In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)
The child’s intelligence is still today something in which we have to believe: we have to believe that the child is a bearer and constructor of his own intelligence. If we are ready to accept this, then we will modify many of our relations with [him], many of our languages, and school will also in some way adapt to a child who is a constant provider of tests, requests and intelligent research. I would also say that this work and this passion for searching, in some way clearly mobilises everything: the whole person, the whole child.
(Malaguzzi)
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. — Genesis 1:27
When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own, but speak exactly what the Father has taught Me.
— John 8:28
All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is the child. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, and full of hopes; there are no paths. Although it isn’t easy, we have to make our own paths, as teachers and children and families, in the forest. Sometimes we find ourselves together within the forest, sometimes we may get lost from each other, sometimes we’ll greet each other from far away across the forest; but it’s living together in this forest that is important. And this living together is not easy.
We have to find each other in the forest and begin to discuss what the education of the child actually means. The important aspect is not just to promote the education of the child but the health and happiness of the child as well.
(Malaguzzi)
Get wisdom, get understanding;
do not forget my words or turn away from them.
6 Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
love her, and she will watch over you.
7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get[a] wisdom.
Though it cost all you have,[b] get understanding.
8 Cherish her, and she will exalt you;
embrace her, and she will honor you.
9 She will give you a garland to grace your head
and present you with a glorious crown.
(Proverbs 4:5-8)
Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you. (John 6:27)
All of this pushes us to produce a higher level of observation. We must move beyond just looking at the child to become better observers, able to penetrate
into the child to understand each child’s resources and potential and present state of mind. We need to compare these with our own in order to work well together. (Malaguzzi)
From the mouth of the righteous comes the fruit of wisdom
(Proverbs 10:31)
“I Am—the one who speaks with you.” (John 4:26)
We have to let children be with children. Children
learn a lot from other children, and adults learn
from children being with children. Children love to
learn among themselves, and they learn things that
it would never be possible to learn from interactions
with an adult. The interaction between children is a
very fertile and a very rich relationship. If it is left to
ferment without adult interference and without that
excessive assistance that we sometimes give, then
it’s more advantageous to the child.
(Malaguzzi)
When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
but with humility comes wisdom.
(Proverbs 11:2)
I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white with harvest. (John 4:35)
What the child doesn’t want is an observation from
the adult who isn’t really there, who is distracted.
The child wants to know that she is observed, carefully, with full attention. The child wants to be
observed in action. She wants the teacher to see the
process of her work, rather than the product. The
teacher asks the child to take a bucket of water from
one place to the other. It’s not important to the child
that the teacher only sees him arrive with the bucket
of water at the end. What is important to the child is
that the teacher sees the child while the child is
working, while the child is putting out the effort to
accomplish the task — the processes are important,
how much the child is putting into the effort, how
heroic the child is doing this work. What children
want is to be observed while engaged, they do not
want the focus of the observation to be on the final
product. When we as adults are able to see the
children in the process, it’s as if we are opening a
window and getting a fresh view of things. (Malaguzzi)
Those who are kind benefit themselves
(Proverbs 11:17)
Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. (John 13:20)
“If only you had seen all I had to do.” The child
wants this observation. We all want this. This means
that when you learn to observe the child, when you
have assimilated all that it means to observe the
child, you learn many things that are not in books —
educational or psychological. And when you have
done this you will learn to have more diffidence and
more distrust of rapid assessments, tests, judgments.
The child wants to be observed, but she doesn’t want
to be judged. Even when we do judge, things escape
us, we do not see things, so we are not able to evaluate in a wide way. This system of observing children
carries you into many different feelings and thoughts,
into a kind of teaching full of uncertainty and doubt,
and it takes wisdom and a great deal of knowledge
on the part of the teachers to be able to work within
this situation of uncertainty. — Malaguzzi
Anxiety weighs down the heart,
but a kind word cheers it up.
(Proverbs 12:25)
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. — Mathew 7:7
The need for repetition
is in itself alone very significant;
in effect, it is a question
of a behavior pattern which shows a
history and which proceeds to complicate
the simple stimuli connected with the state of the organism
considered at a given moment in time. A first stimulus capable
of bringing the reflex into play is contact with an external object.
(Piaget)
the presence of a specter, that is, of what seems to remain as ineffective,
virtual. insubstantial as a simulacrum? Is there there, between the thing itself and its simulacrum, an opposition that holds up? Repetition and first time, but also repetition and last time, since the Singularity of any first time, makes of it also a last time. Each time it is the event itself, a first time is a last time. Altogether other. Staging for the end of history. Let us call it a
hauntology. (Derrida)
We need to know how to recognize a new presence,
how to wait for the child. This is something that is
learned, it’s not automatic. We often have to do it
against our own rush to work in our own way. We’ll
discover that our presence, which has to be visible
and warm, makes it possible for us to try to get inside
the child and what that child is doing. And this may
seem to be passive, but it is really a very strong
activity on our part. — Malaguzzi
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
and the one who is wise saves lives.
