How does a study start?
In Reggio Emilia-inspired schools and classrooms like ours, studies almost always start with a
"provocation."
This is an interesting word to associate with classroom learning because it (along with the more commonly used "provoke") is generally used in a negative way today.
Why are teachers provoking your children?
To better understand the answer, change the question:
What are we looking to provoke in your children?
The answer is:
We look to provoke learning.
So, what does provocation look like in the classroom?
Following the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, we can identify three different ways that provocations appear in the classroom.
First and foremost, the child should be provoked to learn by the everyday surroundings in the classroom.
Everything about the environment of the classroom should cause the child to want to look, smell, touch, and wonder.
In The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation, Lella Gandini writes:
We... have constructed a new type of school made up of spaces where the hands of the children would be active for "messing about." ... With no possibility of boredom, hands and minds would engage each other with great, liberating merriment in the way ordained by biology and evolution. [This] has allowed rich combinations and creative possibilities among the different (symbolic) languages of children (Gandini, 2012).
You may have heard us refer to the classroom, or the environment, as being the child's "third teacher," and this is exactly what we mean.
Our classrooms are filled with materials -- natural artifacts, puzzles, blocks, art utensils -- which are available to the children for the majority of the day.
You see this as soon as the children arrive in the mornings.They want to touch, play, read, show, share, and study...
Imagine a classroom where this was discouraged! How many thousands of little learning moments would be lost?
The second way that provocations appear is through specific experiences curated by the teachers.
Examples of this can be incredibly simple, such as the teachers putting a photograph of a rock sculpture next to a pile of stones on a table. What might this provoke in the mind of a child?
Or a provocation can be a bit more elaborate.
The children have been building taller and taller buildings in the block area. Roads have appeared. The Three Kings brought us vehicles on Epiphany, and since then traffic has increased. The children are obviously passionate about city building. Luckily, the teachers have been looking for a way to introduce a city study! We called a special group meeting in the Trees classroom on Friday and took this opportunity to ask the children what they would call the many buildings and roads in our block area. The children quickly arrived at agreement that this was a city. So the teachers responded with a questions: How do you know this is a city? What does it have that makes it a city? The children began to list things:
Or a provocation can be a bit more elaborate.
The children have been building taller and taller buildings in the block area. Roads have appeared. The Three Kings brought us vehicles on Epiphany, and since then traffic has increased. The children are obviously passionate about city building. Luckily, the teachers have been looking for a way to introduce a city study! We called a special group meeting in the Trees classroom on Friday and took this opportunity to ask the children what they would call the many buildings and roads in our block area. The children quickly arrived at agreement that this was a city. So the teachers responded with a questions: How do you know this is a city? What does it have that makes it a city? The children began to list things:
- tall buildings
- roads
- people
- cars
- traffic
Then we asked, "Is there anything that a city needs that our city does not have yet?" Ideas started to percolate...
- parks
- signs
- stores
- traffic lights
- buildings that light up!
And along with these lists, the stories, ideas, and connections come pouring in:
"I can see skyscrapers when I'm at the river. I can see the New York City!" - Jerry
"My house is a tall building. I live in a skyscraper!" - Kai
"The lights on the Empire State Building change color!" - Cole
"All of our buildings should have lights that change color!" - Harper
You can already hear the connections being made and the web being spun as the children's thinking becomes broader and more creative. They are connecting the material to their own identity and experiences and dreaming about how to expand on their work.
You can already hear the connections being made and the web being spun as the children's thinking becomes broader and more creative. They are connecting the material to their own identity and experiences and dreaming about how to expand on their work.
Then we discussed different ways of research ... on computers, in books, talking to experts, and exploring.
We took our first steps in the city study this week by spending Monday and Tuesday hypothesizing about what we might see walking around the city.
Here is the list we made...
We went on our preliminary walk just today, adding the red tallies that you see on our list.
Ask your child about what they saw. Was this something on the list? Were there any surprises?
