04. Supporting practice through pedagogical documentation - Susan Stacey

If I could change anything, again, with my wand and make something happen, it would be for teachers to have time to be in dialogue with each other. Dialogue is where it happens. For me, when I see educators or student teachers in dialogue, that's the exciting stuff where innovation happens, where people have a hard moment, moments of enlightenment, where the light bulb goes on and they get excited. You're listening to LittleBig Ideas. We're your hosts, Anne-Marie Cogland and Laurie McGee. LittleBig Ideas is brought to you by our sponsor Story Park. Story Park puts the child at the heart of child care management with its all-in-one platform for early childhood education. I am Marie. I know we've both been having some busy weeks, this last few weeks, so I'm excited for this conversation tonight with Susan. I've been thinking a lot. I saw that Susan had been an Ontario recently this week, actually, in Niagara region, and was thinking about the opportunities that we have to listen and be with folks all the time. I've been reading this book and I know that you have the same book and might be engaging in it as well, is that a more beautiful question. It's making me really think about, one of the questions that we always carry with us is this idea of what is quality. I think there's been so much happening in our province and country, and I would say across North America, about trying to figure out how do you enhance quality, how do you measure quality. I've been making this connection between this book, a more beautiful question and this idea of quality, and thinking about what I think a lot of folks are trying to do is measure it and assess it. Rather than a question we've been talking about is what does quality feel like? Which I think is a different conversation. Quality is always one of those topics that I don't know if we think about it enough. I think we talk about it all the time. We talk about it all the time. And I don't know that we have a real shared understanding about what we mean. And that's what I think is a worthy conversation for us to keep having. And when we think about the different questions that maybe can serve us. I think sometimes you and I have both said at a lot of different tables where we've talked about quality. And at a lot of times the question is how do we ensure quality? And that's lovely. But you know, that's lovely. But you know, I want to know how do we understand it? You know, what is it mean? What are we trying to grow here? What matters in what we're doing? And come up with something. I don't know if we can. But I think the act of talking about it is important. And that's one of the reasons why I think having people like Susan to come on. Who studies her work in a very particular way and documents it in a very particular way can help build that conversation around quality. So maybe do you want to maybe introduce our guests? Sure. I'm telling you a little bit about her. I'm going to read a little bit for a second because I don't want to miss anything in her bio. I think one of her first books is a, you know, is a, is a, is a, is a published author many, many times over and around this idea of emerging curriculum. And one of her first books that she wrote with a working curriculum in the early childhood setting from theory to practice. And that was in 2008. And I know that was a book that I picked up early on in my journey thinking about emerging curriculum. It's been important to communities across across North America in that work and that her work has been really trying to offer a different way to think about curriculum and moving from what has been a traditional approach, which is this theme based approach to this more emergent approach. And one of the things that she, that she talks about or that she thinks with is this idea of pedagogical documentation that's so clear in her work. She's been in the field for over 35 years. She's been a director of child care centers, lab schools, a program advisor and, and, and a faculty of education in early childhood. And she does, you know, consulting and training development across Canada and the United States. She is, Sue is, is nourished by the reflections and learning which emerged from inquiry based practices that is something that nourishes her and that she brings out in her work with others inspired by the work of educators of regia meal. She treasures her involvement with communities of practice in Nova Scotia, which I think you'll hear a little bit about. We're going to talk a little bit about that work. And she does, you know, she does, she does this work from heart. And she has really dedicated her life to the field of early childhood education in this work. And she is an author of five books. And as writers ourselves, we know how tricky it is to write a book. So, that's a lot of time. And she's interested in having conversations with folks about pedagogical documentation and inquiry based learning. And I know, you know, she is also graduate of Pacific Oaks in California and is a dear friend of many of the folks that we have had the pleasure of working with across our experiences as well. But I think one of the things I remember was one of the first times I met her was when I began to study her, her, one of her books. And she was speaking at a conference here in Ontario, and I had the pleasure of listening to her and beginning to build a bit of a collegial friendship with her. And now I think that we can pick up the phone anytime and have a conversation with each other, which is so lovely. One of the first times that I met Sue, I think we had traveled there, not actually not you and I at this point, it was another colleague from London Bridge, we did, we traveled out to Halifax. And I know some of those folks had come to visit us in Ontario at our organization. And actually Sue, I had written it in one of Sue's books actually because I think that was one of the first times I had a personal conversation she had called me up. And we were chatting and there were some stories that I shared with her that I thought were pretty profound and interesting. And she was really encouraging about them and said, and asked me if I would write for it. And I did and it ended up in one of her books. And I think that's one of the things that she does really well is she's a great listener. And she loves to tell stories, she loves to share stories, she sees the value of stories, but from an intellectual point of view too. She's listening to the story and she makes meaning of it and helps other people to make meaning. And I think her books have been really important to our field too. So we're really happy to be able to have Sue as our guest today. Hi, Susan. Hey, nice to see you. Thanks. Great to see you. