The resonance of children: educating the literacy educator.

Latham, Gloria

 Long, long ago in the Dreamtime there was this huge ball of flaming
 fire even bigger than the sun and then there was a shooting star
 that came along and bumped into it and made it glow. Then all these
 little asteroids came off of it and they had lava in the middle and
 rocks formed in the earth's centre and some of the rocks were wet
 and some of them were dry and some had glowing heat inside them. A
 huge comet smashed through and a planet blew up ...

This story of the world's beginning began to unfold alongside hundreds of others as I journeyed into the physical and spiritual world of five- to seven-year-olds. What follows are some of the pedagogical and moral understandings gathered as a literacy educator, a role I have assumed for well over 25 years.

My qualitative phenomenological study was a search to better understand what the world is like for children, van Manen (1990) suggests that phenomenological research is an attempt to describe and interpret the essential meaning of a phenomenon. The acknowledged founder of phenomenology, Husserl (1931, 1933) saw reality as consciousness, and in order to achieve consciousness he believed the researcher had to 'return to the things themselves.' A phenomenological approach also asks the researcher to lay aside what is known and understood about the phenomenon in order to enter the experience as a stranger. The world is rendered paradoxical and as such it is necessary to work towards being utterly lost in the experience. The comfort of familiar contexts becomes less familiar, eliciting an element of surprise and allowing the teacher/researcher to act in new ways. It was my intention to move towards new embodied meanings of how children experience the world in order to alter my teaching practice and also to inform and encourage change in the pre-service teachers with whom I work.

Colin Lankshear (1997) reminds us that while change is occurring all around us, and at many levels, many areas of education fail to change at all. 'It's business as usual' (p. 1). Almost fifty years ago, Dewey forewarned educators about fixed metaphors of teaching and asked them to break through the crust of conventionalised consciousness and return to common sense thinking, as they can be easily 'lulled into an intellectual apathy ...' (p. 183). Arendt (1958), Bauer and Varnice (1992) and Greene (1995), among others, have also warned of the dangers inherent in adhering to fixed metaphors of teaching.

There have been many forces taking up the struggle to enact productive change. For instance, some researchers (Denzin, 1997; Josselson, 1996; Richardson, 1997, 2000) are attempting to readdress pedagogical issues and alter the moral and emotional aspects of their work by using a reflexive approach. Further, a number of educators and theorists (Damasio, 1999; Arnold, 2000) are examining and applying empathic moral education employing reflexive means.

In my study traditional notions of teaching were problematised and revisioned. I worked with five groups of between three to five children on a daily basis over a three and a half month period. The study required me to lay aside aspects of the traditional teacher's role and become a wanderer who entered the 'lived world' of children. In this position I was afforded the opportunity to stand apart and examine my teaching with renewed clarity; to be led rather than to lead. The prospect of surrendering to the experience under investigation appeared daunting. My teacher education course at university was traditional in nature, defining the teacher as someone skilled in controlling classroom events and who functions as the main dispenser of knowledge. The fear was not of losing my sense of control while working with the phenomenon, but rather of being out of control.

What was reaffirmed during the research process was my long-held belief that young children are robust philosophical thinkers. Children's natural curiosity about their surroundings renders their world problematic and therefore purposeful. Five- to seven-year-olds are in a highly formative time of life, making it most worthy of investigation. Although a plethora of research studies has been amassed on infancy and the first three or four years of life, there are far fewer studies of children in the five- to seven-year age-range. Yet this is a time when children begin to take on the stories, beliefs and observances that symbolise belonging to their communities, at a time when they formulate and consolidate their beliefs. It is therefore a pivotal time in children's lives. My research study examined children's theories at a time when they were relatively tentative.

The children I worked alongside of were immensely curious about the world and their place within it. As philosophers (lovers of wisdom), young children are tilled with wonderment. It also seems that children move with their entire sensory system in motion to help answer the questions that puzzle them. Connected to the cosmos, they move in-step, and in-tune with their surrounds. As I worked to enter their life world they appeared to ask questions to move their wondering outside of their heads; to verbalise and/or draw ideas about questions, so that that they might one day arrive at the answers. They did not appear to ask questions in order to have them answered. The following is an example of Peter's wondering.

 I wonder why we have shadows? When I'm looking upwards over the
 fence I can see the light over the fence, it's going downward over
 the fence. And when I think about it, it's going down, down, down
 under the Earth way, way down under the Earth.

Here is a six-year-old posing a question and then meandering in the wonder of it. Once questions such as Peter's surfaced, I turned them back to the group of children, allowing them time to speculate on possible explanations. Finklestein and Ritter (1990) conducted research to learn whether or not answering a child's question with a question produced further analytical questioning. Their findings indicated that although furthering children's questions with a question did not produce an increase in the number of questions posed, it did increase children's ability to ask higher-level questions.