(Proverbs 11:30)
Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
(John 4:14)
Thus a transformation and adaptation take place
and what is this but building social life > Basically society
is not founded upon liking, but on a combination of
activities which must harmonize together. By these
children’s experience another social virtue is developed :
patience. This patience is a sort of abnegation of
impulses. Thus the features of the character we call
virtues come by themselves. One cannot teach this type
of morality to children of three years, but experience can.
— Montessori
From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things,
and the work of their hands brings them reward.
(Proverbs 12:14)
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. — Mathew 6:22
If school is an entry into the culture and not just a preparation for it, then we must constantly reassess what school does to the young student’s conception of his own powers (his sense of agency) and his sensed chances of being able to cope with the world both in school and after (his self-esteem). In many democratic cultures, I think, we have become so preoccupied with the more formal criteria of ‘performance’ and with the bureaucratic demands of education as an institution that we have neglected this personal side of education.
(Bruner)
From the fruit of their lips people enjoy good things
(Proverbs 13:2)
She puts her left hand in her mouth when she is very hungry,
a few moments before nursing. After the meal she often puts her fingers in her mouth again, to prolong sucking. From approximately 0;4 (5) the habit becomes systematic and she must suck her thumb in order to go to sleep. (Piaget)
Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.
(John 5:25)
A happy heart makes the face cheerful,
(Proverbs 15:3)
Whoever believes in me doesn’t believe in me but in the one who sent me.
(John 12:44)
We teach a subject not to produce little libraries on that subject, but rather to get a student to think … for himself, to consider matters as a historian does, to take part in the process of knowledge–getting. Knowing is a process, not a product. (Bruner)
Light in a messenger’s eyes brings joy to the heart,
and good news gives health to the bones.
(Proverbs 15:30)
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
(John 15:9)
“Any system of education, any theory of pedagogy, any ‘grand national policy’ that diminishes the school’s role in nurturing a pupils’ self esteem fails at one of its primary functions. (Bruner)
a gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great. (Proverbs 18:16)
The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.(John 6:33)
Transmit conventional ideas but encourage students to make the leap to the imaginable. (Bruner)
There are hundreds of different images of the child.
Each one of you has inside yourself an image of the
child that directs you as you begin to relate to a child.
This theory within you pushes you to behave in
certain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child,
listen to the child, observe the child. It is very
difficult for you to act contrary to this internal image.
For example, if your image is that boys and girls are
very different from one another, you will behave
differently in your interactions with each of them.
— Malaguzzi
The humanoid mind/brain complex does not simply ‘grow up’ biologically according to a genetically predestined timetable but, rather, is opportunistic to nurturing in a human-like environment
(Bruner)
The environment you construct around you and the
children also reflects this image you have about the
child. There’s a difference between the environment
that you are able to build based on a preconceived
image of the child and the environment that you can
build that is based on the child you see in front of you
— the relationship you build with the child, the
games you play. An environment that grows out of
your relationship with the child is unique and fluid.
The quality and quantity of relationships among you
as adults and educators also reflects your image of
the child. Children are very sensitive and can see and
sense very quickly the spirit of what is going on
among the adults in their world. They understand
whether the adults are working together in a truly
collaborative way or if they are separated in some
way from each other, living their expperience as if it
were private with little interaction.
— Malaguzzi
If earlier learning is to render later learning easier, it must do so by providing a general picture in terms of which the relations between things encountered earlier and later are made as clear as possible.
(Bruner)
When you begin working with children in the
morning, you must, as adults, pose questions aboutthe children, such as: “When are these children really
going to begin socializing?” And at the same time
the children will pose questions to the adults: “When
are the adults really going to begin socializing?” This
is a dialogue that needs to be continual between the
adults and the children. The adults ask questions
from the world of adults to the children. The
children will ask questions to the adults. The expectations that the children have of the adults and the
adults have of the children are important. We must
spend some time talking about these expectations.
The family — mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents — is also involved in this questioning.
they need to ask: “What is this child doing in the
school? — Malaguzzi
the idea that in teaching a subject you begin with an “intuitive” account that is well within the reach of a student, and then circle back later with as many more recyclings as are necessary, to a more formal or highly structured account, until the learner has mastered the subject in its “full generative power.
