Beginning the Year: Some Questions.
The year prepares to begin again, now in a way that feels in earnest.
As I mentioned previously, a beginning of year ritual for me is to sit down with my thoughts and hammer out a few questions and curiosities. This sort of inquiry, the kind where one articulates an essential question and then pursues it multimodally, is at the core of the work I do with young children and is also the guiding paradigm of inquiry I use in my own work. By allowing for multiple modes of investigation—photography, group reflection, participatory action, artifact collection, audio and video recordings (essentially, a qualitative “mosaic” (see Clark, 2018; Clark 2003)—one is able to remain open to the variety of ways evidence presents itself—and any new lines of thinking or perspectives that open themselves up along the way.
Some things that are piquing my curiosity as I begin the year:
The children’s relationships to space and to one another.
How will the children adapt to a hybrid model of Nature School? In what ways will their relationship to the physical space of The Nest develop and grow as the year evolves? In what ways will they make the space their own?
How will friendships and relationships look in this new space? With the increased proximity of other classes and children, I imagine the trajectory of children’s friendships might look different, especially within our classroom particularly.
Socioemotional development and senses of belonging.
What are a set of practices we can use to help children feel safe socioemotionally? For example, how might frameworks such as Simple Interactions (Li, 2014) facilitate positive trajectories with our children in the smallest moments?
How can we hold spaces for both navigational and transformational concepts of socioemotional learning (El Amin, 2015; Brion-Meisels, 2019) and development in our daily practices?
Play and its evolution.
In what ways will the children’s play develop? I am particularly curious to see if many of the themes from last year that focused heavily on team-based play emerge, or if, alternatively, the children are drawn to more collaborative play.
How will our new physical boundaries impact children’s play? In what ways will their relationship to the natural world look different as we encounter it less frequently in its wild state?
At the end of this reflection, though, my goal remains the same. To encourage the children to develop their own community, cultural rituals, and relationship. To support them in gaining and maintaining a sense of agency in this space that is, day in and day out, for them.
Tomorrow is planning day for us, and I am looking forward to this year, knowing it will be different but that, nonetheless, the children and families will make every moment worthwhile.
Cheers,
Ron