Theory building and testing

Given time, children happily roam around in robust theories of meta-physical thought, while listening attentively to the thoughts of others and often adjusting their theories. I began to believe that adults who provide answers to children's questions contribute to the demise of wondering as children are soon taught that they are devoid of wisdom. When they are supplied with answers, they may believe they have been offered fixed 'truths' and there is no longer need to speculate about life's mysteries.

The children frequently referred to their ideas as theories such as:

 This is just a theory but I believe ...

 My theory is ...

Pavlov imagined theories as sets of wings. He told scholars that theories allow humans to rise to the heavens. But he considered facts to be the atmosphere against which those wings beat, and without which the soaring bird would plunge back to earth. On the other hand, Pollock (1942) likened the making of a theory to the making a map. It is not discovering new territory, but rather analysing already existing relationships. Children are theory builders from a very young age, and their development in cognitive processes is identical to the cognitive processes developed in scientists. Children develop their intuitive theories of the world in the context of a society that already has much knowledge of the world. Central to this notion of theory building is that the information children build about the world is derived from sources of authority rather than evidence, interpretation and explanation.

Talking oneself into meaning

The spoken word was a powerful means to elicit the children's fragile theories. Oral discourse is thought of as weaving or stitching. While meaning is being stitched a metamorphosis occurs and newer meanings are created. The children had particular ways of expressing language that informed their meaning making. For instance, many used hesitations, um's and ah's and repetitions to help move their thoughts further and allow them thinking time. They often backed up and circled an idea in order to ultimately snare it. In the following example, it appears that Cal's beliefs were being framed as they were spoken:

 I think um I think that when I think about um the World like
 sometimes I think about ... well sometimes I think about um like um
 kind of like um, it's a bit hard to understand, but sometimes when
 um I'm really interested in something like um I keep on asking
 questions like what really happened in the olden days? Like I kind
 of think that it [the first person in the world] was a gorilla and
 it changed into a person.

Often the children's thoughts were not caught and remained in the air unresolved even to the speaker. Will said, 'I can't even understand my words because Adam was the first person in the world and how did they make him?' Some children returned time and time again to a previous thought after the discussion had moved on. For instance five-year-old Will said:

 I'm still thinking about those first people who came alive first
 and the first person was Bubba Jesus when he married one of the
 cherubs and they made some children and then they (the children)
 became grown-ups and they made a girl and boy and it keeps going on,
 girls then boys ...

During the conversations, the children were gathering and assembling vast amounts of information in order to understand the world. They used everything at their disposal to assist them: the volume and timbre of their voices, repetition for emphasis, hand and facial gestures, role play, drawings, diagrams, music and rich expressive language. They were naturally adept at using multimodal approaches to learning. When the words they went in search of could not be found they thought nothing of inventing words that suited:

 We live in treasurous times.
 There were wee little bits of rain, like little skimmers of them.
 First there was this wiggly, oogley stuff, that went into frogs and
 they turned into monkeys.
 Before mankind the Earth was all crackled up ...

Words tumbled out of them in quick succession, then, once outside themselves, the words began to be ordered and thought upon. It is documented that Heidegger (1929, 1949, 1962), the German phenomenologist, also used language to think with. Rather than forming clear and decisive thoughts for his readers, it appears that Heidegger was attempting to make sense of his own thoughts. In this fashion he was always on the way towards understanding rather than having arrived. There is something about the fragility of thought that I understood to be important to preserve as a literacy educator: my own thoughts and those of my students.

During the collection of children's thoughts, I felt it essential that children discuss their ideas in small groups, affirming my belief that knowledge is a consensus. Dialogical learning is an exchange between people seeking mutual agreement and understanding.

The public activity the children in the study engaged in also provided them with a small audience for their ideas. They assumed a variety of roles and in so doing they took on suitable language registers. To illustrate, the following extract is from a child acting as a reporter and commenting on the future:

 This is reporter Clemmy (five-years-old) on live news. I'm here to
 report about the year 2020. The days will go longer and the year
 will go close to us in the future. And in the past there hasn't been
 a lot of nature. Only some trees are left only a tree in every
 garden but there are no other trees. And nature will be coming back
 in the year nineteen hundred and fifty thousand which is quite short
 but long for us to wait.

Appropriating a variety of roles and contexts required the children to think in more expansive ways.

Yet the colourful children's stories and songs often meandered in terms of the meanings expressed and at times the rhythm took precedence. Thus, it was necessary for me to ask for further clarification, and to try, to follow the slippery trails of the rhythms in order to bring back their messages as one unified voice.

The children appeared to be most comfortable when framing scientific ideas as stories. They utilised a wide range of narrative devices to. entice their listeners:

 Well let me tell you how it happened.

