88 Young Children • March 20082, 3, 4®EARLY CHILDHOOD

88 Young Children • March 2008
2, 3, 4®
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS
might ask, “What is documentation?”
or “Is this documentation?” They
sometimes wonder, “Can my bulletin
board be documentation?”
What is documentation?
Knowing what is documentation is
the first stage of understanding the
process. Katz and Chard offer this
explanation: “Documentation typically
includes samples of a child’s work at
several different stages of completion:
photographs showing work in prog-
ress; comments written by the teacher
or other adults working with the
children; transcriptions of children’s
discussions, comments, and explana-
tions of intentions about the activity;
and comments made by parents”
(1996, 2).
Effective communication
An effective piece of documentation
tells the story and the purpose of an

event, experience, or development.
It is a product that draws others into
the experience—evidence or artifacts
that describe a situation, tell a story,
and help the viewer to understand the
purpose of the action.
The Power of Documentation
Hilary Seitz, PhD, is the early childhood coordinator in the
Department of Teaching and
Learning at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. Her wide
range of early childhood
experiences includes teaching in child care centers, a public
preschool, and elementary
schools. [email protected]
Hilary Seitz
A parent eyes something on the wall in the
hallway near her child’s classroom. She stops
and looks across the entire wall, as if trying to
determine where to start. She moves to the left
a bit and scans the bulletin board posted farther
down. At one point she nods as if in agreement
and mouths a yes. Another parent approaches and turns
to see what is on the wall. He too is mesmerized by the
documentation of what one child discovered about pussy
willows by using an I-scope lens.
When used effectively, consistently,
and thoughtfully, documentation can
also drive curriculum and collabora-
tion in the early childhood classroom
setting.
Formats that work

A bulletin board can be a form of
documentation, but there are any
number of other possible formats,
including a presentation board con-
taining documentation artifacts and/
or evidence (documentation panels),
class books, portfolios, slide shows,
movies, and other creative products.
The format that documentation
takes can be as varied as the creator’s
mind permits. Because documentation
should provide evidence of a process
with a purpose, whatever the format,
it should fully explain the process,
highlighting various aspects of the
experience or event.
in the
Early Childhood
Classroom
Young Children • March 2008 89
Audience and purposes
Successful documentation
formats reflect the intended
audience and purposes. In
addition, the format selected
will depend on the individual
preparing the documenta-
tion and how the children are

involved in the experience.
For example, if one teacher
wants to highlight for families
and administrators how the
class is meeting a particular
math or science standard, she
would use examples of chil-
dren participating in experi-
ences that align with the stan-
dard. As evidence, she might
include photographs of chil-
dren measuring plant stems
with a ruler, children’s com-
ments about measuring the
stems, background informa-
tion about how the children
learned about measurement
(or plants), and the specific learning
standard the
children are
meeting by
participating
in this experi-
ence. To best
combine all of
these elements,
the teacher
may choose a
documentation
panel as the
format to help
the audience
understand
how children
are learning.

If children in the class are the
intended audience, however, and the
purpose of the documentation is to
help children reflect on their math and
science learning and connect them to
future lessons, then the teacher would
select different artifacts and evidence.
A documentation panel could again
be appropriate, but different artifacts
and evidence might include a web of
children’ s ideas: for instance, why an
Documentation
Artifacts and Evidence
• Teacher’s description and overview of an event/
experience/skill development, such as photographs and
descriptions of a field trip
• Photographs of children at work—for example, con-
ducting a science experiment
• Samples of children’s work, like a writing sample from
the beginning of the year
• Children’s comments, such as “All the rocks have spar-
kles in them,” in writing or as recorded by the teacher
• Teacher or parent comments about a classroom
event—for instance, “It was really fun helping the chil-
dren measure the ingredients for playdough”
• Teacher transcriptions of conversations during small
group time when children are exploring a new topic,
such as why snow melts indoors
• Important items or observations relating to an event/
experience/development, such as “Johnny can now write
his own name on his work”
Possible Topics to Document

• Individual child growth and development, such as language
development
progression
• Expected behaviors (at group time, in using a certain toy,
while eating together)
• Curriculum ideas or events (field trips, presentations, special
activities,
celebrations)
• Curriculum projects, such as learning about plant life cycles
• Families and relationships (different types of family structures
and characteristics
of the families in the classroom community)
• Evidence of meeting learning standards (by posting work
samples)
• Questions and answers of the children, teachers, and families
about such topics
as classroom routines (like how to wash your hands)
elephant should not live at
the Alaska Zoo, children’s
comments about the
elephant, and questions for
further exploration, such as,
“Where should an elephant
live?” Add related photo-
graphs and work samples.
Again, an explanation
about where the learn-
ing began and where it is
intended to go will help any
audience better understand
the documentation. In both
cases, the quality of the end
product will depend on the
teacher’s understanding of
children, the curriculum, and

the standards, along with his
or her effective use of tech-
nology and observation.
What should we
document?
A variety of experi-
ences and topics are appropriate to
document, but documentation should
always tell a complete story. To stay
on track, carefully select one topic
and explore it to the fullest rather
than trying to do a little of everything.
For example, if the class is learning
about plants (and studying plant
parts, how to grow particular plants,
types of plants, and so on), it would
be best to document fully just one
aspect of chil-
dren’s learning.
Choosing a
focus
The teacher
might choose to
document only
the children’s
study of plant
parts, for exam-
ple, and could
start by provid-
ing a learning
spark, such as

a new plant in
To stay on track, care-
fully select one topic
and explore it to the full-
est rather than trying to
do a little of everything.
the classroom (Seitz 2006). As chil-
dren comment on the plant parts, the
teacher can create a web to record
what they know and to help them
formulate questions. The children
might also draw and label the various
plant parts.
Presenting the topic
and learning
The teacher can combine all of
these pieces to make a documentation
panel. This panel would illustrate the
children’s knowledge and understand-
ing more thoroughly than a panel
displaying every child’s worksheet
on plant parts, all of their water-
color paintings of a plant, and every
brainstormed list of vegetable plants.
Offering specific examples of how
children came to their understandings
about just one aspect of a lesson—in
this case, plant parts—achieves more

than offering an overview of several
experiences.
Showing developmental
progress
One important and common topic
for documentation is individual child
growth and development. As previous
examples have shown, the documenter
is a researcher first, collecting as
much information as possible to paint
a picture of progress and outcomes.
Documenting individual growth
requires a great deal of research, as
the teacher must observe each child
in a variety of areas of development
(such as social-emotional, cognitive,
language, and motor) over a substan-
tial length of time. Only then can the
teacher create a documentation piece
that tells an accurate story about each
child.
A teacher should be careful to avoid
displaying private or confidential
information in public forums. There
are times when documentation may
be more appropriately shared in
other, more private venues, such as a
portfolio.
Portfolios used for individual
assessment of children make a par-
ticularly good format for documenting
developmental progress. Teachers
select several domains to research.

They then collect evidence of a
child’s interaction with other children
(photographs and written observa-
tions), record the child’s reflections
about their friendships and cognitive
abilities in interviews or group discus-
sions, collect work samples, and tie
the documentation together by writ-
ing a narrative describing the child’s
abilities (not deficits) in the selected
domains. Even though the portfolio
focuses on a child’s abilities, teach-
ers may want to consider sharing the
documentation/portfolio in a private
setting, such as a parent/child/teacher
conference, so that parents do not feel
compelled to compare their child to
others in the class.
Why should we document?
There are several important reasons
for using documentation in early child-
hood classrooms.
Showing accountability
Accountability is one reason for
documentation. Teachers are account-
able to administrators, families,
community members, and others,
and documentation helps to provide
evidence of children’s learning. In
addition, documentation can improve
relationships, teaching, and learning.
Use of this tool helps educators get to

know and understand children, and
it allows them to reflect on the effec-
tiveness of their teaching practices
(Kroeger & Cardy 2006).
Extending the learning
Consider the following example of
how one thoughtful teacher could use
documentation to prolong and extend
an unexpected learning opportunity. A
group of children finds some miscella-
neous nuts and bolts on a playground,
and their teacher, noting their curios-
ity, carefully observes their responses
and listens to and documents their
The documenter is a
researcher first, collecting
as much information as
possible to paint a picture
of progress and outcomes.
conversations (by using written
notes, photographs, and video).
She listens to learn what the
children know about the items
and what they wonder, such as
“Where do these come from?”
Then she facilitates a conversa-
tion with the children to learn
more about their ideas and

