and videos from Reggio Children.

At first glance, a book study is a modest undertaking. However, within this small time and space, we continue to learn together and practice skills and dispositions fundamental to the Reggio Emilia Approach: deep listening, reflection, and collaboration. In “Open Book Study,” we transform ourselves into a learning community as we engage in the pleasure of dialogue, debate, and inquiry.

Now retired, Lani Shapiro was an early childhood educator teaching both typical and special rights children and their adults (parents and teachers) in public settings for more than 40 years. She is a founding member of the Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota (RINM), a current RINM board member, editor of its quarterly newsletter, and facilitator of the “Open Book Study” since the inception of this initiative in 2007. Lani is particularly interested in the democratic aspects of the Reggio Emilia educational project.

References
Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (1999). Beyond quality in early childhood education and

care: Postmodern perspectives. Falmer Press.
Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (Eds.). (2012). The hundred languages of children: The

Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd ed.). Praeger.

Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Nimmo, J. (Eds.). (2015). Loris Malaguzzi and the teachers: Dialogues on collaboration and conflict among children, Reggio Emilia 1990. Zea Books.

Edwards, C., & Rinaldi, C. (Eds.). 2009. The diary of Laura: Perspectives on a Reggio Emilia diary. Redleaf Press.

Filippini, T., Giudici, C., & Vecchi, V. (Eds.). Dialogues with places. Reggio Children. Giudici, C., Rinaldi, C., & Krechevsky, M. (Eds.). (2001). Making learning visible: Children as individual and group learners. Project Zero; Reggio Children.

Pedagogical Co-coordination of Preschool and Infant-toddler Centres – Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. (2011). The theses of the exhibition: The wonder of learning. In V. Vecchi, I. Cavallini, T. Filippini, & L. Trancossi (Eds.), The wonder of learning: The hundred languages of children, pp. 14–15. Reggio Children.

Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. Routledge.

Vecchi, V. (2010). Art and creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. Routledge.

Vecchi, V., Cavallini, I., Filippini, T., & Trancossi, L. (Eds.). (2011). The wonder of learning: The hundred languages of children. Reggio Children.

Vecchi, V., & Giudici, C. (Eds.). (2004). Children, art, artists: The expressive languages of children, The artistic language of Alberto Burri. Reggio Children.

Every material has got a set of specific characteristics and qualities resulting from its nature, that defines its limits and potential as well as its range of possible transformations, reversible or not. It is what I call a kind of “natural grammar”, meaning some inner rules that can be empirically investigated. How? Observing and transforming the material with a friendly approach, remaining attuned to its nature, with the curiosity and discretion of a guest. If we do not want to impose a shape but are in a respectful interaction, the material itself will suggest us what to do. Take for example a sheet of paper.

Just taking it in your hands, you immediately understand it can can be rolled or folded. But how many ways? The exploration of this simple action opens up a world of variations: different dimensions, inclinations, proportions, forms of the starting sheet, and so on. Could we have imagined all these possibilities without a thorough investigation? Likewise, many other actions can develop (rubbing, piercing, cutting, rolling, wetting …) and be combined. The richer this inventory will become, the more possibilities you will have available to creatively transform the material.

continue reading Roberta's piece on The Grammar of Matter

Reflection of an Experience
Rie Gisldorf
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.

During the Network’s End-of-Year Celebration/Annual Meeting, I led a social arts activity called 3-D Mapping. This is a methodology for adults that is deeply aligned with Reggio-inspired practice in its collaborative, emergent practice, its inclusion of the community as researchers and its use of multiple languages of thought and learning. Over the course of the evening, a dozen people stopped by to consider how to represent the current state of Early Childhood Education in Minnesota as seen from their unique perspective. We are interested not only in perceptions of the system as a whole, but also in how the Reggio-Inspired Network specifically fits into it.

