Living and Learning Together

“We’re driving a car!,” says TH, while he looks through one of our classroom’s books.  CKP joins him, and JA quickly follows suit.  They are occupying our reading chair in the back right corner of our room, which has ample space for their three bodies to fit in comfortably.  JA says, “I’m driving the car!,” while modeling the appropriate “10 and 2” hand positions on the imaginary wheel.  CKP is also “driving the car,” and I begin to wonder about the feasibility of this co-pilot situation.  Nonetheless, they share this role quite nicely, as they negotiate ideas of a way forward.  

As I think about this instance, as well as the other ways in which we are together (seen in the pictures pasted here), I think about the communal nature of our learning.  While I am a teacher of the preschool group, I am not the only one, and I’m not just talking about Shianne.  Each member of our group brings their own knowledge, abilities, and ideas into our time together, and it is from this collection of our many identities that we co-create who we are as a group.  The stunning thing about this is that they are such extraordinary community and knowledge builders.  Whether it be driving a car, sending sounds through a tube, harvesting tomatoes, or painting a collaborative canvas, they construct knowledge and meaning together, while becoming closer to one another as a group.  Even their conflicts over these meanings are soon followed by an invitation to share, to play together, and to collaborate anew.  That kind of fidelity in the pursuit of ideas, and in relationship to one another, is subversive in an increasingly individualistic society, and I have front row seats to it every day.  

With this being said, I do not pretend that children give us the perfect model for how to be together.  In many ways, the complexities of their relationships to one another are made possible by adult scaffolding, situational maintenance, and environmental maintenance, without which the same kind of communal learning may not be possible.  Though children are provocative in their relationships, they are still immature psychologically, emotionally, and of course, physically.  This renders a need for assistance, for a guide, which is a role that adults often fill.  It’s important that we believe in, and advocate for, the abilities of children, while not romanticizing their contributions.  

Children, our preschool children, are such competent protagonists in their own learning and community building.  And while we recognize their limitations in this, we also celebrate the way in which they navigate our living and learning together!