theories behind the purpose of
the nuts and bolts and how they
came to be on the playground.
Later the teacher incorporates the
initial comments, the photographs,
and the conversations in a docu-
mentation source (panel, notebook,
PowerPoint, or other creative prod-
uct). The children and teacher revisit
the encounter through the documen-
tation and reflect on the experience,
which helps the children continue
their conversation and drives forward
their interest. This back-and-forth
examination of the documentation
helps the teacher and children negoti-
ate a curriculum that is based on the
children’s interests (Seitz 2006).
Making learning visible
When expected to provide evidence
that children are meeting learning
standards, documentation is a natural
way to make learning visible. Helm,
Beneke, and Steinheimer (1998) call
this idea “windows on learning,” mean-
ing that documenting offers an insight
into children’s development and learn-
ing. Moreover, they observe, “When
teachers document children’s learning
in a variety of ways, they can be more
confident about the value of their
teaching” (1998, 24).
How should we document?

The documentation process is best
done in collaboration with other
teachers, parents, and, in some cases,
children soon after the experience.
The information and product become
richer when two or more teachers,
children, and parents work together to
understand an event. Collaboration
also helps build a classroom community,
which is important because it engages
teachers, parents, and children in
thinking about the process of learning.
When two or more people discuss
an event, each brings a different per-
spective and a new level of depth.
The photo below shows two teachers
discussing a possible change to the
classroom environment. They have
discussed aspects that are necessary
and that work and things they would
like to change based on the children’s
needs, such as repositioning the
furniture. Together they share how
they have observed young children
using the space. This environment
plan would look very different if just
one individual had created it. Carlina
Rinaldi discusses this notion of work-
ing together and building community:
“To feel a sense of belonging, to be
part of a larger endeavor, to share
meanings—these are rights of every-
one involved in the educational pro-

cess, whether teachers, children, or
parents . . . working in groups is essen-
tial” (1998, 114).
Stages of the documenter
First and foremost, documentation
is a process that is learned, facilitated,
and created in stages. I would even
go so far as to say that documenters
go through their own stages as they
learn more about documenting and
using documentation to support their
ideas. Many early childhood educators
already document children’s develop-
ment and learning in many ways, and
most communicate a variety of mes-
sages in diverse formats to families
(Brown-DuPaul, Keyes, & Segatti 2001).
There are six stages that most early
childhood educators, including col-
lege students and practicing teach-
ers, move through both individually
and collaboratively (see “Stages of
Documenter Experience”). Educators
who collaborate to learn more about
documentation tend to have more
positive experiences than those who
work on their own.
The documentation process
is best done in collaboration
with other teachers, parents,
and, in some cases, children
soon after the experience.

Conclusion
Documentation can be a rewarding
process when educators understand
the value associated with collecting
evidence and producing a summary
presentation, whether in a bulletin
board, panel, video, or other format.
To become a documenter, one must
first understand what to observe
and what to do with the information
collected. It takes time and practice
to learn which experiences support
effective documentation and how to
collect artifacts and evidence.
Next, as documenters learn why the
information is important, they begin
to understand the value of documenta-
tion for different audiences and come
Stage
1. Deciding to document
2. Exploring technology use
3. Focusing on children’s
engagement
4. Gathering information

5. Connecting and telling
stories
6. Documenting decision
making
Experience
Documenters ask, “What should I document?” They
collect artwork from every child but at first tend to
create busy bulletin boards with too much informa-
tion. Concerned with equity, many include every item
rather than being selective.
Documenters explore how to use equipment and
photographs from various events and experiences.
Most of the photos are displayed on bulletin boards
or inserted in photo albums. The video clips are
placed in slideshows or movies and shown to chil-
dren and parents.
Documenters learn to photograph specific things
and events with the intent of capturing a piece of the
story of children engaged in learning.
Documenters title the photographs, events, and
experiences and begin to write descriptions that tell
the story of children’s learning.
Documenters combine work samples, photographs,
descriptions, and miscellaneous information in sup-
port of the entire learning event. They tell the whole
story with a beginning, middle, and an end, using
supporting artifacts.
Documenters frame questions, reflect, assess, build

theories, and meet learning standards, all with the
support of documentation.
Value
Documenters show pride in the
children’s work.
Documenters work hard to
learn more about technology.
They show pride in the chil-
dren’s actions by displaying
photos and video clips.
Documenters become techno-
logically competent and able
to focus on important learning
events and experiences.
Documenters begin to con-
nect children’s actions and
experiences.
Documenters continue to use
documentation artifacts to con-
nect children’s actions and
experiences to curriculum and
learning standards.
Documenters become reflec-
tive practitioners who document
meaningful actions/events,
explain why they are important,
and push themselves and oth-
ers to continue thinking about
these experiences.

Stages of Documenter Experience
to recognize why certain aspects of
child development are important
to assess. In addition, documenters
learn that administrators and parents
value this information, yet it also has
value to the children and the teacher
Often the documentation provides insights into chil-
dren’s thinking and helps drive the future curriculum.
in planning authentic curriculum that
meets children’s needs.
Finally, the documenter learns
how best to interpret and display
the information gathered. Often the
documentation provides insights into
children’s thinking and helps drive the
future curriculum. Deepening chil-
dren’s learning is the ultimate reward
of documentation.
References
Brown-DuPaul, J., T. Keyes, & L. Segatti. 2001.
Using documentation panels to communi-
cate with families. Childhood Education 77
(4): 209–13.
Helm, J.H., S. Beneke, & K. Steinheimer. 1998.

Windows on learning: Documenting young chil-
dren’s work. New York: Teachers College Press.
Katz, L.G., & S.C. Chard. 1996. The contribu-
tion of documentation to the quality of early
childhood education. ED 393608. www.eric-
digests.org/1996-4/quality.htm
Kroeger, J., & T. Cardy. 2006. Documentation: A
hard-to-reach place. Early Childhood Educa-
tion Journal 33 (6): 389–98.
Rinaldi, C. 1998. Projected curriculum con-
struction through documentation—Proget-
tazione. In The hundred languages of chil-
dren: The Reggio Emilia approach—Advanced
reflections, 2nd ed., eds. C. Edwards, L. Gan-
dini, & G. Forman, 114. Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
Seitz, H. 2006. The plan: Building on children’s
interests. Young Children 61 (2): 36–41.
Further resources
Chard, S.C. 1998. The Project Approach: Making
curriculum come alive. New York: Scholastic.
Curtis, D., & M. Carter. 2000. The art of aware-
ness: How observation can transform your
teaching. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.
Edwards, C., L. Gandini, & G. Forman, eds.
1998. The hundred languages of children: The
Reggio Emilia approach—Advanced reflec-
tions. 2nd ed. Greenwich, CT: Ablex.