3-D Mapping comes out of the systems thinking lineage of Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer and others at the MIT Center for Organizational Change, now a separate organization called the Presencing Institute. Senge’s work, in turn, comes out of Kurt Lewin’s writings on Action Research. Interestingly, our consciousness of a system and our ability to change it are interrelated. Here’s the evolution of the ideas:

• You cannot understand a system unless you try to change it - K​urt Lewin
• You cannot change a system unless you transform consciousness - ​Peter Senge
• You cannot transform consciousness unless you make a system see and sense itself - ​Otto Scharmer
• You cannot make a system see and sense itself until you see and sense yourself as part of the system - ​Ubiraci Pataxó

3-D Mapping is a process for increasing our awareness of our system, part of an “Awareness-Based Systems Change” approach.. Notice that in addition to thinking about a system, 3-D Mapping invites members of the system to sense into it by using the aesthetic language of found objects placed into a collage. The meeting venue of Belle’s ToolBox, which houses the Network’s Loose Parts Laboratory Materials Center, provided a rich source of small objects to use. I collected a basket of items and placed them around the edges of a card table, then invited people to place them on a sheet of paper representing our system. As they placed their objects, I jotted down their words on post-its and placed them in a corresponding spot on a sign that invited people to participate.

Participants were curious but a bit shy at first – how could their experience in one corner of the system inform the whole? Interestingly, as more objects and quotes were placed, people resonated with others’ experiences and were stimulated to add their own ideas. Also, the languages of the process, both visual and tactile, added to the play of the ideas. For example, the first pair of people approached the table and talked about how their program, a center housed in a larger organization, experienced both synergies and misunderstandings with the wider community. They noticed a couple of puzzle pieces, first placing them near each other, then trying to fit them together. They giggled at their first attempt, which seemed to fit, but on closer inspection, the words didn’t line up correctly. “Exactly! The communication is off!” they said.

  

Then one of them said, “Wait, or do they actually fit? Like this?” She turned the pieces and, voila, the words, “Thank You” appeared.

But, after considering it for a moment, they eventually decided to place the two pieces in proximity to each other, but not touching. It was important for them to have seen that the pieces could fit, but weren’t currently connected. The process itself had not simply allowed them to express their thoughts, but had in fact furthered their thinking. Starting from an initial complaint, they had come up with a more nuanced understanding. Their final quote: “Community Relationships (puzzle pieces): They do fit, but they’re misaligned.”

That first pair started with an idea and looked for an object to represent it. Others were strongly drawn to an object and then let a meaning emerge. For instance, one person kept coming back to an old compact disk.

Eventually she placed it in the center and then said, “Oh! It would spin, and it’s reflective and shiny!” Her final quote: “Creativity (CD): Keep spinning out those ideas!”

Some had no trouble choosing at all. “Outdoors!” said one woman, immediately reaching for a pinecone and plopping it down. That was her full quote: “Outdoors (pinecone)!” An important dynamic of the map is not just what objects are picked, but where they are placed in relationship to other objects. In this case, it’s significant that the outdoors pinecone is in close proximity to the CD of creativity and spinning out ideas. Others who came by later commented on the truth of that, that we, and children, are stimulated by time in nature and emerge with more ideas spinning out of us. It’s a small and simple truth; it’s also profound and needed to be captured in our map.

Several other items were similarly clear to everyone that saw them: the “Tinker Toy of Play,” the Bird of “Launching kids so they can fly” and the worn Elastic Circle of “Hoops we have to jump through.” Although these are clear representations of elements that most observers would agree are features of our system, it is important to place them in the map.

In any efforts to co-create a future evolution of the system, we wouldn’t want to leave out play or launching kids, and we would want to deal with those nagging hoops.

                                

We can really see the co-construction going on in a conversation about a corn cob. Someone had picked it for its color and texture but was feeling bad that all its kernels were gone. It certainly had been a nourishing thing. . . but what was it now? At that point, another participant chimed in to suggest the empty cob being “the wise woman who has given away all her kernels.”

The corn cob is now standing for the wise elders of our network whose kernels of wisdom nourished generations. Interestingly, this is the only item in the map that represents an individual human role in the system. In a system that depends so heavily on human beings – children, caregivers, educators, family members – it’s interesting that most of the elements of our map were abstract concepts. What does that say about how we perceive the system with its conflicts, agreements and sources of power. Would adding more human elements help us to reframe our challenges? And where does the Reggio-Inspired Network fit into Minnesota’s early childhood system?

Another item reveals a desire to synthesize and operationalize an abstraction – a lump of concrete. Concrete is both a mixture that includes gravel and cement and also a durable material that forms foundations. It’s human-made, mixed by trial and error. Concrete is a common metaphor for things that have substance and aren’t only abstract. The quote for this item: “(Concrete): Mixing it up; Starting with something concrete in all the change; try the best and leave behind the baggage.” 

