See What Children Know
Click on the thumbnail to watch this video inside our video library.This video contains clips of an experience that actually spanned twelve minutes. The children and teacher are attempting to return an empty basket to the school’s kitchen. The teacher helps the children negotiate how the basket will be carried. She encourages the children to verbalize their desires to the whole group by lending them the words for several of their actions. How can verbalizing feelings help to establish theory of mind in young children? The teacher continues to remind the children of their initial goal and welcomes children in and out of the experience. How else can teachers support children in conflict resolution without taking shared responsibility away from the children? The teacher suggests that the children go into the hallway, recognizing that the current venue is too small and distracting for negotiation. Notice how the children become more verbally involved in the experience with the change of venue. How does the environment influence our interactions, especially during conflict? Ultimately, the teacher is open to a resolution that is not the most logical, but one that works for all of the children involved. Again, remembering that the group took over twelve minutes to return a basket, what do we gain by offering children the time required to negotiate conflict?
We are proud to say you can learn more about giving children the right to negotiate resolutions among themselves by reading the book, Seen and Heard, Childen’s Rights in Early Childhood Education , written by Videatives co-founder, Dr. Ellen Hall with Dr. Jennifer Rudkin. Many of the examples in this book as well as in the Videatives video library come from Boulder Journey School, of which Ellen is co-founder and executive director.
To purchase and download a high-resolution version of Carrying the Basket – Twice, plus a complete transcript of the experience, click here.
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Notes from the Field
We do not apply the adjective “scientific” to all forms of children’s play. Scientific thinking involves both a prediction and a method of testing the prediction by playing with the outcome. In a brief article, including three video clips, Dr. George Forman, Videatives co-founder, highlights scientific thinking in two and three year old children.Scientific thinking involves various forms of sensing a problem, inventing a strategy, testing the results, wondering about the nonrandom, and improving the “readibility” of an effect by augmenting or exaggerating actions. You can read When 2-Year-Olds and 3-Year-Olds Think Like Scientist in the current issue of “Early Childhood Research and Practice.”