Fraser, S., & C. Gestwicki. 2002. Authentic child-
hood: Exploring Reggio Emilia in the class-
room. Albany, NY: Delmar/Thomson Learning.
Fu, V.R., A.J. Stremmel, & L.T. Hill. 2002. Teach-
ing and learning: Collaborative exploration
of the Reggio Emilia approach. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Merrill.
Gandini, L., & C.P. Edwards, eds. 2001. Bam-
bini: The Italian approach to infant/toddler
care. New York: Teachers College Press.
Hill, L.T., A.J. Stremmel, & V.R. Fu. 2005. Teach-
ing as inquiry: Rethinking curriculum in early
childhood education. Boston: Pearson/Allyn
& Bacon.
Jones, E., & J. Nimmo. 1994. Emergent curricu-
lum. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Katz, L.G., & S.C. Chard. 2000 Engaging chil-
dren’s minds: The project approach. 2nd ed.
Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
Oken-Wright, P. 2001. Documentation: Both mir-
ror and light. Innovations in Early Education:
The International Reggio Exchange 8 (4): 5–15.
Reed, A.J., & V.E. Bergemann. 2005. A guide to
observation, participation, and reflection in
the classroom. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Shores, E.F., & C. Grace. 2005. The portfolio
book: A step-by-step guide for teachers. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Wurm, J. 2005. Working the Reggio way: A
beginner’s guide for American teachers. St.
Paul, MN: Redleaf.
Copyright © 2008 by the National Association for the Education
of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at
www.journal.naeyc.org/about/permissions.asp.
At the Crossroads: Pedagogical
Documentation and Social Justice
Ann Pelo
Ann writes this chapter from the perspective of a mentor to the
staff at
Hilltop Children’s Center, a full-day, urban child care program
in the
United States. The position of mentor teacher was created at
Hilltop in
2003 as a strategy for creating a shared understanding of core
pedagogical principles and establishing common teaching
practices
among the teaching staff. Hilltop had long been influenced by
the
teaching and learning in Reggio Emilia but, until this position
was
created, there was little institutional support for centre-wide
efforts to
weave these influences into daily practice. After 12 years of
classroom
Chapter Ten

Introduction
Too often in our field, passionate advocates of anti-bias
practices and committed
practitioners of Reggio-inspired pedagogy live in separate
worlds, each with its
own focus, vocabulary, and curriculum emphases and practices.
These two arenas
are perceived as distinct and self-contained, with little exchange
or dialogue
between them.
But the crossroads where social justice work and child-centred,
Reggio-
inspired teaching meet is a place of vitality, challenge, and
profound engagement
with fundamental values and vision. At the crossroads, we are
called into a way
of being with children and families that demands passionate
dialogue and action.
At the crossroads, we are challenged to listen closely to
children’s understandings
of their lives—their expression of individual and family
identities, their experiences
of culture and relationships, their encounters with justice and
oppression. At the
crossroads, we are asked to weave together the dispositions to
pay attention,
reflect on children’s play and conversations, plan from our
reflections, and tell the
stories that enrich our community. At the crossroads, we are
called to weave
together a commitment to responsive pedagogy with a

commitment to work for
just, non-violent communities.
When social justice work and child-centred, Reggio-inspired
teaching come
together, we find a shared image of the child as a keen observer,
attending to the
ways in which people are similar and different, and to the layers
of cultural
meanings and judgments attached to those similarities and
differences. We recognise
that the child is at risk for developing biases about others and
inaccurate images
of herself without guidance and support from caring, aware
adults. We under-
stand the child to be passionate about expressing her
understandings—eager to
communicate what she notices, what she feels, what she
believes, what she questions.
And we know the child to be capable of deep study and critical
thinking, and
enthusiastic about taking action that brings her ideas to life.
Ins ights
174
teaching, which launched Ann on her journey into pedagogical
documentation, she became Hilltop’s mentor teacher. In this
work, she
partnered with individual teachers, worked with classroom
teaching
teams, and facilitated centre-wide professional development
gatherings,
with a year-long focus on pedagogical documentation. This
focused

attention on the rhythm of observation, reflection, and planning,
shook
loose old habits and patterns, opened new possibilities, and
sparked
new participation by teachers who had long been on the
periphery or
entrenched in old ruts and routines. The experience described
below
confirmed for Ann the power of pedagogical documentation as a
doorway into teaching that is full of zest, engaged awareness,
and
playful exploration.
At the cross roads : Pedagogica l documentat ion and soc ia l
jus t ice
175
At the crossroads, we find a shared image of families as
embedded in culture
which gives rise to ritual and tradition, language and
expression. We recognise
that all families and individuals experience and participate in
the dynamics of
bias, oppression, and privilege that characterise our
communities. We believe that
families are eager for dialogue with each other and with
teachers to explore the
ways in which these dynamics impact on their children’s
development and learning,
while at the same time they feel vulnerable and protective about
taking up issues
like racism, classism, heterosexism, ablism, and sexism,
particularly in connection

with their children’s lives.
At the crossroads, we find a shared image of teachers as people
learning in
relationship with children and families. We understand teachers
as facilitators of
children’s passionate pursuits and as guides and mentors for
children’s learning,
creating a context in which children can take up the issues that
matter to them—
including issues related to unfairness and inequity. We
recognise that teachers are
eager to engage with families in authentic dialogue about values
and the expression
of values in daily life and, too, that they feel vulnerable and
unsure about how
to begin these dialogues.
Another way in which social justice work and Reggio-inspired
teaching
come together is the shared image of teachers as agents for
social change. One
important role of pedagogical documentation is to make visible
the lives and
experiences of young children, too often sidelined and
discounted in our culture
which claims to ‘leave no child behind’ (US Congress, 2001).
Another important aspect of teachers’ social justice work is to
advocate for
more just and equitable communities, including advocacy
around issues of
compensation and working conditions for early childhood
professionals. On the
most immediate level, this means participating in efforts
addressing the financial

crisis in child care in the United States, where the wages of
child care teachers
are so low that teachers frequently leave the field. These
efforts, like the National
Worthy Wage Campaign and corresponding local movements,
are aimed at
creating institutional priorities and structures that provide the
tools, resources,
and working conditions that allow teachers to engage in the
practice of peda-
gogical documentation. This engagement moves beyond
‘keeping children safe’
and ‘meeting licensing regulations’ to deep, collaborative
engagement with children
and families, while earning a liveable wage which supports their
investment in
their profession.
With these points of intersection between social justice work
and Reggio-
inspired pedagogy, we can, I believe, make the bold statement
that when we are
genuinely engaged in pedagogical documentation we will take
up issues of social
and environmental justice with children and families. The only
way we can avoid
these issues is by deliberately ignoring them when they arise—
ignoring
children’s observations of differences and the cultural biases
that accompany those
differences, ignoring children’s observations of unfairness,
ignoring children’s
requests for our help in understanding the communities in which
they live.

Ins ights
176
And this would be terrible violence, this denial of children’s
right to think
critically about and engage with their world. Children will call
our attention to
social justice issues and when we practise pedagogical
documentation, we will
partner with the children around these issues.
A story to illustrate…
Four boys, seven and eight-years-old, slip into the silky,
shimmery, calf-length,
pink and purple dresses in the drama area. They accessorise
with layers of beaded
necklaces, scarves, and fancy hats, laughing and laughing as
they transform
themselves with their over-the-top outfits. They’re calling out
to each other, ‘You
look like a girl!’ ‘You look really weird!’ ‘Hey, now I’m a lady,
look at me!’ Their
laughter catches the attention of other children in the after-
school program, and
they gather around the drama area, laughing and pointing. ‘Get
chairs! You can be
the audience’, calls out one of the boys, and a drag fashion
show is born.
The boys prance and mince for the gathered audience (which
includes five
other children, girls and boys, and the two after-school
teachers), not saying much

but laughing hard. One of the boys, Drew, seems a bit tense, his
laughter strained,
a bit manic: perhaps a sign of discomfort under the silliness?
Another boy, Liam,
seems wholly at ease with the flowing silk and satin. The
children in the audience
mirror this range of responses to boys in ‘girls’ clothes; there’s
some shrill, fast
laughter, some easy joking, some delighted giggles.
After about 15 minutes, the performers begin to tire and the
audience members
begin to disperse. One teacher helps the performers put away
the costumes, while
the other teacher guides the other children towards snack.
The teachers, jackson1 and Elaine, brought their observation
notes and a couple
of photos of this ‘drag show’ to our weekly staff meeting. After
reading the notes
and studying the photos together, we reflected on individual
children’s responses
to the performance. As we talked, I asked jackson and Elaine to
point to specific
observations—kids’ comments, body language and expressions
captured in photos
—to anchor their reflections.
‘Liam’s family has a fluidity and ease around gender. They
encourage both
Liam and his younger sister to take on a range of roles and ways
of being in the
world. I think that for Liam, this “drag show” wasn’t
particularly remarkable,
except, maybe, for the wild laughter and antics of the other
kids’, one teacher