  

This unique object also generated multiple ideas – a small wheel with an S-hook on it. The original idea for it was “Spinning our wheels…” Then in the ensuing conversation another idea built on this: “Training wheels.” As the back-and-forth continued a unifying theme emerged: “Looking for connection and support.” It’s an idea that connects to and shows motivation for our Community Relationships puzzle pieces above. Of course we’re yearning for those puzzle pieces to snap together, in a way that gives connection and support. 

As I was getting ready to pack up someone came by and grabbed this rubber stopper, plopped it at the top of the map and said, “Put a cork in it!” She turned out to be expressing the desire for oversight organizations to “Trust our love for children.” And, I experienced her expressing the sense of humor that is also a feature of early childhood education – I personally couldn’t have survived without it!

Looking at the full map of our Early Childhood System, it seems a bit random and disconnected to me. There are parts with hooks, slots, claws or holes to offer connections, but they aren’t relating to each other. Verbalizing these kinds of descriptions is the next step in the 3-D Mapping process, all a part of becoming more conscious of the details, relationships, obstacles and opportunities in our system. The process asks the participants to look at the map from different perspectives, physically walking around the table to get a fresh view. Since we’re no longer gathered in one spot, I’ve included four different rotations of the map, along with questions to think about as your eyes wash over the image.

What emotions arise when you look at this picture? What about it ignites your best energies? What makes you feel curious? What are the relationships (connections, separations or proportions) between the parts? What do you sense? Is your intuition telling you anything important about what is happening?

What are some key agreements in the system that determine how it works? What are key conflicts or hard truths that you have to face in order to move forward? Where do the different sources of power lie in this system?

Is there a way to reframe the challenges or see them from a different perspective? Where is the hidden leverage? What are the most important barriers that, if removed, could help the current system to evolve?

What is ending in this situation? What’s the old skin that needs to be shed? What is seeking to emerge or wanting to be born? What’s the highest future potential that’s being called for in this situation? What will a better system look and feel like in 50 - 100 years?

Just as our documentation of children’s ideas, work and conversations is meant to be revisited collectively as we ponder what is emerging, what might come next and what provocations could open new doors, the 3-D process also doesn’t stop with creation of the map. The set of questions connected to each view are meant to inform a second round of mapping where we would modify the objects’ placements to represent the future we want to co-create. This simple activity is so rich in surprising ways – often people that have been quiet bring ideas forward visually or people find their limiting concepts dissolving as they move pieces into new relationships. In the schools of Reggio Emilia, this documentation-based design process would be called, “progettazione.” I invite you to think about these questions, perhaps in dialogue with your team or community, and see what insights bubble up.

“We are at our best when we serve others. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

This quote speaks to me about the Reggio-Inspired Network in general and the Loose Parts Laboratory in particular. Our initiative is making small changes in our own small context. For many years, members of the Network have talked and dreamed and attempted to create a resource center where donated materials could be purchased for a very low cost in order to recycle, re-purpose and reduce waste in order to re-imagine experiences for children. Through the work of our thoughtful committed members we have created an instrument for change.
  

Our soft opening on March 26 was a joy-filled occasion - to actually have shoppers visiting our venue and purchasing “beautiful stuff.” A Grand Opening celebration is planned for Friday evening, May 20th, 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Please come for our annual end-of-the-year social gathering. There will be refreshments. a short presentation, information about the work of the Network, visiting, shopping and an auction. Look for prizes to be announced soon on our Facebook page.

Mission: The Loose Parts Laboratory is a space curated with a variety of materials donated to distribute for low or no cost.

Vision: The Loose Parts Laboratory aims to provide a growing initiative of increasing materials, patronage and volunteers.

Updates and Particulars
E-mail: loosepartslabmn@gmail.com

Facebook page: Loose Parts Laboratory: Materials Center Project Minnesota Be sure to check out the video on our Facebook Page.

Instagram: @loose_parts_laboratory
Address: 3400 42nd Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55406 

Visit us: June 14, 16 and 18 July 12, 14 and 16 August 16, 18, and 20

Sandra Burwell's professional career includes over 50 years in education as a teacher, director, supervisor, mentor and educational coordinator for children birth through high school but primarily early childhood. Presently, she is a consultant and presenter for professional development inspired by the philosophies of Reggio Emilia and Maria Montessori in the areas of authentic experiences, material exploration and the environment.

