Supporting Different Ideas

This year the Little Bay class’ (16 children, 2 teachers, 1 teaching parent) inquiry work focused on our school garden. One day, when a small group went to take care of the plants, they noticed that something had munched the newly planted kale and cauliflower. Over the prior couple of months the children had developed their own theories about what had been eating our plants based on their observations in the garden and also from previous knowledge they had about animals. Our inquiry thus far, focused on figuring out 1. What was eating our vegetables and 2. How to keep this from happening again. In this video, four children and Melissa, one of the Little Bay teachers, set out on an investigation looking for clues as to what kinds of animals live in the Presidio and might have eaten the plants.

In this video, Melissa used various language strategies: specific words we choose to say, the timing of phrases and tone of voice; to connect the children to one another.   Through these efforts Melissa develops the children’s strategies to support differences by creating opportunities for conversation within small group, placing value on the children’s ideas, modeling respect for other’s ideas, guiding and protecting safe disagreements, and providing opportunities for all voices to be heard.

The first important part of this story was how this experience was prompted.  The children were in a mindset that they were there to share their ideas and discoveries with the group. The teacher set the expectation for the children that they were going on a walk together to look for clues around the forest and document their finding to share with the larger group. Here we are placing value on the child as the researcher, as the one with individual knowledge and ideas.

The next strategy used by Melissa in this video snippet was when she said, “ Say that again.” Here she asked Tao to restate his idea so she could not only hear it again but also document it. This places value on, and gives evidence to the children, that their ideas are respected and heard. We want them to feel confident and empowered when sharing ideas and when a teacher shows interest and gives undivided attention to the child it gives that message.  This also models to the group listening and really hearing the children’s ideas.

Next Tao stated, “Dangerous animals have like long prints.” Immediately Maisy disagreed stating, “But that’s not long.” Here Melissa asked Maisy to point to the footprint they were talking about.  “Maisy, Can you point to that again?” Melissa is trying to find out more about what Maisy is talking about by asking specific questions. Although the disagreement has started, Melissa is working to help the children in explaining their ideas in more detail “Well it’s kind of long.” “Yeah its kind of long, but it’s a nice deer print.” Here the children came to an agreement through this slowed down interaction.

Next, Melissa restated what Maisy said giving her a chance to change or solidify her thought. “It’s a nice deer print?” Also this moment allowed for other children to respond, facilitating more of a group discussion.  At this point, Tao disagreed, “It’s actually not,” and Melissa responded quickly with, “ It’s O.K. for you to have to different ideas. Maisy thinks it’s a nice deer, and Tao, what do you think?” Here Melissa took on the role as a guide and protector of Maisy and her idea and simply stated a ‘foundational’ aspect of engaging in respectful dialogue with others even when they had different ideas. As you could see from Maisy’s response to Melissa’s statement, Maisy could still feel confident in her individual idea even when someone else disagreed.

Lastly, Melissa asked the children again to explain and elaborate on their ideas This supports the children in feeling more confident in sharing their individual thoughts. This also models to the other children how to respectfully listen to ideas that might be different than their own. We feel this is an important step in supporting the children to have more of a conversation about their different perspectives. Through slowing down these kinds of conversations, the children have more opportunities to collaborate and build off each other’s ideas and also practice respectfully hearing and possibly disagreeing with peers.