commented. ‘He didn’t say much during the whole thing, and
his outfits were
the least outrageous, like this wasn’t a big deal for him.’
1 jackson prefers to use the lower case for his name.
jus t ice
177
‘Drew seemed sort of tense about the whole thing, under his
laughter’, Elaine
reflected. ‘His laughter had an edge to it, and he moved really
fast and wild.
He was the one who commented again and again about looking
like a girl, about
being like a girl.’
‘While I watched, I wondered if Drew and a couple of the other
kids were
using this opportunity to see how it feels to be “female”.
They’re old enough
now to understand social mores about boys in girls’ clothes, so
they had to make
this into a joke, but maybe it’s the best way they know, to try
on these other
identities’, jackson mused.
With jackson’s comment, we began to reflect on the meaning of
the drag
show for the children participating and watching. What were the
children
curious about, or trying to figure out, with their dressing-up and

performing?
What understandings or misunderstandings or experiences were
they drawing on?
What theories were they working from? In our conversation, we
drew on other
observations of the children’s play and informal conversations,
as well as on our
understandings of these children’s particular lives, worldviews,
and experiences.
After nearly an hour of study and reflection, we generated a
hypothesis: These
children—the players and the audience members—were curious
to explore
what it means to be a boy or a girl; What does it feel like to be
a boy? A girl?
What, fundamentally, is a girl? A boy?
We recognised that these children, certainly, have been
exploring these
questions throughout their childhoods, from various
developmental vantage
points. We believed that they were ready to take up these
questions again from
the vantage point of their current developmental perspectives,
cognitive abilities,
and social understandings.
We considered several possibilities for ways to extend the
children’s exploration
of the meaning of gender and identity, and settled on our next
step: Elaine and
jackson would read X, a fabulous children’s story, by Louis
Gould (1982), which
describes the early life of a child named ‘X’, whose gender is
kept secret from
everyone, including Xself! After reading the story, they’d invite

the children to
create simple sketches of X, which would both challenge the
children to wrestle
with how to represent gender and genderlessness and give us
more information
about the children’s understandings.
This initial observation, study and planning, marked the
beginning of an
exploration of gender identity and social justice that lasted for
six months. The
exploration grew step by step, observation by observation, as
we practised the
circling, spiralling study and planning process of pedagogical
documentation:
observation, giving rise to reflection and study and
hypothesising, giving rise to
next steps and unfolding possibilities, giving rise to new
observations, and so on.
We had to be diligent about staying grounded in specific
observations of the
children’s play and conversations as we took up this topic,
about which we all
have strong beliefs and powerful personal experiences. When
we caught
Ins ights
178
ourselves straying into more general conversations about sexism
and gender
identity and ways to ‘teach’ kids about these issues, we returned
to the specific

words and images on the table in front of us: What were the
children saying,
playing, and representing about their understandings of gender
identity? These
observations guided our planning day by day, week by week.
As this exploration unfolded, we became more specific and
clear in our
hypotheses and questions, distilled from our observations about
the children’s
interactions with the provocations we offered:
How much weight do the children give to biological markers of
gender identity,
and to external markers like clothes, hair styles, accessories, to
mannerisms and
language, to activities? What are the children’s understandings
and values around
our culture’s gender rules? What are their beliefs about
exceptions to those rules:
is there a point at which the exceptions disprove the rules?
And our planned next steps, week by week, became increasingly
fine-tuned, as
we learned more about the children’s specific understandings,
misunderstandings,
and questions.
During the six-month exploration, we invited the children to
rewrite classic
fairy tales—Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood,
Cinderella—replacing the
female protagonists with male heroes. We invited the children
to create paper
dolls of themselves: large-size, full-body photos with several
acetate overlays on

which they could draw moustaches, or braids and bows, or skirts
or baseball caps
or hiking boots—ways to playfully experiment with external,
cultural markers
of gender identity. We read The story of X again, and the
children created more
elaborate portraits of X. We wrote the next chapter in X’s life,
with the children
as characters in the story. And we explored possibilities for
activism: What could
you do if a kid gets teased in the playground? How might we
respond to
advertisements that play on cultural ideas about what girls and
boys ought to like?
This is pedagogical documentation in action, at the place where
it intersects
with social justice learning.
How we came to live at the crossroads
I’m the mentor teacher in the full-day child care program at
Hilltop Children’s
Center, a role inspired by the work of the atelieristi and
pedagogisti in Reggio
Emilia. I work with teachers individually and in teaching teams
and with the
staff as a whole to support and facilitate reflective teaching
practices anchored in
key elements of anti-bias, Reggio-inspired pedagogy. Our
collaborations are
grounded in the cornerstone elements of pedagogical
documentation: observation,
reflection and study, planning, and telling the story. And, often,
our collaborations
involve social justice learning.

jus t ice
179
As we’ve become more and more skilful at the practice of
pedagogical
documentation, social justice issues have risen to the surface
and become a focus
of our teaching and learning. For many years we wanted anti-
bias, social and
environmental justice work to be front and centre at Hilltop; for
a painfully long
time, this happened only sporadically and, then, only in a
couple of classrooms
with participation from only a handful of teachers. This was the
case for Reggio-
inspired, ‘emergent’ project work, as well: a few teachers
carried the vision for
this work and attempted to realise this vision in their
classrooms, struggling with
isolation and yearnings for more authentic collaboration. To
address the
challenge of creating shared understandings of, and practices
around, anti-bias
and Reggio-inspired teaching, we added the position of mentor
teacher to our staff.
My first year’s work as mentor teacher centred on pedagogical
documentation:
we practised and practised the cycle of observation, reflection,
planning and
telling stories, coming at this cycle through many doorways. By
the end of that
first intensive year, this way of being with children, families,

and co-workers had
become part of who we were. And in the course of this practice,
issues of social
justice crept into our discussions and our planning, until,
indeed, it fell front and
centre, an organic extension of children’s pursuits and passions.
When we paid
close attention to what the children were playing and saying, we
heard, again and
again, children exploring the ways in which people are the same
and different,
and the cultural values and biases associated with identity
differences. The children
were our guides, leading us to the crossroads, as we embraced
the practice of
documentation as a verb.
Documentation is a verb
We’d used the word ‘documentation’ at Hilltop as shorthand for
the pieces of
writing posted on the curriculum boards or slipped into
children’s journals.
The transformation of our understanding began with a change in
discourse.
We began to use ‘documentation’ as an active verb rather than
an inert noun,
embracing it as a vibrant practice—the practice of deep
engagement by adults in
the lives of children. We replaced the word ‘documentation’
with more descriptive
and specific words in an effort to call attention to the
cornerstone elements:
• observing closely and making notes;

• studying our observation notes;
• planning next steps; and
• telling the story.
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180
Observing closely: The foundation of pedagogical
documentation
The first cornerstone of documentation is observation. As
teachers—people
committed to inquiry—we strive to pay attention to the
everyday, ordinary
moments of each day. These ordinary moments are the fabric of
children’s lives:
they offer glimpses into the children’s hearts and minds. When
we pay attention
to ordinary moments, we begin to know the children deeply.
Listening, watching,
taking notes—observation is the beginning of documentation.
We collect ‘traces’ of our observations—taking notes, making
audiotapes of
children’s conversations with each other and with us, taking
photographs, making
videotapes, collecting children’s work. These ‘traces’ provide
the raw material for our
sharing, reflecting, and planning. Teachers take time to review
their observations,
transcribe audiotapes, choose sections of videotape, and
organise photos. This

work actively engages us—it is done to help us plan ways to
sustain, extend, and
deepen children’s play and learning. It invites us to immerse
ourselves deeply in
the children’s play, paying close attention to their words, their
gestures, their
expressions, capturing the details of their play that help us
know them intimately
and well.
In this first step of pedagogical documentation, we’re
intentionally listening
for children’s cries of ‘That’s not fair!’ and other cues that
children are thinking
about issues of difference, justice, and equity. We’re alert to
children’s comments
about skin colour, gender, body size and physical ability, family
make-up and
other issues related to identity and culture. We intervene in the
moment, when
needed, and we bring our observations of children’s play and
thinking about
social justice issues to our co-teachers so that we can grow
explorations and
in-depth projects that extend and deepen children’s learning.
As we become more skilful listeners and observers, the
children’s work to
understand issues of identity, difference, justice and bias
becomes more apparent
to us. For example, in our youngest group of children—children
just turned three
years old, teacher Molly overheard this conversation about
identity and power:
Bridget: Heth has a little power. She doesn’t have enough,