"Education is an opportunity for the growth and emancipation of the individual and collective; it is a resource for gaining knowledge and for learning to live together; it is a meeting place where freedom, democracy, and solidarity are practiced and where the value of peace is promoted." -Reggio Children

An often overlooked aspect of the Reggio Approach is that it animates a democratic society through its values, structures and practices. This is evident at every level – within the schools, with families, in the management of the schools and in relationship with the city, the country and international partners, but it all starts with the youngest citizens, the children in the infant-toddler centers and preschools. This is where habits, dispositions and principles, essential for democratic life are rooted, introduced and practiced.

Some of those habits and dispositions were introduced in Part I of Unpacking Democracy. They include deep listening, a capacity for dialogue, the ability to think critically and a desire to work collaboratively for the common good as the foundation for democratic life.

Value Difference

Valuing difference is both acknowledging and seeking multiple identities, practices and points of view. This represents both a disposition and a constellation of pedagogical decisions.

“Accepting, respecting and valuing the differences in others is a great ethical choice, which is possible for every modern person. Differences are not a problem that we annul or eliminate. They are a resource and an opportunity.”
Sergio Spaggiari, 2004

Since diversity is an asset, it makes sense to plan for different group structures and composition – large group, small group and individual – and notice the range of perspectives that emerge. Consider how diverse abilities, age groups and home languages add richness to your setting. Select tools that will enhance exploration and provoke surprise. Provide a range of expressive media: clay, wire, digital, marker, pencil, paint, etc. to explore ideas. Reflect on how each medium impacts and challenges understanding. Offer contrasting media to deepen a common theme. In addition to the voices of the children, seek input from families, community and colleagues. Each decision can support democratic life.

Be Curious

To focus your curiosity, ask yourself, “what do I wonder”...about the learners, their approaches to learning, the work of teaching and learning, particular areas of learning, learners at different ages or stages of life or particular interests of individuals?

Deep listening invites both speakers and listeners into unexpected terrain. Consider uncertainty, doubt and error as resources in education.

Use Language With Care

Dialogue is enriched when you are genuinely curious about others’ beliefs, assumptions, or theories and when peers share group work. Language is intertwined with deep listening, a capacity for dialogue and the ability to think critically.

Consider all the possible “think about questions” you might pose, rather than “do you know questions.” For the ‘think about’ questions to be effective, you must listen (with all your senses) and build upon what follows.

I would like to know more... Some aspect that interests me.... This is very interesting....
You started to say....
I am wondering....
And then...?

Maybe...
Does this remind you of anything? What do you think about this?
I wonder...?
Do you mind if I ask...?
What do you think about...?

Would you mind sharing more...? I’m curious...?
In which way does...?
What might happen if...?

I wanted to know...
What do you suppose happens when...? So it is...?
Why do you suppose this happens?
So what aspect impresses...?
How do you think this happens?

I see, so... ?
What are the possible consequences?
Is it...?
Do you see any patterns? Has this happened before?
Why... ?
What did you notice when...?
Can I say something?
What was it like when...?

Offer language that children can borrow to support peer exchange and genuine listening:

I think...
My idea is...
In my opinion...
Thanks for sharing your opinion. I have a different one. Here’s mine...
It’s ok that you don’t agree with my opinion. We can have different points of view. I respect your opinion. I have a different one that I’d like to share with you.

Think about the way your decisions about space, materials, tools and time affect conversation.

Use Documentation as an Invitation for Exchange

Pedagogical documentation is a process which makes this listening, thinking, learning and teaching visible and consequently subject to reflection, interpretation, dialogue and exchange. The point of pedagogical documentation is not to establish what the learner can do, but how the learner is thinking about what he/she is doing. As an iterative and recursive process, documentation continuously generates new questions and challenges. As educators listen, observe, inquire and relaunch, learners experience different perspectives and uncertainties, growing in their capacity to construct knowledge and appreciate complexity.