 A long, long time ago before anybody was alive ...

 And that's my story from Clemmy to the World.

 And then what happened is ...

Narrative devices were familiar to them and assisted their meaning making. Although these stories were often entertaining and revealing, it was easy to be lulled by the narratives, pulled into the dramas they created without attending to the messages unfolding.

The art of listening

It was critical to listen attentively to the children and pay heed to the ideas expressed. Implicit in the notion of learning from children is the ability to listen to them in valued ways. I learned to wait patiently and allow time to let their stories surface. Silence was not space to be filled, but rather concealed thought brimming with potential. Bollnow (1982) believes that speech rises out of silence and returns to silence. It needs to be listened to. I also needed to recognise the great chasm that exists between oneself and others in terms of mood, thoughts, work habits, and orientation to the world. Thus, my understanding of children's ideas about the world might differ considerably from their understanding.

They seldom composed thoughts in their heads, and therefore needed a great deal of time and patience from their listeners to allow them to wander in thought and ultimately arrive at ideas and shape them. After observing these children absorbed in the creation of a series of group-devised maps of the world, I recognised the enormous potential of listening and thinking on paper. Generally, the children's drawings and diagrams preceded their verbal explanations.

Arts researchers have long been investigating art as a means towards the expression of feelings. Many of the children's drawings were indeed expressions of their sensory impressions of the world coloured in emotions. I hoped to understand the children's empathic relationship with the world, their world knowledge, paper and pens, along with the verbal exchanges that seemed to enhance their experiences. To assist active listening, I draped the table with large sheets of paper. The children would enter the space, seat themselves, pick up a drawing implement and someone would ask, 'What should we talk about today?' I would ask what they would like to discuss and off they went. Drawing assisted active listening. Although their heads were often lowered to the page, their ears were attuned to the speaker. At times the children's hands made no marks on the clean surface but they remained in readiness, almost trance-like. I wrote about this experience.

Listening hands

 A child is drawing, head down, curled into the paper's whiteness.
 Arms and shoulders shield the image.
 The pencil is poised yet motionless.
 There is an alertness in the body,
 as a gentle swaying from the spine
 Lifting the body upright.

 Chin then eyes, gaze up at the speaker.
 Burgeoning thoughts bubble forth
 into an uttered response.
 'That's an interesting idea, but do you think it's possible that the
 earth could have formed another way?'

Drawings were also used for clarifying ideas. When any member of the group was not certain about what was being expressed, the speaker would grab a pen or a pencil to assist in clarifying his or her ideas. This was especially apparent when discussing complex notions, such as gravity or the life cycle.

Moving beyond scripts

However, even with these methods in place, I had to reconcile notions that many of the ideas the children related had been simply handed down to them by others. It was necessary to help them move beyond their set 'scripts', while still recognising their importance. In order to do this, I questioned their statements in some depth. For instance, most of the children knew that we don't fall off the world because of gravity. Although they freely used the term 'gravity' I felt it was necessary to try and understand their deeper understanding of how gravity operated. I returned in a subsequent session and asked the children to draw a diagram and explain gravity. Some of the drawings helped the children go beyond the set information they had been provided with by others. Anna was trying to understand gravity for herself as she explained, 'First I have to understand how the apple falls and then I can begin to understand gravity'.

In a further instance, the analysis of the children's discussions appeared to suggest their strong belief that the world is alive and therefore feels joy and pain. I tried to deepen my understanding of their beliefs as the children were asked to describe the earth as their body. Six-year-old Anna, related it this way:

The Moon is my best friend Winnie

 My body is divided into parts; north, south, east and west
 but all the parts are connected.
 The land is my mouth
 and my hair is the food I eat.
 Part of my brain is the clouds
 and another part is past time
 where my memories are kept.
 My kidneys are the sea that pours from me.
 My heart is the Moon's reflection
 because the Moon is my best friend Winnie.
 The closest stars would be my parents.
 My veins are the trees
 and when the trees stop growing,
 my blood stops circulating.
 There are dangers of war and pollution
 in my eyes and running through my arms.
 Pollution might break me
 but my worst enemy is the Sun,
 hot and fierce ...

This is an example of a child wrestling with complex and abstract concepts. The children I worked with appeared eager to be offered these mental challenges. I was reminded of the relevance of the Productive Pedagogies Curriculum in Queensland and the Thinking Curriculum in Victoria that seek to foster higher- level thinking. Talking about the world provided opportunity to extend and challenge the children's scientific and philosophical ideas. The children generally framed ideas about the world from creationist and evolutionist positions handed down to them:

 God created the world, end of story.
 Well God was still alive and he made this earth what made dinosaurs
 or animals ... Well, I think that millions and millions of years
 ago, before heaven was even invented, before all the planets and
 stars and the moon and the sun were around, there came a small ball
 of fire ... The world was created when a meteor hit down.