because she’s little
and so she has only a little power.
Rachel: Bridget, Heth has control of her own body. You are not
the truth of
her body. Her body does have power! There’s little power and
big
power right in her belly. It’s inside you and you can have
enough
power. Heth can have enough power.
Molly jotted down the children’s exchange and brought her
notes to our staff
meeting, commenting that ‘I’m not sure what this means
exactly, or what we
ought to do next, but the kids are clearly trying to understand
power—who has
it and where it resides.’ Meanwhile, several comments over the
course of a week
or so in our group of three, four, and five-year-old children,
called us to attention.
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181
‘You can’t play in this game because you have brown skin and
that’s not a pretty
colour’, said a light-skinned child to a dark-skinned child.
A teacher intervened at this point with a clear statement that
‘It’s hurtful
and unfair to keep someone out of a game because of the colour

of their skin.’
She stayed with the children to support them both, as they
figured out a way to
play together.
‘Is your skin getting darker while you get older?’ a child asked
Miriam, a teacher
who is Filipino.
‘Your hair goes with your skin, and you have brown eyes, too’,
another child
commented to Miriam, stroking her dark hair and her dark skin.
‘When I go to kindergarten, I hope I don’t have a dark-skinned
teacher. People
with dark skin are bullies’, a child told her mother.
‘I’m surprised about that idea!’ her mother replied. ‘Your
teachers Miriam and
Liane have dark skin’.
‘Yeah, I know, but I like them’, answered her daughter.
Teachers brought notes about these exchanges to our staff
meeting. They were
concerned and eager to discuss how to address issues of skin
colour difference
and its cultural meanings, with the children.
Studying and reflecting: The bridge between observation and
action
We bring our notes, photographs, and transcriptions to our co-
teachers and to
children’s families. In collaboration with these colleagues and
companions, we
review our observations and reflect together about what they
tell us about
children’s understandings, misunderstandings, theories, and
questions. When we
come together to study our documentation, we take up questions

like:
• What are the children curious about? What are they trying to
figure out?
• What knowledge and experiences are the children drawing on?
What theories
are they working from or testing?
• Do we see any inconsistencies in the children’s thinking? Are
there ‘soft spots’
or misunderstandings in the children’s thinking?
• How are the children building on each other’s ideas,
perspectives, and
contributions?
• What do we want to learn more about, after watching and
listening to the
children?
• What insights does this observation give us about possible
ways that we could
deepen our relationships with children’s families?
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182
These discussions help us develop hypotheses and questions to
pursue with
the children.
Exploring power

As we considered the conversation between Rachel and Bridget
about power,
we reflected on the relationship each of them has with Heth, the
smallest child
in their group, as well as on the ways each of the three children
carry themselves
in the world. A teacher shared a brief conversation she’d had
with Rachel a few
weeks earlier, in which Rachel had declared that her brother has
a lot of power,
because he’s a boy, and that she wanted to be in his classroom
group because that
group of kids has power and her group doesn’t. Intriguing to
hold this statement
alongside her quick defence of tiny, ultra-feminine Heth!
We named a theory that seemed foundational to their thinking,
that power is
correlated with size. We wondered what the children meant
when they talked
about ‘enough’ power—and, indeed, what they meant by
‘power’. And we
wondered where the children understood power to reside.
The meaning of skin colour
As we began to sift through the children’s comments and
questions about skin
colour, we acknowledged the extra charge these comments held
for each of us:
a Filipino woman who had wished for light skin as a child; a
native Hawaiian
woman proudly championing her culture in the face of racism;
two European
American women engaged in anti-racist activism as adults and
acutely aware of
the power and privilege associated with white skin in a racist

culture. With these
experiences acknowledged by us all, we turned to study of the
children’s comments.
We named several themes and questions that we saw in them:
• Brown is ugly. Is this about skin colour or a preference for all
things pink
and dainty?
• Does skin colour change? Are babies born light-skinned and
their skin darkens
as they age? Is colour something added to skin or intrinsic to
skin?
• How do skin colour, hair colour, and eye colour come together
to create a
person’s physical identity?
• Unknown people with dark skin are frightening—but
relationship trans-
forms fear.
We began to formulate ways to take up a conversation with the
children’s
families about their curiosity and theories about skin colour,
recognising that any
exploration of skin colour and bias would need to involve
children’s families.
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183

Planning next steps to extend children’s investigations
We end our discussions by planning next steps—the concrete
action that we’ll
take with the children to invite critical thinking, to nudge them
to take new
perspectives, to encourage them to reconsider their theories, and
to facilitate
activism. Questions that guide our planning include:
• What changes could we make to the classroom environment?
• What materials or ‘provocations’ could we add to the
classroom?
• How could we participate in the children’s play?
• How could we invite the children to use another ‘language’ to
extend or shift
their thinking?
• How might we use our notes and photos to help the children
revisit their
ideas?
• How will we be in dialogue with families about this
exploration, inviting
their reflections and insights as well as letting them know what
we’re thinking
and wondering?
As we consider extensions of children’s social justice
explorations, we watch for
possibilities for activism. How might the children’s concern
about and passion
for fairness and equity open into action? We recognise that
young children’s

activism looks different from adult activism, certainly, and that
it is less about
creating systemic change than it is about creating the
dispositions of change-
makers. We hope that the children in our care come to see
themselves as people
who notice injustice and bias and who join with others to take
action in the face
of unfairness. So, as we plan from our observations and
reflections, we listen
carefully for any ways in which children are identifying that
‘we should do
something about this problem!’.
Exploring power
We decided to gather more information about the children’s
understandings—
and to invite the children to become more aware of their
understandings—by
asking Rachel, Bridget, and Heth to sort a collection of photos
of people
according to whether they had power or not. This initial meeting
with the
‘power girls’ (as we came to call them) sparked a heated and
forceful discussion
about whether power is an internal quality reflected in a
person’s eyes or a
physical application of strength and might. Molly’s notes about
this debate
launched us into another round of study, reflection, and
planning, and an
in-depth exploration of power was born.
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184
The undertaking was quickly expanded by an early controversy.
The three
children affirmed, again and again, that power is active:
‘Swinging isn’t powerful
because you’re not doing anything.’ They agreed that power is
linked with
strength, substance, and toughness: ‘Clay is powerful because
it’s tough.’ ‘You have
to be big and fat to be powerful.’ They disagreed sharply,
though, on the
relationship between beauty and power. Heth commented that
‘Princesses are
powerful, because they’re so beautiful.’ Rachel’s reaction was
fierce: ‘Princesses
kill people who aren’t beautiful enough. I don’t want to be a
princess; they’ll kill
me because I don’t like to wear dresses. That’s why I want to be
a boy. They have
even more power than princesses.’ The debate about this was
contentious, and
led us to an overt focus on the relationship between gender and
power which
drew on the languages of colour, movement, clay, drama and
storytelling,
and woodworking.
We decided to shine the spotlight on skin colour by inviting
each child in the
group to create a detailed self-portrait, first sketching their
face, features, and hair
with a black drawing pen, then mixing the colours they needed
to capture their

skin, hair, lip, and eye colour to fill in their portraits. As they
worked on these
portraits over several weeks, the children talked with each other
and with the
teachers about their understandings of the origins of skin
colour.
These conversations provided an opportunity for teachers to
correct
misinformation that skin colour changes over time, or is an
overlay on top of
light skin (a common misunderstanding among dominant culture
children who
assume that light-coloured skin is the baseline). These
conversations also gave us
Self-portrait ‘palettes’
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185
opportunities to talk together about the children’s families,
tracing skin colour and
other identifying features in their family lineage. And through
our conversations,
we learned more about the children’s questions and
understandings, information
that guided our on-going study and planning.
As this work was taking place in the studio, we engaged with
the children in
an exploration of the meanings of skin colour through a range of

experiences.
We brought in a persona doll (a detailed description of persona
dolls can be
found in Trisha Whitney’s book, Kids Like Us) with dark skin
whose stories of
exclusion and name-calling sparked passionate discussion and
problem-solving
by the children. We called attention to books about people who
took action in
the face of racism. We made a regular practice of taking field
trips to a beach in
a part of the city with a wide-ranging diversity of people. And
we watched for
opportunities for individual and group activism, steps as simple
as supporting a
child who confronted a friend: ‘It’s not fair to say brown is ugly
because that
would hurt a brown-skinned person’s feelings.’ And we wrote to
and talked with
the children’s families along the way, sharing our observation
notes and our
reflections, and inviting their suggestions for next steps.
Telling the story
Our notes, photographs, transcriptions, and collections of
children’s work become
tools for communication. We use the traces of our observations
to create written
documentation that tells the story of the children’s explorations,
our reflections
and hypotheses, and our plans about how we’ll extend the
children’s learning.
Using mirrors for self-portrait work