When you collect traces, you are simultaneously documenting the learner’s process, your work as a teacher and communicating what you deem important. Documentation is an interpretation of what you see; it defines, refines and reveals your values. Documentation takes many forms: daily traces, photos and transcription, video, sketches; project narratives; class/school/public exhibits; publications; presentations for study.

These elements are useful as they are shared and contested, allowing new points of view to enter and inviting others to propose avenues to extend this process. Share traces with an individual, with a small group or large group, families or other educators. Find a venue to make your ongoing work public, such as a library.

“Sharing the documentation means participation in a true act of democracy, sustaining the culture and visibility of childhood ... a product of exchange and visibility.”
Carla Rinaldi

In participation with others, documentation becomes a democratic tool.

"Participation, in fact, is based on the idea that reality is not objective, that culture is a constantly evolving product of society, that individual knowledge is only partial; and that in order to construct a project, especially an educational project, everyone’s point of view is relevant in dialogue with those of others, within a framework of shared values. The idea of participation is found on these concepts: and in our opinion, so, too, is democracy itself." Paola Cagliari, Angela Barozzi and Claudia Giudici

Watch Video Here

Foundations for democratic life ARE BUILT upon being curious, using language carefully to promote exchange and practicing pedagogical documentation to promote transparency and participation. Since how children are treated when they are very young profoundly affects how they will live the rest of their lives, historian Timothy Snyder points out that a “free country thrives over generations.” A free society is strengthened when its citizens think critically, compare diverse points of view, vet sources and consider the common good. These values, structures and practices are central to the Reggio Emilia project.

Now retired, Lani was an early childhood educator teaching both typical and special rights children and their adults (parents and teachers) for more than 40 years. She is a founding member of the Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota, is a current Board member, works on the Network’s Communication Committee and facilitates its Book Study. She is particularly interested in the infrastructural aspects of the Reggio project.

Unpacking Democracy and Education

The Reggio Emilia Approach

Last December, Lani Shapiro hosted the monthly gathering, titled “Unpacking Democracy and Education.” In the piece that follows, Lani was asked to expand on ideas she presented during that meeting.

Education is “always a political discourse whether we know it or not. It is about working with cultural choices, but it clearly also means working with political choices.”

Lori Malaguzzi

Education is always political. Education for democracy, however, is not inevitable; it is a possibility and choice. Democracy can be understood as a way of thinking, being, acting and living together, as Dewey described, “a democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” (Dewey, 1916).

Throughout the evolving educational project that is called the Reggio Approach, there are constant references to democracy, democratic life and democratic participation.

Historical Notes:

The Reggio Emilia approach is not just a way of working with preschools; it is a pathway to create a more democratic society. The Reggio project had an explicitly political birth as World War II ended: it responded to fascism, asserted women’s rights and called for greater social equality through collective civic action.

With proceeds from selling debris left behind by the retreating German army (a tank, six horses and three trucks) citizens from Villa Cella, a small community outside of Reggio Emilia, set about constructing a school for their youngest children because, according to the mayor, their wartime experience had ‘taught them that people who conformed and obeyed were dangerous, and that in building a new society it was imperative to safeguard and communicate that lesson, and maintain a vision of children who can think and act for themselves.’

“We didn’t want our children to be duped by fascism, as we were.”

Over seven decades, the Reggio Approach has become an international project of social, cultural, political and economic significance that balances the value of individual difference and understands that individual freedom must be connected to a social demand for justice and solidarity.

“Education is an opportunity for the growth and emancipation of the individual and collective; it is a resource for gaining knowledge and for learning to live together; it is a meeting place where freedom, democracy, and solidarity are practiced and where the value of peace is promoted.”

Reggio Children: Indications

Dispositions that Cultivate Democratic Living

For Reggio Emilia educators, the goal is not to teach about democracy but to nurture habits, dispositions and values like deep listening, a capacity for dialogue, the ability to think critically and a desire to work collaboratively for the common good, which lay the foundation for democratic living experienced through daily life in school.

A disposition is a characteristic attitude, an inclination or habit. Listening

Carla Rinaldi insists that in order to truly listen, you have to give up the idea that you control the outcome. Listening requires genuine curiosity about what you will encounter. This kind of listening invites all parties into new terrain. When we are open-minded, we can listen with empathy, see each person’s unique perspective and learn from each other. Bruner wrote that “open-mindedness is the keystone of what we call a democratic culture.” (Bruner, 1990).