(Bruner)
We can never think of the child in the abstract. When
we think about a child, when we pull out a child to
look at, that child is already tightly connected and
linked to a certain reality of the world — she has
relationships and experiences. We cannot separate
this child from a particular reality. She brings these
experiences, feelings, and relationships into school
with her. — Malaguzzi
…learners help each other learn, each according to her abilities. And this, of course, need not exclude the presence of somebody serving in the role of teacher. It simply implies that the teacher does not play that role as a monopoly, that learners ‘scaffold’ for each other as well. The antithesis is the ‘transmission’ model … (Bruner)
And it is the same for you as adults. When you
enter the school in the morning, you carry with you
pieces of your life — your happiness, your sadness,
your hopes, your pleasures, the stresses from your
life. You never come in an isolated way; you always
come with pieces of the world attached to you.
— Malaguzzi
Culture shapes the mind, it provides us with the toolkit by which we construct not only our worlds but our very conception of ourselves and our powers.
(Bruner)
Each one of us needs to be able to play with the
things that are coming out of the world of children.
Each one of us needs to have curiosity, and we need
to be able to try something new based on the ideas
that we collect from the children as they go along.
Life has to be somewhat agitated and upset, a bit
restless, somewhat unknown. As life flows with the
thoughts of the children, we need to be open, we
need to change our ideas; we need to be comfortable
with the restless nature of life All of this changes the role of the teacher, a role that becomes much more difficult and complex. It also
makes the world of the teacher more beautiful,
something to become involved in. — Malaguzzi
… Each student must be his own artist, his own scientist, his own historian, his own navigator. (Bruner)
The ability to enjoy relationships and work together
is very important. Children need to enjoy being in
school, they need to love their school and the interactions that take place there. Their expectations of these interactions is critical.
— Malaguzzi
In one sense a child at play is free to determine his own actions. But
in another sense this is an illusory freedom, for his actions are in fact
subordinated to the meanings of things, and he acts accordingly.
(Vygotsky)
there is a reciprocal relation between education and the other major institutional activities of a culture: communication, economics, politics, family life, and so on… education is not a free-standing institution, not an island, but part of the continent. (Bruner)
It is also important for the teachers to enjoy being
with the other teachers, to enjoy seeing the children
stretch their capacities and use their intelligences, to
enjoy interactions with the children. Both parts are
essential.– Malaguzzi
“If school is an entry into the culture and not just a preparation for it, then we must constantly reassess what school does to the young student’s conception of his own powers (his sense of agency) and his sensed chances of being able to cope with the world both in school and after (his self-esteem). In many democratic cultures, I think, we have become so preoccupied with the more formal criteria of ‘performance’ and with the bureaucratic demands of education as an institution that we have neglected this personal side of education.
(Bruner)
Both children and adults need to feel active and
important — to be rewarded by their own efforts,
their own intelligences, their own activity and
energy. When a child feels these things are valued,
they become a fountain of strength for him. He feels
the joy of working with adults who value his work
and this is one of the bases for learning. — Malaguzzi
What we resolve to do in school only makes sense when considered in the broader context of what the society intends to accomplish through its educational investment in the young. How one conceives of education, we have finally come to recognize, is a function of how one conceives of culture and its aims, professed and otherwise. (Bruner)
Overactivity on the part of the adult is a risk factor.
The adult does too much because he cares about the
child; but this creates a passive role for the child in
her own learning. — Malaguzzi
If I had it all to do over again, and if I knew
how, I would put my energies into reexamining how the schools express the agenda of the society and how that agenda is formulated and how that is translated by the schools. That, it seems to me, would be the properly subversive way to proceed. (Bruner)
We need to think of the school as a living organism.
Children have to feel that the world is inside the
school and moves and thinks and works and reflects
on everything that goes on. Of course not all children
are the same — each child brings a part of something
that’s different into the school. — Malaguzzi
In human beings, with their astonishing narrative gift, one of the principal forms of peacekeeping is the human gift for presentating, dramatizing, and explicating the mitigating circumstances surrounding conflict-threatening breaches in the ordinariness of life. The object of the narrative is not to reconcile, not to legitimize, not to even excuse, but to rather explicate…To be in a viable culture is to be bound in a set of connecting stories, connecting even though the stories may not represent a consensus.
(Bruner)
This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in
manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence-but that if one does
not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.
Modern stories written for young children mainly avoid these existential problems, although they are crucial issues for all of us. The
child needs most particularly to be given suggestions in symbolic form
about how he may deal with these issues and grow safely into
maturity. “Safe” stories mention neither death nor aging, the limits
to our existence, nor the wish for eternal life. The fairy tale, by contrast, confronts the child squarely with the basic human predicaments.