Ins ights
186
This written documentation takes many forms, including
narratives for bulletin
board postings about curriculum, journals for individual
children, documentation
panels and bulletin board displays, and handmade books.
Particularly when we take up issues of social justice with young
children, we
need to share with families the stories that ground our
exploration. Families, like
teachers, have values and beliefs about these potentially
controversial issues that
they communicate to their children and the children bring those
values and
beliefs to their work on social justice issues. Families’ values
play a role in the
unfolding of a social justice exploration, just as do teachers’
values. When these
values are acknowledged and discussed, there is true
collaboration between
teachers and families. When teachers seek out families’
perspectives and invite
their participation in reflection and planning, differences can be
acknowledged
openly, support can be frankly offered and received and
relationships can deepen
in unexpected and potent ways.
Written documentation creates a foundation for dialogue and
collaboration
between families and teachers. At Hilltop, we’ve heard again

and again from
parents that their children’s transcribed conversations and
comments are pivotal
in their engagement in, and curiosity about, unfolding
investigations, explorations
and projects. In our written documentation, alongside the
children’s words,
images, and work, we aim to include our reflections, hypotheses
and questions;
our planning for next steps; and specific questions for families,
asking for their
feedback and suggestions.
Photo of the artist Self-portrait: Seeing myself
jus t ice
187
Exploring power
In the days immediately following the tumult about princesses,
beauty, and
power, we gave each girl’s family a copy of the transcribed
conversation, along
with our initial questions and musings. We asked families for
insights about their
children’s understandings of princesses. The stories we heard
from Rachel’s,
Bridget’s, and Heth’s families were pivotal as we planned next
steps. We learned
about Rachel’s determined conviction that she would be a boy
one day, and
about her absolute rejection of all things ‘princessy’ like

sparkly dresses and tiaras.
We learned from Heth’s family about her passion for princesses.
And we learned
from Bridget’s family that her princess play often involved
princesses healing and
helping others. This information guided our planning, as we
continued to offer the
children opportunities to examine the relationship between
power and gender.
As we began our studio work with self-portraits, we wrote to
families sharing the
comments that children had made about skin colour, and our
thinking about the
underlying themes and questions. In addition, we included a
brief overview of
how children develop understandings of race and its cultural
meanings and a
synopsis of the anti-bias goals identified by Louise Derman-
Sparks and the Anti-Bias
Task Force (1989). We offered these in the context of child
development research
that informs our work. Finally, we asked families to share their
reactions, hopes, and
concerns with us. We heard from some families individually and
from some families
during an evening discussion that we planned. Families shared
their dis-ease, their
vulnerability, their hope:
‘I didn’t expect my child to be thinking about this hard stuff so
early in her life.’
‘I don’t feel ready for this. How should I talk with my child
about racism? What
words, exactly, should I use? Are there books we can read

together?’
‘How exactly do kids think about race and skin colour? It’s
charged for us as
adults, but surely not for them, not yet. How can we talk about
it without bringing
all our ‘stuff ’ into it?’
‘I’d like to think there are ways we can talk about these issues
with the kids that
could heal some of the hurts of our generation, so that we’re not
talking about
racism as a reality that they just have to live with, but as
something that can be
transformed.’
We took notes during our conversations, and drew on these
notes in the same
way we draw on our observations of children’s play and
conversation, as we
planned how to proceed with an exploration of skin colour and
identity in a
racist culture.
Clearly, written documentation is not a final, stale product. It is
a lively tool
for communication, for new learning, and for relationships. We
use written
communication in a range of ways (see Gandini and Goldhaber,
2001):
Ins ights
188
• We share written documentation with children. When children

revisit their
experiences by looking at written documentation, they often
decide to take
up an exploration from a new perspective, or to invite other
children into an
extension of their earlier work. They reconsider their theories
and explore
new understandings.
• We share written documentation with families. A primary goal
for our work
is to deepen and strengthen the relationships between families
and children
during their days apart. One key way that we do that is by
telling the stories
of children’s days in our program, so that families come to
know their children
more fully in this context. In addition, we hope to involve
families in mean-
ingful, intimate ways in the daily life of our classrooms. This
can only happen
when we create many windows through which they can observe
their
children’s days in our program.
• We use written documentation as a tool for social change. The
stories that we
tell of children’s investigations and play have the potential for
changing how
people understand and value childhood. We share our stories
with other early
childhood professionals and with visitors from the community.
Our stories
call attention to the too-often unheard or disregarded voices of
children.

• We use written documentation to create a history for ourselves
and for the
children and families in our program now and in the future.
Participation in
an unfolding story is a cornerstone for creating community. Our
written
documentation tells the stories of our shared experiences which,
woven
together, become the fabric of community.
Life at the crossroads
Pedagogical documentation leads surely and inescapably to
social justice work
with young children. When we listen to the children, allowing
their passions and
pursuits to guide our planning, we will find ourselves at the
crossroads with anti-bias,
social justice efforts. It is, truly, unavoidable.
Simply listen to the children! Young children pay close
attention to what’s fair
and what’s not fair—a common cry in any group of young
children is ‘That’s not
fair!’. This acute observation and concerned analysis is part of
their developmental
work: How am I the same as others? How am I different than
others? What is it
like to be someone else? (Think of all that drama play!)
We honour children’s questions about identity, about the ways
in which people
are similar and different, and we hold clear hopes for how
they’ll answer these
questions. We want children to know themselves as
compassionate, reflective,

resourceful, competent, generous people. We want them to know
others in the same
way, and as deserving of the same joys, delights, and resources
that they receive.
jus t ice
189
We want them to become skilful at taking others’ perspectives.
We want them to
ask hard questions and engage in critical thinking.
And if we pay close attention to the children, giving them the
support they
deserve as they pursue questions of identity, culture, and
community, they will
lead us right to the intersection with social justice issues. And
that is the moment
of truth for us. Will we go to the crossroads with them,
affirming our belief that
they are resourceful, engaged participants in their communities,
or will we turn
aside, unwilling to take up the challenging, invigorating work of
exploring issues
related to race, class, body size and ability, family make-up,
and gender?
When we step firmly into that place of intersection, we deepen
and draw on
children’s dispositions to be change-makers, dispositions to:
• notice and accept differences;