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. Now you are joining us from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Dartmouth Nova Scotia, Halifax and Dartmouth are twin cities across the harbor from each other. And I've I've lived in Dartmouth for a long time. And if I'm not mistaken, we just saw you in Ontario or I saw you were in Niagara. This was what happened was I was I was booked to spend some time with educators in Niagara for the day on the Saturday, but I flew in on the Friday because the board of crossings exhibit from Russia. Mealia was in Hamilton and I spent the afternoon in Hamilton with Paula and went to the exhibit and they made a British afternoon tea for me. And it was wonderful. I saw the exhibit and then then went to Niagara and had a great time with the educators in Niagara. That's that's really great. I know you you are doing you move around a lot. You are a you were a gallon high demand and that's one of the reasons why we wanted to connect with you on this podcast. And as you know, because we talked with you about this. What Lori and I are wanting to do is have open conversations with all kinds of folks that are doing important work that are making a difference in our field. And we're eager to have this conversation around what what are some of the things that we want to be thinking about or carrying with us as we move into the 21st century and and how child care could look. So allowing ourselves to dream a little bit. and you are like us, been around for quite a while. We liked to see the season. - Early childhood venture. - Yes, season is a good work, yeah. - Yes, season of a fine vintage. - Yes, maybe. - Absolutely. - Yeah, so maybe, maybe season just, maybe you could just start by sharing with us and with listeners about some of the things that you've been working on lately. - Lately, well, doing COVID of course, doing lockdown and all of that, we all pivoted to online work and I really missed working face-to-face with people. And I turned to writing. I did quite a bit of writing. Most recently I've been working on articles for innovations, the visual exchange journal on a fairly big article, fairly long article on the journey of pedagogical documentation. And I belonged to a really strong and vibrant community of practice here. We've been meeting for a long time. We met as well as we could, as well as we were able through the pandemic and sometimes face-to-face, sometimes online. But that community of your practice, we're often, we're always talking about the journey of documentation and how we can support that. And the article of innovations came out of that, those conversations with that community of practice. And then I'm also doing, I'm working on an article for Exchange Magazine and I work on supporting educators around here and spend quite a fair amount of time in Ontario as well. So here, for instance, in the Halifax Dartmouth area in Nova Scotia, I'm supporting some lab schools in their work trying to make practices visible, practices that students are learning about in their college programs, helping lab schools to make those practices visible. So all sorts of different things. But it's always been that way. We've liked the documentation, construction of co-construction of curriculum, course development, all those types of things. Yeah. - Nice. I remember one of the very first times that I was introduced to the idea of emerging curriculum and pedagogical documentation was actually through a woman by the name of Gretchen Reynolds, who I think you know, from retired professor from Elgonquin College. That was just over 30 years ago. But I recall when I started my journey in the organization I'm in now at Compass Early Learning, 20 years ago, one of your books was one of the books that had just been published just after that and had a really big impact on this idea of emerging curriculum, how to think with it. And we've certainly followed you in your journey with emerging curriculum and pedagogical documentation. So, Susan, what are you noticing? And how do we have to begin to think about emerging curriculum and pedagogical documentation as we move into the 21st century? What's changing and evolving as with a new generation of educators and of course a new generation of children? - Yeah, it's an interesting time to put it mildly. I think when I first began thinking with Betty Jones that that emerging curriculum was the first book that really, the original book on emerging curriculum, that was a huge influence on me. And I went to Pacificoog's college to do my master's and Betty was there along with many other people that we know, you know, Deb Curtis, and much Carter and Pellow and all those people that we've been thinking with over the years. And when I first started encountering emerging curriculum and really thinking about it, it was all the phrase that we used in those days and I'm talking decades ago was, you know, about following children's interests and things have evolved a lot since then. Now we talk about, you know, we're more involved in inquiry and co-constructing with children. That's one of the biggest changes. And in fact, now I talk with educators about not following children's interests, but thinking about more, what are children's ideas? What are their ways of seeing the world? What is it they want to find out? And what can we bring to that? Where is our voice? And within that comes Pellow's documentation. And these days I'm working a lot on encouraging educators to let their voice shine through in Pellow's documentation. It's not only about the children, it's about the educators as well and their voice. And I'm really trying to encourage that because our voices, I think, over the past, you know, a couple of decades have kind of been drowned, you know, all of our attention as, you know, certainly our attention should be on the children, but some attention has to be given to educators thinking as well. That's where growth comes from. It's how we share our thoughts, it's how we share our ideas. It's how our profession grows. And I would like to see our profession continually evolving and growing and for people to be able to take some risks in the way that they approach programming for curriculum for young children. And the idea of co-construction and the teachers' voices is very important in that. So I think for me, pedagogical documentation is intertwined with, with emerging curriculum. And I see the two as fitting together in a sort of, you know, a helix, a very complicated spiral. I think in the best scenarios, the two are connected very deeply. Through pedagogical documentation, we think about what we're observing and what we're hearing from children, and we respond. And those two things, you know, we go back and forth, you know, we pay attention to children's attention, we respond, we think, we're in dialogue with each other. And it would be wonderful if all of that could be made visible in documentation. Yeah, I think you touch on some really important ideas that we've been thinking about, too. And I know the idea of including educator voices, it's not as easy as it sounds, is it? Because we've been practiced for so long, and there's these narratives and ideas about, you know, how we're supposed to write about children that often have an assessment feel to them, and that we're supposed to be these passive observers that stay distant. And it's, of course, that's impossible. And you know, it was interesting, been doing a lot of work with groups in our organization at Lennon Bridge over the last, you know, little while. And one of the things that we've been doing just as an exercise, and a bit of an experiment, is showing images of children, you know, in interesting and engaging, sometimes a little, you know, spicy ways. And we're asking educators to share their first response, their emotion. And what we're noticing