We begin this series of sharing our study of visibility by reminding you of our particular focus…
How do children make themselves seen and where do they hide? And how might hiding make children more visible?
How do we use this understanding as we figure out who they really are?
Through the years we’ve come to understand the power of the summer book as a valuable tool for getting to know one another. We intentionally began our small groups this year, using the children’s summer books as a focus. Sharing their book about themselves in a smaller, more intimate way gave the children an opportunity to slow down with each other and enabled us to zoom in on each child’s style. We were essentially peeking into how they are beginning to make themselves ‘seen.’
Emma and Lea hold their own books and begin leafing through them independently. They turn to check in with the other as they do so. Lea comes to the page featuring her on her dad’s shoulders and notices Emma looking. She smiles and points it out to her. Emma returns the smiles and they both laugh a bit together. They return to looking at their own books. Lea comes to her page of stickers. She engages Emma with her gaze and points to the squishy sticker. Emma responds by touching it as well. Once they have finished paging through their own books, both girls sit awkwardly holding their books and looking to Charlie and Zack who are continuing to share. Lea holds her book out and looks at her cover. Emma who is watching her, does the very same. Lea mumurs noises. She cradles her arms and makes cooing sounds, all the while smiling at Emma who smiles too and continues to look at Lea. In the lull, Emma begins to pass her book to Lea and Lea takes the cue, passing hers eagerly to Emma. Emma looks through Lea’s book as Lea does the same.
Eva and Johann slowly find one another and move closer to share their books.
“Do you want to see mine?” EVA
Amelia and Victoria take turns sharing pages, giggling and laughing at their own and each others. Amelia presses her book very close to Victoria when she wants her to see something in particular, while Victoria holds her’s up and to her side so that Amelia can see best.
Tessa and Jack find one another quickly and move closer together, both eager to share their book with the other. Jack jumps in and begins to explain each photo in his book. Tessa listens attentively, adding relevant stories as he shares.
As we stood back, we tuned into not only how the children found ways to speak to one another but how they spoke through their gestures. We are trying to understand how they are working to know each other and how, through their nonverbal language, they are revealing a bit about themselves. We purposefully gave very little guidelines for the children as they began sharing their books together. Most notably, we wondered aloud with the children how they might find similarities and differences in each other. As we ended, we asked the children to use drawing as a way to remember this experience. We wondered…
What will the children remember about each other’s books? Or about each other?
Will drawing reveal something about them?
While only beginning to scratch the surface of our research, we’ve begun to see in small ways how the children are becoming more visible to each other. As we continue we wonder…