This approach ensured that the use of provocations (as opposed to announcing or dictating a topic) works hand in hand with the child-led, emergent curriculum that you see at Mustard Seed. Classrooms where the child, not the teacher, is the protagonist in the classroom.
You can see this at many levels at Mustard Seed. Just look up and down our very own second floor hall...
In the Rocks and Rivers classroom, you will notice a candle sign and a fish sign sticking out of two of the pockets in their mailboxes. "The children were provoked," says Ms Sytsma, "to come up with systems because they were becoming more and more frustrated every day that they didn't know whose turn it was to feed the fish or to blow out the candle."
The teachers' provocation resulted in weeks of testing and refining systems, resulting in the one you see today.
Look into the Kindergarten Earth classroom, and you can see that a simple block challenge offered by Ms Silva has turned into a major study of the Statue of Liberty, which has included studies in architecture, history, and papier mache.
In fact, they went on a field trip to Liberty Island today!
Both of these studies were the result of a single conversation. It was the teachers' abilities to recognize and harness this momentary interest as a provocation that led to these wonderful units.
I wonder where our city study will lead us?
Ultimately, the intention of provocations is to provide an invitation. An invitation for the child to explore and express herself.
We took our first steps in the city study this week by spending Monday and Tuesday hypothesizing about what we might see walking around the city.
Here is the list we made...
We went on our preliminary walk just today, adding the red tallies that you see on our list.
 |
| "Behind you in the sky! A plane! A plane!" |
 |
| "We saw zero chipmunks." "Or space ships." |
The third way that provocations appear in a classroom is through completely spontaneous moments.
These naturally occurring provocations appear in the responses of teachers during any number of interactions with a child.
"When possible, [a teacher's] understanding of a momentary learning encounter can guide us [to] expand the ... encounter into a longer investigation" (Foreman and Fyfe, The Hundred Languages of Children, 2012).
Tiziana Filippini (a pedagogista at a Reggio school in Italy) explains this beautifully in her first American lecture in 1990:
These naturally occurring provocations appear in the responses of teachers during any number of interactions with a child.
"When possible, [a teacher's] understanding of a momentary learning encounter can guide us [to] expand the ... encounter into a longer investigation" (Foreman and Fyfe, The Hundred Languages of Children, 2012).
Tiziana Filippini (a pedagogista at a Reggio school in Italy) explains this beautifully in her first American lecture in 1990:
The teacher has, for us, the role of dispenser of occasions... the child should feel that the teacher is not a judge, but a resource to whom he can go when he needs to borrow a gesture, a word... If the child has gone from point A to point B and is getting very close to point C, sometimes, to reach C, he needs to borrow assistance from the adult, at that very special moment. We feel that the teacher must... be able to catch the ball that the children throw us, and toss it back to them in a way that makes the children want to continue the game with us, developing, perhaps, others games as we go along (Filippini, 1990).
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| Ms Chalmers takes a moment to interject an observation while two children play. |
You can see this at many levels at Mustard Seed. Just look up and down our very own second floor hall...
In the Rocks and Rivers classroom, you will notice a candle sign and a fish sign sticking out of two of the pockets in their mailboxes. "The children were provoked," says Ms Sytsma, "to come up with systems because they were becoming more and more frustrated every day that they didn't know whose turn it was to feed the fish or to blow out the candle."
The teachers' provocation resulted in weeks of testing and refining systems, resulting in the one you see today.
Look into the Kindergarten Earth classroom, and you can see that a simple block challenge offered by Ms Silva has turned into a major study of the Statue of Liberty, which has included studies in architecture, history, and papier mache.
 |
| Strong block work too! |
In fact, they went on a field trip to Liberty Island today!
Both of these studies were the result of a single conversation. It was the teachers' abilities to recognize and harness this momentary interest as a provocation that led to these wonderful units.
I wonder where our city study will lead us?
Ultimately, the intention of provocations is to provide an invitation. An invitation for the child to explore and express herself.
 |
| A spontaneous experiment in balance and teamwork. |
Let us know how you have seen your child be provoked to learn!