is something really, really interesting, is that it's been really tricky for the educators to identify their own emotion. They automatically want to talk about what the child's doing, they want to jump into a kind of assessment about what they think is important, that, you know, and a lot of times that's not necessary, that's just an interpretation of the image. But what struck me as really interesting was this resistance maybe, or of saying, this is how I feel. Yes, when I see that. You know, that's interesting. I'm experiencing the same things as you're describing. I'm always trying to, when I'm working with educators with pedagogical documentation and with co-constructing curriculum, I'm always trying to get them to raise their questions. We're very good at asking questions of children. And I'm trying to get educators to ask questions of themselves because a lot of what we do, you know, you've described it well. You know, we're in the past, we've been all about the children and our voices have sort of been lost. But it's our puzzles, it's our curiosity, our questions, that put us in the role of researcher and the folks in Rojo Media have taught us this. They've demonstrated this in many different ways. To think about ourselves as researchers, asking questions about the why and the how of what children are doing and what they're thinking. And I'm seeing not only some resistance in putting their own voice into the documentation, but when people do buy into that idea, that it's very difficult for them. They struggle with, you know, a lot of people struggle with that about how to do it. to raise questions, the default is often to go to development, to ask questions about development or to notice development. And in some circumstances, we have to be paying attention to development and that's where the assessment piece comes in. But that's a completely different animal. That's a completely different kind of documentation. And so to get people to move away from that, I think, for some people, that's a scary thing, to move away from that safe place and to take themselves into something different, where they don't know. And to be, to be permission to yourself, not to know, that it's okay not to know what's going on. And just to be, as long as you are open and have curiosity about what's happening, that's great because you will put yourself in the role of a researcher who's just watching and waiting to see if you can understand. But I say to people that 90% of the time, when I'm observing children, I'm not sure what's going on yet. Okay, I just wait and be patient and things will become clearer as the children go deeper into their play and as we have conversations with them. But this thing about needing to know can sometimes stop people in their tracks. It stops them from wondering and being puzzled and curious. And if I could wave my magic wand, I would be encouraging people to be endlessly curious about what they're seeing happening with young children. I love to see curiosity in educators. - Susan, I want to go back to something you said earlier that struck my attention and it's been something that I've been noticing and thinking with a lot. As you talked about this idea that we used to think about immersion-cooking was following children's interests and that that has evolved. And I think that was problematic for a lot of folks because children are interested in everything. (laughs) Right, so it's like how do you decide? But and this idea of following children's ideas, makes me think about Tiziana Filipini from, where's your Amelia, she talks about this idea of, if you don't document, you don't know what to do. Children don't lead the curriculum, you do. But you borrow ideas from them and build on it for them. So can you talk a little bit about what is the difference in your thinking about growing curriculum and curriculum making and documenting it from this idea of children's ideas? Versus children's interests. - Children have so many ideas. If we're listening and paying attention, I mean, they have full of ideas all day, every day. And I remember Collin and Naldi and just so devastating that she suddenly left us because she was such a gift to our profession. And her pedagogy of listening was influential for me because we listened in many different ways. But she talked about a basket of possibilities. And I really like that idea of a basket of possibilities because when children are full of ideas and curiosity and questions, which is for them is endless, we are voice kind of, educators voice kinds of, kind of comes through in the decisions that we make. When we've got that basket of possibilities, we have a choice. We have a choice about what we're going to do. And that's how we build curriculum. We think about those choices that we have, that all the possibilities, all the things that we could do in response to what, in that basket of possibilities. So many different ways that we could go and the path that we choose, that's our voice coming through. So I think that comes back to values, values, program philosophies, what the program itself is about. Our values coming through different people are going to put different emphasis on different things that they see children doing. We're going to, you know, connect. This is the interesting thing about working in a team. Because if you're working in a team of two or three and you have to make decisions in response to what children are doing, everything is a negotiation. It's a negotiation between us and the children. It's a negotiation between the team, we ourselves as a team. I love that in Roger Amelia, you know, I've seen lots of videos and I've seen them in meetings in person when I was there. There's a lot of arguing, you know, and there's a lot of heated discussion. And I love that, you know, they're not afraid of that. I think we, you know, we tend to, maybe it's something to do with being Canadian and being polite, I don't know. But we tend to be very reticent about arguing and disagreeing and, you know, say, pushing back, you know, if somebody's ideas don't mesh without, but I think, you know, that's a very valuable thing to do. These lively heated discussions are the best thing about communities of practice when we're together. You know, these heated moments are really fun. And eventually you get to an end place where you sort of say, well, you know, let's try this. Let's try this. Let's try this invitation, this provocation. Let's try having this conversation. Let's try this and see what happens. And to believe it's sort of open ended, you know, that we can agree to try something, see what happens. This is, you know, the cycle of inquiry. You know, we introduce something, we wait. We see what happens. And then we respond again. It's very organic. And for some people, this feels uncomfortable because it's not predictable. It's not something we can plan out two or three weeks in advance, which would feel very safe. But it's more of a day-to-day thing. I mean, the children might have a big idea that lasts for weeks. And they're very engaged in it for weeks, months. It might, you know, this big play idea. But what we do on a day-to-day basis and what we offer, that's constantly in construction, you know, constantly in dialogue between the team themselves. And so I like to think of it as an organic process. But