Capacity for Dialogue:

The disposition for dialogue is characterized by an inclination to reflect and compare points of view through exchange.

Four rules for a good discussion

The children soon learn four things:

●  That it is indispensable to have one’s own personal feeling and words about things
●  That understanding things often means changing our words and thoughts
●  That these changes often come about by communicating with your peers and with adults
●  That when this process takes place, it is often perceived as a sort of subtle shift that involves the body as well as feelings, the mind and relationships with things and with others.

-Reggio Children, Commune di Reggio Emilia – Nidi e Scuole dell’Infanzia

Valuing Difference

The Reggio Approach seeks, welcomes and includes a wide array of perspectives on issues, recognizing that multiple perspectives and diverse paradigms are central to democratic living. Each human being is unique, with a wide range of individual and cultural identities: gender, age, race, class, language, ability, temperament, personal history, etc. yielding more than one answer to most questions. These varied perspectives can promote insight and creativity.

In addition to human differences, there are many ways of viewing and understanding the world, such as through the perspectives of academic disciplines, arts, industry or agriculture.

Beyond individual differences and interdisciplinary perspectives, a new question arises: whose voices are not here?

Critical Thought

Democratic life understands that people (including children) have theories and expectations (whether they are aware of them or not) and an inclination to seek evidence: How do we know what we know? Where do we get our information? How do we vet our sources? What is the evidence? Could there be another point of view? This kind of inquiry is nurtured by the disposition to question and challenge, rather than to accept and obey, especially those things that seem as if they were timeless, natural, unquestionable or inevitable.

Social Construction of Knowledge and Participation

The individual constructs their own knowledge, always in relationship with others. Since individual knowledge is always partial and provisional, it is essential to be open to different perspectives. Since learning is the construction of meaning, always in relationship with others, group learning and individual learning cannot be divided.

Participation is based on the idea that reality is not objective, that culture is a constantly evolving product of society, that individual knowledge is only partial; and that in order to construct a project, everyone’s point of view is relevant in dialogue with those of others, within a framework of shared values. The idea of participation is founded on these concepts: and in our opinion, so, too, is democracy itself. (Cagliari et al., 2004).

Collaboration and Compromise for the Common Good

The habit of collaboration draws on an inclination to address questions together, through interaction and discussion. It propels participants to seek input from others, especially people different from themselves, and genuinely listen.

The dispositions and values of listening, dialogue, difference, critical thinking, socially constructed knowledge and participation for the common good do not exist separately; they intertwine, spiral, complicate and deepen each other.

In the next issue, Unpacking Democracy, Part Two will offer examples drawn from local work as well as from Reggio, to highlight practical strategies that support these values.

For many years, the possibility of having a materials gathering space has been a dream of many people in our Network. This dream is inspired by the Remida center in Reggio Emilia, Italy in which the city collects, curates and makes materials available to its citizens for creative endeavors. We want to create such a space in the Greater Twin Cities area.

We now have some definite positive movement toward this goal. Heidi Wolf, Lisa Small, Sandra Burwell, Deborah Schein and Nancy Nakaoka have formed an ad hoc committee to spearhead, explore and pursue the dream and all it involves.

There is a unique space in the heart of the Longfellow neighborhood called Belle’s ToolBox where Tamara Weiss Rhodes, a member of the Resource Committee, has been a long-time, regular visitor. This site of joyful learning inspires us, and we see an opportunity for collaboration. Belle’s ToolBox offers a free and welcoming family and caregiver opportunity to join children as they explore a wide variety of engaging, hands-on materials. Areas of exploration are well-stocked and organized to promote children’s autonomy and independence as they do their work, transforming them into eager and focused scientists, book makers, engineers, artists and musicians. There is an outdoor space that offers a winding pathway through native plants, a rain garden and even a special investigation area for budding geologists. The indoor space serves about 10-12 comfortably. They currently require masks indoors as COVID protocol.

Belle’s ToolBox founder, Lucy Elliott, pours her extraordinary heart into creating a space that connects multigenerational and multicultural populations through the experience of exchanging ideas. She designs all of it through the lens of environmental responsibility, sustainability and stewardship.