• collaborate with others;
• pay attention to other people’s ideas, feelings, and needs;
• speak out about fairness and unfairness; and
• take responsibility for solving problems, offering their ideas
and action.
Through their participation in social justice explorations:
• Children come to see themselves as change-makers: their
dispositions for
noticing injustice, caring about the people involved, coming
together with
other folks to think critically about the injustice, and taking
action to confront
injustice will be strengthened into life-long habits.
• Children come to new understandings and experiences of
connection with
people who are different from them, breaking down the
boundaries between
people and growing relationships where there might otherwise
be disconnection
and indifference.
• Children who are culturally privileged develop understandings
of how to use
privilege in the service of justice and equity.
• Children who come from cultures other than the dominant
(white, straight,
middle/upper class) culture deepen their identities as people
who can resist

injustice, claim their power, and become activists on their own
and others’
behalf.
• Relationships between teachers and families become more
authentic, as people
dive into challenging, value-laden issues in partnership with
each other.
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190
Documentation is a verb, a way of being in relationship. So,
too, attention to issues
of social justice is a way of being in relationship that honours
identity and culture
and that demands action. Pedagogical documentation, embraced
fully, carries us
to the crossroads and calls us to live in authentic, vulnerable,
transformative
relationship with children, their families, and each other.
References
Derman-Sparks L & The Anti-Bias Task Force (1989) Anti-bias
curriculum: Tools
for empowering young children. Washington, DC. National
Association for the
Education of Young Children.
Gandini L & Goldhaber J (2001) Two reflections about
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Early childhood programs ought to be incubators of
inquiry. Children, teachers, families, and program
administrators, collectively and individually engaged in
systematic investigation, searching and researching,
asking questions, mulling over hypotheses, debating,
trying on new perspectives: this is the culture of
inquiry in which we all deserve to participate.
To grow a culture of inquiry, we need professional
development rooted in inquiry, aimed at fostering the
values and growing the dispositions and skills of

researchers: curiosity; willingness to linger with
questions; commitment to constructing knowledge
with others through dialogue, disagreement, and
challenge; and, attentive observation. When we put
inquiry at the heart of our programs, we organize our
curriculum for children and for teachers around
observation, study, and responsive planning.
In a curriculum built around inquiry, teachers pay
close attention to children’s play and work, taking
notes and photographs, capturing what they see and
hear — researchers collecting data. Teachers study
their notes and photos and other traces of children’s
work to unearth the meaning in the children’s play —
researchers making meaning of their observations:
What theories are the children exploring through their
play? What questions are they asking? What relation-
ships are they building? From their observation and
study, teachers plan ways for the children to test their

theories, expand their questions, and strengthen their
relationships — researchers taking action. And, then,
teachers observe and listen some more, as the
children engage with the materials and activities
that teachers offer as a result of their planning; they
make notes about their observations and start
another round of study and planning. Throughout this
cycle of observation, study, and planning, teachers
make their observation and thinking visible to the
children, to families, and to each other with written
documentation and display.
This process becomes a spiral that carries teachers,
children, and families more and more deeply into
investigation, collaboration, and relationship. Like life,
it unfolds moment by moment, one step at a time,
with surprises and detours and new questions to take
up. And, like life, it is anchored in everyday, ordinary
moments in our classrooms.

At Hilltop Children’s Center, the full-day, year-round
child care program where I am the mentor teacher,
we’ve experimented with several professional
development practices centered on observation, as
we’ve aimed to grow the dispositions and skills
needed for this cycle of inquiry: center-wide research
questions, supported observation and meaning-
making, and collaborative study of observations.
Center-wide research questions
Inspired by the study questions used by the staff at
Chicago Commons, we develop a research question
each year to give us a shared focus for observation
and study.
Our research question is linked to our year-long
professional development focus. Several years ago, for
example, our year-long focus centered on the inter-
sections between anti-bias curriculum and the Reggio-
inspired practice of pedagogical documentation.

During our monthly staff meetings, quarterly in-service
days, and our annual staff retreat, we explored this
intersection from a range of perspectives, with the
intention of strengthening our anti-bias work with
children, families, and each other. Our research
question at the beginning of that year was: “How do
children explore and express their cultural identities in
their drama play?” Later in the year, we added a
second question: “When do children call attention to
difference and when do they ignore it? How do they
use difference in their relationships with each other?”
50 Exchange November/December 2006
Ann Pelo is the
mentor teacher at
Hilltop Children’s
Center in Seattle,
where she has been a
teacher and learner

since 1991. The
teachers at Hilltop
have taught Ann as
much about
professional
development as she’s
taught them; this
article is dedicated to
them.
Growing a Culture of Inquiry:
Observation as Professional Development
by Ann Pelo
Beginnings Workshop
PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
B
Y
AN

N
PE
LO
Single copy reprint permission from Exchange, The Early
Leaders' Magazine Since 1978
PO Box 3249, Redmond, WA 98073 • (800) 221-2864 •
www.ChildCareExchange.com
Multiple use copy agreement available for educators by request.
We establish our research question in September;
I bring some big ideas that I think hold potential for
our shared study, and, as a full staff, we tease out a
specific question for our research. Our research
question launches us into a cycle of observation and
study.
Teachers bring their research question observations to
our monthly meetings of the full staff, where we study
them together. During these full-staff meetings,
teachers from different classroom teaching teams
work together; as they share their observations, they

bump into new and unexpected ways of thinking about
children’s learning — and even unexpected ways of
thinking about the research question itself. Our work
with the research question during staff meetings
invites teachers to try on new perspectives, to see the
delicate dance between “just-the-facts” observation
and the subtle interpretation that shapes observation
notes.
During our staff meeting work with the research
question, we typically plan some collective next steps
that we’ll take to grow curriculum — steps we’ll take in
light of our research observations to make more room
for children’s cultural expressions, for example, or to
support children’s ability to engage with differences.
This planning inevitably carries us to conversations
about our shared values and goals for children, and
about our collective teaching practices — conversa-
tions which deepen our sense of purpose and vision

as a program.
Our research question not only gives us a way to
practice the cycle of observation, study, and planning;
it also leads us to specific new understandings about
children’s learning and development. Through our
research question observations over the last few
years, we’ve deepened our knowledge of
children’s drama play, of the way they use
blocks, of their social strategies for inclusion
and exclusion. Through our observation and
study, we join in dialogue with educational
theorists like Piaget, Dewey, and
Paley.
Supported observation
and meaning-making in
the classroom
The research question provides a shared framework
for observation that lets us practice the cycle of

observation, meaning-making, and planning as a
whole staff. The parallel practices of supported
observation and meaning-making with individual
teachers and with classroom teaching teams grounds
teachers’ inquiry in their particular contexts.
When I’m in a classroom, as mentor teacher, I partner
with a teacher to observe children’s play and listen to
their conversations. We tuck ourselves into a non-
intrusive space where we can take notes and photos
about what we’re seeing and hearing. We talk quietly
together about the play we see, sharing our questions
and musings as we seek to understand what’s
important about the play for the children. We consider
what we might offer the children right there and then
to deepen their exploration and to sustain their play.
Our intention is to see into these ordinary moments,
to use close observation as a doorway into under-
standing and, then, into offering children challenge

and support.
As teachers become more and more at ease with this
process, they dive into observation themselves, not
waiting for me to partner with them, but gathering
stories themselves. When teachers meet in the
hallway or in the office, they are eager to share their
observations with each other: they talk with engaged
curiosity about what they’ve seen and heard, discuss
possible interpretations of the children’s play, and
share thoughts about next steps they might take. The
air is full of questions, insights, hypotheses; breathing
it in is breathing in inquiry.
Collaborative study of observations
To solidify our practice of inquiry, we’ve established
the expectation that every teacher brings written
November/December 2006 Exchange 51
Beginnings Workshop
The research

question
provides a
shared
framework for
observation
that lets us
practice the
cycle of
observation,
meaning-
making, and
planning as a
whole staff.
PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
B
Y

AN
N
PE
LO
observation notes and/or photos to their classroom
teaching team’s hour-long weekly meeting. Teachers
pull out carefully typed sheets, or bits of scrap paper
— even crumpled paper napkins used to record a
breakfast table conversation that captured a teacher’s
attention. We dive into the stories together, working
with questions like these to help us make meaning of
our observations:
■ What are we curious about as we listened to this
story of children play?
■ What are the children curious about? What are
they trying to figure out?
■ What knowledge are the children drawing on?
What theories are they testing?