it's very dependent, I think, on dialogue. And there's a lot of educators out there don't have the opportunity for dialogue in their program. And if I could change anything, you know, again, if I wave my wand and make something happen, it would be for teachers to have time to be in dialogue with each other. It's where in North America, you know, for people to have time, outside of the classroom to have dialogue. And dialogue is where it happens, you know, for me, when I see educators or student teachers in dialogue, that's the exciting stuff where innovation happens, where people have a hard moment, you know, moments of enlightenment, where the light bulb goes on and they get excited, they only happen to dialogue, you know. So when you don't have time to be together, just to talk, it's very difficult to come up with those moments. I think what I'm noticing for a lot of folks is as we pay attention to how we talk because we've been fortunate enough in our organizations where we do provide time. And, you know, Laurie and I, as you yourself, we've been very lucky and fortunate to be able to meet with folks from different organizations. And one of the things that I, it's a theory that I have is that we behave in a very particular way because we've been in a way conditioned to behave in a very particular way. And our, the system is set up in a way that has tried, I think, in the past to create these foolproof approaches. And, you know, just make sure that you have blocks, babies, and books in your programs in a good sensory bin and waterplay and stick to the routine and then follow the scripts of early childhood that we're given as educators, right? That there's some, I don't know if the word is a deconditioning, I don't know. We, you know, just to be aware that, and because I think in this desire, deep desire to do good work, there is often a thought that I just, I have to perform these scripts, perform these narratives. And so what you're talking about is asking people to take intellectual risks, emotional risks by following something. And so, you know, to bring yourself into it means that you are, it's a different level of responsibility. And not only responsibility, there's a skill to that. There's an art to that that I think it's more than just a conversation, but it's the type of conversation that we're having. You know, I just as an example, example, we were talking about this recently, we were recalling about a moment in time that you were saying, you know, children offer this, you know, plethora of possibilities, but knowing which one to follow can be really tricky. And in this case, it was, it started with a conversation around poop, which is so delightful and it comes up in every preschool classroom on the planet, I think, this gigalee discussion around poop. And in those moments, you know, educators have a decision because that's a deep interest. It's a funny, delightful, but it is, it's fascinating. And this, because this, in this particular case, the educator, because she had support by a side, by side pedagogical lead, they were able to resist the temptation to shut that talk down by say, oh, that's potty talk. We don't talk about it. And instead, marvel a little bit about our bodies. And yeah, everybody does poop. And where does the poop go? And so it turned into this beautiful, really interesting, engaging study of an infrastructure of plumbing and a sewer system. And where does waste go? You know, which start, and I think sometimes when we talk about following children's interests, that, you know, that is what we're talking about, but it's also something that is a worthy place to go. You know, that's the kind of decisions that we're making as educators. What's, what is, what is got potential here out of what the child is offering? And that takes imagination and creativity as well. It takes care. There isn't a script to follow. And that's scary. And it takes courage to go there. And it's interestingly, you know, you sort of touched on the role of the pedagogist or the pedagogical leader, which you have, you know, within your, you know, some organizations do have pedagogical leaders. Many organizations don't. But I think one of the things that a pedagogist or a pedagogical partner can bring to the equation is to support people in, you know, bolstering that courage to go there with scary topics. And it's interesting you should bring up, you know, sewers and toilets and plumbing because I had exactly the same scenario with the group of children I was working with. And it lasted for weeks. And we, the sewage system in Halifax Harbor broke down and it was in the news and the children heard about this and it's in one of my books and it was a big project about water amongst other things and how water gets clean and where all that stuff that goes into the toilet, where does that go, you know, what happens to it? Suddenly, it's breakdown in Halifax Harbor. And with it being in the news, I'm guessing that they had conversations about this at home, you know, when this was in the news. And it was absolutely fascinating to them. So, and there's been all sorts of tricky topics over the years that are a little bit scary. Another thing that, you know, one of our charfers, it was here, Point Plus and Charfcare in Halifax, spaint a lot of time with the children talking about zombies and ghosts and death. And these type, that's where the children wanted to go, you know, they were, when they were fascinated with the idea of, you know, what is dead, what is alive? If you're dead, can you come alive? Can you be undead? Well, this was pretty scary, as you can imagine, for the educators to think about what are families that they think about this in terms of their culture? You know, are they comfortable with this? They had to go to the parents and have conversations about this. The parents gave it right back to them and said, you know, we trust you to handle this wherever it goes. So, that trust has to be there. The support has to be there from whoever is working with the staff, ideally, that would be a, you know, a pedagogist of some sort. And I was reading recently one of the most recent books I've read is The Role of the Pettagogist from, you know, a book, I should really have very dense, very complex book. I was reading things and then having to go back and read them again, because, you know, it was sort of tying me up in knots and I was thinking, okay, what did that mean? What did I just read? And I had to go back and read that page again to try and get my head around it, but really worth well, book. And the pedagogist does in that book, several of them who speak to pedagogical documentation and they talk about, I cannot, I value so much the role of pedagogical documentation in building dialogue, in having deep discussions, in decision making. I value it so much as a tool. I can't imagine being without it. I wouldn't ever want to be without it. And I think one of the things it does is support us in that struggle to make decisions and to go to places. You know, we've got all these notes, we've got raw documentation in our notebooks or journals or whatever we're using that isn't developed yet, but what a great thinking tool to be able to hash out, you know, amongst the team to be able to figure out what to do, you know, when we're a little bit stuck. And notes are sort of