The committee met with Lucy at the ToolBox and she is excited to work with us. We set some short term goals. Many small and large tasks are needed to make this dream possible. We are using two documentation tools to make our process visible. One is a web of possibilities that we have generated so far:

An online collaborative platform called Miro will also help us document our work and make it visible, so anyone can become involved and be kept up-to-date. Those interested in being actively involved with this work can reach out to Heidi by email: hwolf@bsmschool.org.

To learn more about Belle’s ToolBox, here’s the link: http://www.belles-toolbox.org

In our program, transition into early care is supported by predictable daily routines, beginning with each family’s orientation.

Prior to the arrival of the Coronavirus, our families came into our classroom, we greeted each other and had a daily health check with the child. Parents put prepared bottles away and placed car seats by their child’s crib, then completed information on our large whiteboard in the classroom. Daily, parents were asked about their child’s wake-up time, last feeding and mood. They were also asked to identify who to contact first on a given day, whether the child was given any medications and approximate pick-up time. Families were oriented to how these routines helped us function together for their child’s well-being. At the end of the day, families came back into our classroom and saw how we built their child’s day around the information parents had given us. Each child had their own schedule.

As the shutdown began in March of 2020, our precious routines were disrupted. Our child care remained open but parents could not enter the school. Instead, parents remained at the front door to complete information on a clipboard while we conducted a wellness check. In April 2020, we were required to wear masks and staff were offered furlough. There were additional challenges. We lost our communication app and came up with a way to email parents about their child’s day. We recognized we were living in a pandemic, a state of emergency. Many families began working from their homes, keeping their children with them. We made a few phone calls and received some photo emails as a way to stay in touch with families. These were important to our sanity. In May, we welcomed a few families back. We watched for signs of stress. Together, we encouraged a new normal, trying our best to stay afloat and hold each other up.

In June, I was overwhelmed by the new tension brought on by civic protests and nearby property damage, knowing we had staff traveling through town and by bus. One day Metro Transit gave notice that they were closing down and we sent one of our teachers home early. Some teachers quit or did not return to the classroom. Our families and staff were additionally stressed.

Social distancing, disinfectant wipe downs, hand washing, gloves, masks, face shields and gowns were made available and used as needed to ensure safety for staff and families. Classroom staff welcomed and brought in each child from the entry. At the end of the day, one staff person was available to watch for each parent arriving. This continues to be a new dance as we respond to changing CDC guidelines. We are cross training. In the beginning, adjusting schedules helped us get used to wearing masks and working in a new way. Staff are continually needed, days off are less. We grieve for the way it was, while we adjust to the way it is. The children hesitate as we hesitate. The children embrace the situation much like we do. Trust is huge. We can’t do what we do without trust. We are grateful every day.

Still, connections persevere. One cold day during the winter of 2021 as I was masked, wearing my down coat and trudging through the parking lot on my way to be tested, a weekly part of our routine, a dad and daughter pulled up nearby. I heard the one-year-old call out my name. She recognized me. I couldn’t believe it. I turned and squatted down as my friend ran and gave me a big hug. We wore masks in the infant room while she was growing and learning, listening closely and assimilating language. Our connection and trust is strong, even in this new world.

Still, so many people are hurting in this new and complicated reality. Recently, I was looking forward to welcoming a new family. I left a voicemail and waited patiently, anticipating the arrival of a family of four. I was asked specifically if the older sister could come and play in our large muscle room while we went over the infant’s routines and how everything was going for the family. We planned to review policy and procedures in the process and welcome the family by creating a family panel with photos.

But on this very sad day, no one came. The director came into the room. She stood in front of me as I fed an infant and said, “I have very sad news. The worst possible news.” She sat down on the cushion in front of me and told me she received word that the new infant, who was to be oriented today, had lost his mother. His mom was suffering from postpartum depression, had a psychotic episode, and ended her life. Dad, in his grief, had no plans to return to work. There would be a memorial service later as he gathered her distant family.

I am sad. I grieve for this family. I grieve for the way it was and all of the rich opportunities we had for family connection and support. What next? I’m not sure. How do we keep on? Sometimes circumstances keep us from having opportunities to be with families. But still, I think of the smiling faces of the children and look at what we do have. We can still be a part of someone’s day, and maintaining these bonds is important. Caring is our connection and we must look for the opportunities to care for families whenever we can.