(Bettelheim)
When we consider the spirit in its archetypal form as it appears to us
in fairytales and dreams, it presents a picture that differs strangely from the
conscious idea of spirit, which is split up into so many meanings. Spirit
was originally a spirit in human or animal form, a daimonion that came
upon man from without. But our material already shows traces of an
expansion of consciousness which has gradually begun to occupy that
originally unconscious territory and to transform those daimonia, at least
partially, into voluntary acts.
(Jung)
Just as a mold gives shape to a substance, words can shape an
activity into a structure. However, that structure may be changed or
reshaped when children learn to use language in ways that allow them
to go beyond previous experiences when planning future action. In
contrast to the notion of sudden discovery popularized by Stern, we
envisage verbal, intellectual activity as a series of stages in which the
emotional and communicative functions of speech are expanded by the
addition of the planning function. As a result the child acquires the ability
to engage in complex operations extending over time. (Vygotsky)
Our fairytale reveals with unusual clarity the essentially antithetical
nature of the spirit archetype, while on the other hand it shows the
bewildering play of antinomies all aiming at the great goal of higher
consciousness. The young swineherd who climbs from the animal level up
to the top of the giant world-tree and there, in the upper world of light,
discovers his captive anima, the high-born princess, symbolizes the ascent
of consciousness, rising from almost bestial regions to a lofty perch with a
broad outlook, which is a singularly appropriate image for the enlargement
of the conscious horizon.
48 Once the masculine consciousness has attained
this height, it comes face to face with its feminine counterpart, the anima.
She is a personification of the unconscious.
(Jung)
Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up[a] its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
(Proverbs 9:1-2)
“I Am—the one who speaks with you.” (John 4:26)
I do not wish only or essentially to reduce my
role to that of a passer or passerby. Nothing is more serious than a translation. I
rather wished to mark the fact that every translator is in a position to speak about
translation, in a place which is more than any not second or secondary. For if the
structure of the original is marked by the requirement to be translated, it is that in
laying down the law the original begins by indebting itself as well with regard to the
translator. The original is the first debtor, the first petitioner; it begins by lacking
and by pleading for translation.
(Derrida)
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:14-18)
: If I had invented my writing, I would have done
so as a perpetual revolution. For it is necessary in
each situation to create an appropriate mode of
exposition, to invent the law of the singular event, to
take into account the presumed or desired addressee;
and, at the same time, to make as if this writing will
determine the reader, who will learn to read (to “live”)
something he or she was not accustomed to receiving
from anywhere else. One hopes that he or she will be
reborn differently, determined otherwise, as a result:
for example, these grafts of poetry onto philosophy,
which are anything but confused, or certain ways
of using homonyms, the undecidable, or the ruses
of language, which many read in confusion because
they fail to recognize their properly logical necessity.
Each book is a pedagogy aimed at forming its reader.
— Derrida
The patient then talked about her imagination and the limits of what she believed to be real. She started by saying: ‘I didn’t really believe that there was an angel standing by my bed; on the other hand, I used to
have an eagle chained to my wrist.’ This certainly did
feel real to her and the accent was on the words
‘chained to my wrist’.
(Winnicott)
45 “Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out, with her jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water, and I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ 46 “She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too.’ So I drank, and she watered the camels also.”(Genesis 24:45-46)
Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ (John 7:37-38)
Take the unconscious in one of its handiest forms, say a spontaneous fantasy, a dream, an irrational mood, a affect, or something of the kind, and operate with it. (Jung)
What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize
it. (Gospel of Thomas)
There is a power in the universe working for enlightenment — and liberation. We call it Sadashiva, who is ever present in the hearts of men. It is the unifying factor. Unity — liberates. Freedom — unites. Ultimately nothing is mine or yours — everything is ours. Just be one with yourself and you will be one with all, at home in the entire universe. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
the true circumcision in spirit (Gospel of Thomas)
Concerning the meanings, we have seen how much sucking
acts vary according to whether the newborn child is hungry and
tries to nurse, or sucks in order to calm himself, or whether in a way he plays at sucking.It seems as though they have a meaningfor the nursling
himself. The increasing calm which succeeds a storm of crying and weeping as soon as the child is in position to take nourishment and to seek the nipple
is sufficient evidence that, if awareness exists at all, such awareness is from
the beginning awareness of meaning. But one meaning is necessarily
relative to other meanings, even on the elementary plane
of simple motor recognitions. (Piaget)
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him in baptism , in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:9-12)
Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning,
Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning,
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,
Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;
Be ready for service and have your lamps lit.
You must keep your belts fastened and your lamps burning.
Be ready for action, and have your lamps burning.
(Luke 12:35)
mark forshee 