like our rough notes, our scribbles, our little sketches of things we've seen, our photographs, their tools, their data, all this to think. Sometimes it makes that process a little bit easier, I think. When we look at everybody's work, bring it together, sort of what have we got here? What are the threads? You know, what do we notice? Where are the threads? What do we see in developing? So, yeah, it's, it takes, I agree with you, it takes the risk of disequal equilibrium involved. And it, we have to, I think, recognise the disequal equilibrium and just own it and say, okay, this is going to be a bit uncomfortable. I'm going to dive in and have a go, you know, and see and so, I mean, when you think about it, what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is that the children on the slide is bit interested in what we've offered. Yeah, I mean, really, you know, and that happens when we get it wrong, you know, when they've maybe followed a path that wasn't quite where they were. And so, they will tell us that in their play, they will, in their ignoring of invitations, they or using things in unexpected ways, there's a message there. They will let us know. And then we try something else. But it takes courage to do that, to go off-square. Yeah. I love that notion of what could go wrong other than the children just aren't interested in it, you know. You said, you said a couple of things that have me thinking, Susan, one of them was, you know, the idea of reading something that's very complex. And, but pushing ourselves to go and read it again and then think with someone else about what it means. And I think sometimes that's one of the things that is daunting for early childhood educators is feeling like some of those big ideas are accessible to them, right? And how do we, you know, how do we support engaging educators in those kinds of conversations? The other thing that strikes me as well is that idea of, you know, how do you support educators that are really daunted by the task of documentation? You talk a little bit about some of those tools and, you know, and finding systems, I think, for collecting data is one of those things. But yeah, how, you know, how do you support educators who find this process so daunting and overwhelming that they don't move into it? Yeah, I've been doing some work with people just like that and you just recently. And they're not always newcomers to the field. Sometimes they're seasoned professionals who are being asked to make a change. And so it's very, it's very scary for them. It's very disorienting. What they do sometimes is go into the classroom with them and I make notes on post-it notes and we create a sort of, I call it a reflective wall, it's a great big piece of paper or a bullet of order, anything, it could just be a bare wall and back of a door. But we all spend a morning, I model and I sit amongst the children and chat with them and I write brief, brief little notes on post-it notes and I stick them up on the wall and, you know, I encourage them to do the same. And then at the end of the morning, you know, we see what we've got. And what we have, if you've got three people in a room or four, if I'm there, if you've got four people in a room and you've each made, you know, six little notes, then you've got, you know, 24 notes to consider at the end of one morning. And so it helps people to see, this isn't a case of sitting back, we don't have the luxury of sitting back and writing a narrative. So as these are brief, brief little notes that help us hold things in mind and maybe a couple of, you know, photographs to go with them. When we look at that wall afterwards, it's a good sort of beginning exercise because when we look at that wall afterwards and talk about it, it's really important to talk about it, we start to see, we see threads, we see connects, We see some things we have all seen and noticed and paid attention to and we can start to have conversations about what are we attending to, what kinds of things are we attending to, what kinds of things to be tend to ignore and not bother to write down. What does that tell us about how we see it? And from those threads, you know, the conversation starts and I think what I try to demonstrate is that ideas for what to do next come from conversations. But you have to have a little bit of data, a few notes, a few photographs to respond to that, you have to have something to respond to to be able to have those deep confidence. Something that I find myself thinking about a lot is the notion that when we document something, when we're writing down, I think for many folks we've been taught that we are writing about the people that we're looking at. And I've always thought it is more revealing about ourselves. What we write tells us about ourselves. It tells us what is capturing our attention, what we think is important. It reveals to us how much we know about a topic. And so I always thought about documentation being such an important professional learning tool because it is revealing. It can show me my thoughts back to myself. And it's not necessarily, I think sometimes we're duped into thinking that, oh, if I write about the child, it's actually about the child and it's not. It's about how I see the child and what I'm thinking about the child. And the reason why I think it's so important what you're offering to about this collective observation, gathering thoughts together is that it is an it offers us a way to come together in our thoughts. You're seeing this, I'm seeing this and it can be a it can be a beautiful way for us to grow together and but I like the idea of thinking about documentation as as a mere to ourselves rather than a mere insight into the children in any way. And that I think requires some kind of paradigm shift, but the question that I have here for you is in our country, we are seeing varying degrees of pedagogical support, right. So we know that there are there are some organizations in lory and I fight for this all the time and I know you do too we stand for it we encourage it. We think that educators deserve to have mentors and mentorships and pedagogical leaders, but the reality of it is there are many, many, many who do not. And so a conversation around collective documentation and even taking that time is just not a possibility for them at this point. I wonder what advice you would give to the person who's listening who would say I don't have a team meeting I don't have a pedagogical leader I don't have anyone with me this would be something and I don't and all my time is with children. What would you what would you offer that person? Yeah, this happens to family childcare providers a lot, you know, they're often they're often working alone and mixed age groups and very isolated and. Yeah, so I think this is where communities of practice come in because you you don't have to be you don't have to have a community practice that's at your workplace. It can be in fact they can be very diverse and valuable if they're not from your place to group of people from different settings with different experiences that are bringing different, you know, ideas and points of view. And I think you know if you're working all day by yourself with the small group of children many of the people in that situation that I've worked with are using floor books they they