■ How are the children building on each other’s
ideas, perspectives, and contributions?
■ Are there any inconsistencies in the children’s
thinking?
■ What do we want to learn more about?
■ What goals and values come up for us in this
situation?
Once we have a sense of what the children’s play is
“about,” we consider how we might extend or
challenge children’s thinking. We plan one or two next
steps, concrete action that we’ll take with the children
to help them deepen their exploration, nudge them to
take new perspectives, and encourage them to
reconsider their theories. Our intention is to
generate a cycle of inquiry for the children — to
create more questions and deeper study, not to
give children information or lead them to “right
answers” or help them acquire facts. In our

planning, we consider questions like:
■ What changes could we make to the class-
room environment to invite children to look
at their pursuit from a new perspective?
■ What materials could we add to the
classroom?
■ How could we participate in the children’s
play?
■ How could we invite the children to use
expressive and representational media to
deepen or extend their thinking?
■ How could we use our notes and photos sketches
to help the children revisit and extend their play?
■ How will we be in dialogue with families, inviting
their reflections and insights as well as letting
them know what we’re thinking and wondering?
As we end a meeting, teachers have a plan about
what they’ll do next to extend and deepen children’s

investigations. A week later, they arrive at the team’s
next meeting with more observations to share about
how children engaged with the next steps that
teachers offered — and we move through the cycle of
meaning-making and planning again.
With each round of the cycle, teachers become more
skillful as researchers; they notice gaps in their
observation notes and work to correct those gaps next
time; they become more astute at looking underneath
the topical concerns of children’s play, digging out the
deeper meanings and questions that children’s play
holds; they experiment with strategies and practices
to deepen children’s thinking, growing a repertoire of
possibilities; they engage in passionate discussion
with each other, relaxing into the challenge of deep
collaboration as they take up meaningful research
with each other. This cycle of observation, meaning-
making, and planning weaves our professional devel-

opment into the fabric of daily teaching.
At the same time, with each round of the cycle, in-
depth, long-term investigations grow. This emergent
52 Exchange November/December 2006
Beginnings Workshop
Our intention
is to see into
these ordinary
moments, to
use close
observation as
a doorway into
understanding
and, then, into
offering children
challenge and
support.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN PELO

PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
B
Y
AN
N
PE
LO
curriculum, anchored by observation and study, stays
closely linked to children’s questions and pursuits,
because it unfolds one step at a time. Teachers
carefully observe what happens with each step,
constantly adjusting and refining their planning in
response to what they observe. In this way, children
and teachers construct curriculum together.
Observation as a strategy
for transformation

When we put observation at the heart of our
professional development at Hilltop, everything
changed. Teachers who’d typically sat back, arms
crossed, unengaged during staff meetings and
classroom team meetings now lean into our discus-
sions: they have observation stories to share, insights
to offer, questions to ask. Classroom team meetings,
once a tedious listing of housekeeping and logistical
details, have become animated discussions about
teaching and learning; teachers are quick to work
through the dry and mundane details of classroom life
so that they can dive into the stimulating and sustain-
ing work of teacher research. Talk of our core values
and our vision for our work is a regular part of our staff
meetings, as we seek to locate our observations and
planning in our school’s larger purpose. Our curriculum
involves everyone — children, teachers, families — in
long-term investigations, as the cycle of inquiry for

teachers launches cycles of inquiry for children and
families.
This transformation required strong institutional
support; we created my half-time mentor teacher
position to organize and facilitate our professional
development. And it required willingness by teachers
to take risks, to see their work in new ways — to
become researchers, observing closely, making
meaning with each other, anchoring themselves in the
revelations of each moment. A year into our effort to
put observation at the heart of our teaching and
learning, one of the teachers at Hilltop commented
that “This is making me a better teacher, for sure —
but more than that, it’s making me a better person.
This is how I want to live in the world — paying
attention, staying connected to what I see, thinking
about big ideas with other people.”
November/December 2006 Exchange 53

Beginnings Workshop
This emergent
curriculum,
anchored by
observation and
study, stays
closely linked
to children’s
questions and
pursuits,
because it
unfolds one
step at a time.
PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
B

Y
AN
N
PE
LO
Culture of inquiry?: The idea of early childhood programs as
incubators of inquiry for
children, families, and teachers is a new concept for some
teachers. Open the discussion
with teachers about what such a culture might look like, feel
like, and then begin.
The cycle continues: Creating a cycle of observation, study, and
planning allowed Pelo and
her colleagues to make their observation and thinking visible.
Explore these ideas by setting
up a pilot project to get started. See where the exploration leads
and learn from the process.
Ask questions: Focusing across an entire program on research
questions was powerful and
apparently cumulative. Gather teachers together to begin your
inquiry process by zeroing in
on some questions that deserve program-wide consideration for
focusing teachers’
observation and study.

Typed, scribbled, or scrawled: Collaborative study of
observations confirmed that
observation notes are dynamic and not always perfectly
prepared. Don’t let the fear of getting
it perfect prevent teachers from getting started. Start somewhere
— and support teachers in
making meaning out of their observations through dialogue and
sharing.
Using Beginnings Workshop
to Train Teachers
by Kay Albrecht
Discussion Question
The three readings for this module highlight different aspects of
the importance of the practice of observing and documenting
children's learning processes. In your discussion this week,
reflect and discuss how the module's content as well as the
weekly readings have contributed to your understanding of the
purpose(s) of the practice of observation and documentation in
early childhood settings. Identify what challenges you can
forsee in documenting children's learning and explore possible
solutions to overcoming these challenges. Readings
· Forman, G., & Hall, E. (2005). Wondering with children: The
importance of observation in early education.
Early Childhood Research and Practice, 7(2).
https://ecrp.illinois.edu/v7n2/forman.html
· Pelo, A. (2006). See attachedFurther Learning
· Pelo, A. (2006). At the crossroads: Pedagogical documentation

and social justice. In Fleet, A., Patterson, C. & Robertson, J.
(Eds.),
Insights: Behind early childhood pedagogical
documentation. Pademelon Press. See attached
· Seitz, H. (2008). The power of documentation in the early
childhood classroom.
Young Children, 62(2),
88-93. See attached
Introduction: Why is Observation Important
"As a teacher of young children, interpreting what I 'see' when I
observe children is central to my role. I use my interpretation to
chart my teaching course..."
Janet Robertson (2006, p.148)
In this module we begin to think about the relationships
between observation, pedagogical judgment, and curriculum
planning. Child observation has always been a key pedagogical
tool in ECE. Observation is more than looking. It involves
curiosity, intention, concentration, reflection, and
interpretation. Rinaldi (2001) offered the phrase: "The
pedagogy of listening" as a metaphor for a practice of child
observation and documentation that is open and welcoming to
differences and to other's point of view. Educators of young
children not only notice children's interactions and experiences,
they also interpret them in pedagogically-responsive, ethical,
and meaningful ways. Teachers of young children continuously
learn anew about, from, and with children through paying close
attention to what happens in the classroom. The documentation
of the observation (for example, by means of photography) can
become a critical tool for co-creating a meaningful curriculum
with young children. Moreover, from their interpretation of
observation, educators can learn about themselves and can
consequently reflect on and critically examine their own
practices. Ways to Observe
Some methods of child observation are more structured and
linear; their purpose is typically to observe children's progress

against predefined stages of development and expectations.
Some child observation practices are more open-ended and
anecdotal. While both methods are widely used, we will focus
on two open-ended approaches to observation and
documentation. The two approaches:
Pedagogical Documentation and
Learning Stories are recognized globally for changing
the focus of child observation from an attempt to find out what
the child can or cannot do to "making children's learning
visible" (Project Zero & Reggio Children, 2001) and thus open
for reflection and conversation.
Pedagogical Documentation
The practice of pedagogical documentation originated in the
pre-primary schools of Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy in the late
1970s. The process involves the teacher's careful attention and
active collection of observational materials such as recordings
of children's conversations, photographs or videotaping of
children's processes of learning and experiences, a sample of
children's work, anecdotes about a unique event, etc. Once the
material has been collected, the educator initiates a process of
reflection and interpretation about the documented events with
her or his colleagues, the children, and occasionally the parents
with the purpose of: 1) gaining a deeper understanding of the
children's processes of learning and thinking; and 2) opening a
space where children's views, inquiries, and perspectives can
meaningfully contribute to the creation of a responsive
curriculum. Quite often this beautiful process of observing,
documenting and interpreting is summarized and shared in the
environment as a display with text and images depicting the
learning process.
Watch this
videoLinks to an external site. with
Professor Carol Anne WienDownload Professor Carol
Anne Wien, where she explains the process of pedagogical
documentation as it has been used in Canada.

88 Young Children • March 20082, 3, 4®EARLY CHILDHOOD

88 Young Children • March 20082, 3, 4®EARLY CHILDHOOD

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