The following discussion shows one instance when the children's positioned constructs came into contact with alternative constructs and the blending of creationist and evolutionist thinking occurred. A small group of children and I were seated at a table, discussing how the first person came into the world. The question, generated by Cal, started a flurry of wondering:

Anna: The first person is called Bubba Jesus.

Cal: There was no first person alive.

Anna: Okay, what was first?

Cal: Dinosaurs.

Anna: The first person on Earth would have to be a mother, right?

Cal: How do you know that?

Anna: Cause mothers have babies.

Cal: Well if the first person was a mother, how did the first person get there?

Anna: Well, we don't even know how we can get the people on the Earth cause they are born by a person. They are born by a lady and then there are babies and babies and babies.

Researcher: I guess my question is, how did the first person get there? What do you think?

Cal: The first people who came to Earth were dinosaurs.

Researcher: What was after dinosaurs?

Cal: People? God?

Researcher: You think God was after dinosaurs?

Cal: God was after dinosaurs. That's exactly right. God was after dinosaurs. And then after God was Mother Nature.

Anna: Well have you ever heard that people came from monkeys?

Cal: Yes, first we were baby apes and then we kept changing into humans. Then we died and then we were born again.

Anna: I thought we were first apes and then girls used to be boys and we were all furry and then we got un-furry.

Cal: Oh, God, you mean I used to be a girl?

Anna: No, girls used to be boys!

Cal: Oh, that's not fair!

Anna: How did the fur come off?

Cal: We kept moulting and then we only had a little bit left on our face and hands.

Anna: Well I think the first animal came and then lots of animals came and then the monkey ate a special algae or something and they formed into the first settlers.

These interactions afforded the children a wide assortment of beliefs to hear, examine and debate. The conversations were not about owning knowledge, but rather they allowed thinking time to explore the thoughts of others. The interactions also afforded them time to articulate and examine their own burgeoning beliefs in a safe, supportive environment.

The thinking climate

Teachers and students must seek to find a clearing, an empty space (mentally, physically and spiritually) in which all participants can enter and take delight in a thoughtful, lively, passionate multi-modal community where the expression of ideas are shared and extended. The need to feel safe and cared for is paramount.

The researcher has transformed the teacher in me. Positioning myself as the one who learns from the children, assisted in setting free many fixed views of teaching while enabling me to better capture the abundant wisdom each child brought to the community of inquiry. I understood the need to encourage and be more responsive to tentative ideas. The lessons learned were potent reminders of the need for a closer and ongoing link between research and teaching.

I became aware that I could never have received such wisdom had I asked these children to write their thoughts down. This gave me cause to wonder whether or not literacy educators focus on writing too early in children's lives, thus minimising opportunities and diminishing the value inherent in oral expression for thinking. Perhaps many deep and impenetrable thoughts are silenced because the mode of expression offered is insufficient. As well, while socially generated ideas are essential for ideas to flourish, writing is often a solitary act.

I feel certain that the joy children experienced while sharing their ideas was due in part to the climate created in the exchange. Some features of the climate were:

* the children were talking about topics of immense interest to them if the children lost interest in the particular topic it was abandoned

* the topics were often framed as scenarios or focused narratives that describe possible futures and pose alternatives (Rohan & Bigum, 1998)

* the children were able to use a wide range of modalities to express ideas

* there was unlimited time to explore and tinker with issues

* the children had an eager audience for their thoughts

* the views expressed were listened to and valued

* the children felt trust in the small group that was built up over time

* the children had permission to roam in the world of possibilities rather than certainties without fear of being wrong

* the children were respected for their ideas and often praised by their peers

* theories and collected knowledge were contested, deepened and extended.

Over time, scholars have been warning of the inherent dangers in schooling the child. 'Successful' students learn how to 'do school', an act that rewards compliance, neatness, punctuality and answers which align themselves with those of the teacher. In this process of appropriating the world presented to them, some children lose their soul. Dewey (1938) questioned the point of winning information if children lose their soul, their desire and their ability to transfer knowledge to future events.

As the schooling process is one of the ways in which imposed world views are passed on, I wondered how I could reposition myself to spend more time learning about what my students bring to the circle of discovery. The notion of how learners are viewed is highly significant to their preservation. We diminish students' worth by positioning them as receptacles of knowledge, rather than as beings offering forth wisdom. As I shared my research stories with parents and staff in the school in both formal and informal ways, it became apparent that these significant people were often unaware that their children held deeply philosophical beliefs about the world and the nature of those beliefs. I wonder whether children are ever asked what it is they wonder about?

I continue to ponder this question and others. As teachers/ researchers we must continue to discover and celebrate new ways of artful teaching.

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