are. And I think sort of on the spot with the children mark making and they're constructing these floor books that are very rough and ready and on the spot it doesn't take them away from the children at all there you know that present. And to be able to go back at the end of your day and look at those floor books which tell you what did the children find important what did they. If they're not right who's yet what did they dictate to me what did they want to say what did they scribble or draw about what can they take from that but I think it's important to have those conversations with other adults and so I think this is where you communities of practice of course can be online you know you don't have to be together you could be. To find like minded people with similar values is such a gift you know it's a gift in our lives to in any profession to happen especially I think where we're trying to be responsive and innovative and use our own knowledge to come together with the children's knowledge to make something really meaningful happen. To have those conversations with adults is so important and so I always try to help people I try to put them in touch with each other if I'm you know I can be sort of the connection I can you know I can send them each and email to connect them to each other make the introduction so that they. And online conversation because it's just so important and when those conversations happen sometimes I've been present you know for the first couple of meetings as people sort of get warmed up and form relationships and then I will kind of bow out and leave them to it. But it's so exciting to see educators get excited about talking to other educators you know it's like when you came to Halifax was it last year the year before time goes so quickly when you were at an institute the day that the light went off that day and that's university. To see I was a facilitator that event at a table and to see people get excited about being in conversation with each other you know that was just so precious to see people excited about talking with each other and you don't have to be together in person to do that but there's some sort of like sort of ignition that happens when you're talking about big ideas and I think you know those dialogues keep the passion in our work it's. That's what prevents us from getting burned out in a really demanding profession. I feel I feel like Susan you're speaking from such deep experience because I know that there's a group of you powerhouse women in Halifax area who have come together for a really long time and. And I know Dr. Carolyn ween is one of those you know I've always thought boy if I could live in Halifax and be part of that group wow that's that's amazing I know you've been yeah and so I wonder this is this idea of having professional friendships and I think allies you know in the work is a great. Way especially for folks who might not you know just have it with them to go out and find it and I know that's something that you've done and I wonder if you might just maybe talk about how that's influenced you to have that that group of people that and that community that you have been a part of that's not been formally formed that was an informal gathering of like minded powerhouse women who want to change things. It's been hugely influential especially in my relationship with Caroline ween you know we've we've known each other for many years and she has been along with Betty Jones she has been a provocateur for me and I think we all need that somebody to challenge our ideas especially when we've been in the field for a long time we need somebody who. You know we'll be having a conversation and somebody who pushes back and says okay just a minute just a minute let's let's have a look at that that thing that you just said you know let's have a look at that or they will be they will have such fast experience and maybe are such a bad readers outside of our own field but you know breaking other fields into their thinking that they will bring new ideas that sort of tires up in what I refer to as cognitive not. I can't have this conversation with Caroline without being tied up in knots because she is you know she is provocative in a really in a really great way and she is she has been hugely influential and then within that group there is legs hips there's Christine McLean from the mound there's Justin and Matthew Justin West and Matthew and it the thing we have in common we all come from very different backgrounds we do different things. But what we have in common is we all work with adults in some way we're all trying to work with adults on this journey of you know constructing. Responsive curriculum with children dealing with all the you know pressures that educators have that are so complex you know with regular and the Department of Education and all the other stuff you know that's going on in the background the things they have to think about while trying to get. And we think about while trying to do really innovative things so we're all in this sort of. Tangle together this complexity together and to talk that through I mean of course it involves food you know our meetings involved food at the class of wine and you know we talk for. probably we meet once a month, we probably talk for two or three hours. And it's just a delight, but when we leave those meetings, we are we are full of ideas about youth. We might try or new puzzles that you know we haven't encountered before, but now somebody has raised it and now we're thinking about it. It's on our radar. New things that people in the group have read. And these days I don't want to over generalize or stereotype, but these days I find it difficult to get people to read, you know, articles, text book. You know people will listen to podcasts. It's very enjoyable. They can do that on their on their drive home from work or whenever they've got a few minutes when they're partnering around, not at work. But to get people to read is a tougher ask, I think. So what happens in our community of practices, sometimes not all the time, but sometimes we will have already an article and it might be a bit challenging. And we all have things to say about it and some of us sort of agree with it and some of us disagree and that makes very great meeting. You know, when we've all read or a chapter of a book that make something that is sort of provoking, especially we're always looking for that type of thing that is thought provoking. You're making me think about something that our colleague and dear friend Deb Curtis, who is also dear friend of yours, often talks about this idea of working alongside children is the most emotionally, intellectually and spiritually engaging work that we do. And I think though, also as big people that, you know, and what I'm hearing from you is it's find your people. Find people that you can have conversations that are both emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually engaging. And that idea that when we have that as adults, then we are better for children because of it. And that it's not necessarily that it can happen in your child care program, but to seek it and look forward. And I know in my relationship with Anne Marie, I know that that is one of the places we started is we were seeking a thinking partner of sorts. And we worked, you know, we, our distance is three hours away from each other. If two and a half of I drive, um, but I think for me, it's, it's, it's, and I love that advice Susan is like find a community of thinkers and or create it. Invite people into it and and think together, read together, study together. Um, what happens? What happens for us when you said, you know, find your people and invite them in. What has happened for us over the years is that user, we started with three or four people. We're now up to probably eight or nine. And it's because sometimes we will meet, um, you know, an instructor, you know, in a college program and we'll be having a conversation, you know, one of us will have a conversation and they say something and they're trying to work something through a wheel satan. Oh, you need to come to our community practice like you need and discuss this and we pull them in. And I think once they're in there, it becomes really precious. And people, you know, all these people have very busy lives. Some of them have small children, some of us are, uh, said every time some of us are working full time, you know, we, everybody is busy, but we carve out time for this because it keeps us, it keeps us intellectually engaged with our profession. It keeps us growing. Yeah. Very fresh. Um, I think, uh, part of also what I'm, what I'm thinking about when I'm getting from this is, is just, um, not being alone, right? I mean, there, there's a whole spectrum of ways that we can take up the work and write and document and let that, you know, feed us and inform us. And we come from different places and we have different accesses, access to different things, to people and to resources and to time. Um, and I think at the, at the very core, it's about finding a community that you can trust and find some inspiration in and share your stories with, right? Yeah, there's an unspoken rule that, you know, what, what is said in that room stays in the room, you know, especially when it's a difficult topic, you know, or something that somebody is frustrated with, you know, maybe an experience they've had. And unless there is permission given, you know, um, that it stays there and we trust each other on that. Um, some things on the other hand, uh, some things, we all, you know, sometimes we just have these big ideas and, you know, maybe they won't go anywhere, but they have fantastic ideas. And so we want to spread the word, you know, we want to get out there and we want to write a bed, or we want to mention it in our classes, or, you know, whatever it is that we do. Um, but there is this tacit agreement that, you know, we, we trust each other and we can say what we need to say. Um, and that's okay. Yeah. I think as we, you know, if we look out into the world and we, we see that there, there is a lot of division out there. There's a, you know, and in some ways it feels like it's getting worse, not better. And I think we have the gift of being in a field where we can counter that, you know, really maybe, maybe in an easier way than other folks. And I think the question that we, uh, that I want to carry is what are the stories that we want to tell? Right. And because the stories that we carry influence how we think and how we feel and how we act, right? We, we know that. Um, the stories, sorry, the stories that we tell, or flow also influence in, in documentation, the stories that we choose to tell also influence how society sees us. That's a question. Huge. Huge influence. Yeah. How they see children, you know, how society sees children. Huge opportunity there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so if you're thinking, I mean, like I should have been around for a while. Um, and I know you've had your own experiences and continue to have your own experiences in the early childhood system and the education system. If you could change something in the system and the early childhood system to be more responsive to what is happening in the world today, what would you change? Oh gosh, that's a big question. Is there so many things we'd like to change? I mean, really, what, what I want to see eventually, and I wanted to see this all my professional career is to see early childhood, early childhood education valued for what it is. So I want to see more value given to what we do. And how do we do that? Well, we have to be, nobody else is going to advocate for us. We have to advocate for ourselves. And so, um, to see, to see ourselves, I would like to see, you know, system wide, no matter which auspice we're working for or whether we're in a school board or a childcare setting, wherever we are, to be able to, for educators, maybe this starts in the college system, um, being able to articulate, um, what they do and why they do it and, and to have society value them. We're very, we're very good. I mean, the sort of default statement is that, you know, children learn through play. Well, yes, they do. Um, absolutely. And, you know, and what does that look like? And why is it valuable? And why should society be supporting that and buying into that? And how can we help families understand that? And I think at the college level, you know, if anything were to change, um, and Christine McLean at Mountiveans and University, um, myself, she's a department here right now, department chair right now. And we've developed a couple of courses, new courses together. And, you know, we have to think about how can we get new new commas to our profession? How can we, obviously, they, you know, they, they, they're interested in the profession because they're in the program, um, for whatever reason. But how can we get them to articulate the importance by the end of their program? Can they articulate the importance of what they're doing? And can they show it? Can they tell it? Can they explain it to somebody at a dinner party who doesn't have the first idea about what they were talking about? You know, those are the social moments where we can, we can capitalize on, you know, when we're out there in the world. And I'd love to see right across our field, people just being so articulate that they can, um, explain the value of what we do. Yeah, I love that. I think that so much of the narrative out there is why we're undervalued. The fact that we are undervalued, we're underpaid, we're stressed, all of those things. And, and then we say, come work for us. It's like this really, uh, Emory and I always talk about it as this really poor marketing plan. for the field. Come work for us. It's your undervalued underpaid. But I love that idea of right from the beginning helping people to understand, you know, the value of this work and being able to talk about what it is and why we are, why we are valuable and why, you know, we are worthy of a higher wage as a field. So we just have a couple of little rapid fire questions for you as we, as you know, you don't know that we're coming. So what are you reading to? Reading right now or listening to right now? And how is it impacting your thinking? Actually, I read a lot of books about art. Art is another passion of mine. It's what I do art and gardening. Those are the things I do. Those are my therapies. You know, those are what I do to relax. You know, when I have time, I disappear into a little room that I vaguely call my studio. It's basically a table and a couple of shells. But I read a lot about art and I watch a lot of videos about art because art is another language and I find so many connections. I have all these when I read about what artists are doing and what they're trying and the creativity of their thinking, that can apply to any profession, you know. So I have a couple of artists, friends who are professional artists, what they do for living and I've known them for a long time. And when I am in conversation with them, oh my gosh, a lot of what they say about their art depends to our field, you know, because it's about creative thinking and looking outside of the box and experimenting and not being afraid, you know, to try things and then failing at them, you know, all these things happen in art. So most of what I'm reading now is about art. Yeah. I remember we had an artist working with us and we still have artists working with us, but this was a gal that was with us for a long time. She's not with us anymore, but she used to say that there she's talked about studies that were done that track children's eye movements and artists eye movements and that they were very similar that they looked at the world in a similar pattern. There's a lot of interesting things that children do, that artists do in similar mediums that, you know, have lots of potential as we all know that's kind of interesting and cool. Susan, what's giving you hope right now? Yeah, well the stage of the world is it is right now. You know, I listened to a lot of people who are not just in our field, but everywhere are feeling kind of frustrated and hopeless. But you know, I, when I mean, when I'm in a classroom with children and I watch what they're doing and I'm listening to them and seeing their enthusiasm and their thirst for knowledge, their thirst for learning how the world works, that gives me hope. I mean, they, it's such a cliche, you know, to say children are a future, but they are, you know, they absolutely are. And when I see what they're bringing, I mean, they're so this generation of young children are exposed to so much much more than we were probably, you know, when we be children, I mean, that, you know, there's social media and all these different ways of communicating and they're exposed to digital tools at a very young age, some of which can be very good and some of them not so good, but they are fearless and that gives me hope. You know, this, if we as educators, early educators, if we are doing our job really well, these fearless children are going to become critical thinkers, I hope. And that's what I want to see, I want to see us be critical thinkers, but I want the children to be raised as critical thinkers too. I think the problems out there in the world today are due to a lack of critical thinking. And I won't mention any names, but south of the border, you know, there's some of, you know, there's a lack of critical thinking in terms of what's going on. And I think we have to start very young with that, you know, the idea of critical thinking. It's having children think either the things that they see in the world, they're very open to everything. And so if we can help them think through, you know, talk with them and help them think through what's happening around them and think critically about it, they can do that at three and four years of age. And I think that's a really part of our profession. Yeah. Yeah. I think I agree with you on that. Yeah, me too. Well, we can't thank you enough for joining us, Susan from Nova Scotia. And the next time you're on Ontario, you have to let us know. And maybe we'll be up for it. Yeah, see, we're flying with it. This literally, we're flying with it this time in one day and at the next. So not shown to connect with people, but yeah, it was a whirlwind and I really enjoyed being there, but absolutely. And yeah, you have to come back this way. We love to go. So thank you so much, Susan for your amazing, fun. So much fun. Thank you. Susan's great. She's so fabulous. So fabulous. She's such a deep passion for our field and or, you know, the way that we respond and engage with children. And I love that she brought up so many of the ideas around, you know, this idea of following children's interests and how do we actually like, you know, follow children's ideas and what does that mean in our work? I, you know, I think that's going to strike a court for a lot of folks because I think that emerging curriculum has been bumpy that way for a lot of people. Just don't know. I think, you know, to just the the writing that she's done around and the and the her own research and her own work in her community and in other communities around pedagogical documentation and how it can serve us and how we can understand it because I think, you know, it's still a very for a lot of folks it's a complicated thing to understand and and it's not something that we, you know, that is just kind of one little learning session. It takes practice and I love that, you know, Susan is one of those people who has dedicated her life to something that she really cares about and she goes in to communities and she works with young students and she visits and she writes and, you know, she's doing her thing and trying to help people to see the value of documentation and I think that's a worthy thing. And, you know, even thinking about what story park can offer and how important that platform can be, you know, to in that work of pedagogical documentation. This is really different than just, you know, just documenting what's going on through the day. It's a different art form. Her conversations around finding thinking partners and not doing this work alone. I think that's also something, you know, that story park offers is that communities of practice within the platform itself and being able to share your, you know, even if you don't have time to outside of the classroom, there is a way to hear, I've been thinking about this and to be able to respond to that as we've, we talk about that as layering voices, but it's embedded in the platform and I think that when you're alone like that or even when you're not, it's and you just don't have the time outside of the classroom, it can be really helpful. And I really appreciated her conversation around communities of practice and finding people, right? And we cannot do this work alone. And I think that's such an important message because we often feel alone in it, right? Yeah, for sure. And there are people out there who will want to think with you if they're not immediately available. And it's, it is quite stunning what can happen when you take the risk to just, you know, reach out and ask and, and say, just, you know, I want somebody to think with. Will you come and think with me? Because I know that's what you did with me, Lori. I was just going to say I did that with you 20 years ago. And it's changed. Our relationship has changed my pedagogical journey in so many ways. Yeah, same, same. So yeah, great. That was, that was a really lovely conversation. We're grateful to Susan. Yeah. And thank you again to Story Park for, you know, sponsoring and making this podcast happen for early childhood educators everywhere. You've been listening to little big ideas. A podcast brought to you by your hosts, Anne Marie Cogland and Lori McGee, with the help of our friends at Story Park. [BLANK_AUDIO]