Communicating Effectively with Children

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90 Young Children • March 2009

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istening to children seems so simple. But when you’re fetching water to clean up the paint area, won- dering where the CD has disappeared to, and waving to a mother coming in the door, trying to listen to a child following behind you can become challenging. It is easy for listening to become just one more task that a busy teacher must tend to.

I spent several months in a child care center talking with and listening to young children as part of a research

project. This experience taught me lessons in how much children are telling us, if only we can hear them. In particular it taught me about the art of “stepping back.” Reading the work of others helped me prepare to conduct the research. Dahlberg and Moss describe the sig- nificance of listening, within the peda- gogy of the schools of Reggio Emilia, as involving “an ethical relationship of openness to the Other, trying to listen to the Other from his or her own position and experience and not treating the Other as the same” (2006, 15). Cannella speaks of accepting that children “can speak for themselves” and of searching “for ways that we can learn to listen” (1997, 166). Gonzalez- Mena (2001) describes a strategy of finding the “third space” in conversa- tions across cultures, the space that is beyond both your culture and my cul-

ture, where we can listen to each other openly. Here the space I was looking for was one that moved beyond the expectations of what it was to be either adult or child, either expert or novice. From such readings the image of stepping back emerged.

For me, stepping back meant not only slowing down and really listening, but also consciously shifting my mind from the immediacy of the conversa- tion to consider it from other perspec- tives. Being prepared to do this, and to relinquish my own narrow agenda, allowed me to hear other messages, messages that were often not related to the questions I had been considering.

Exploring the hidden curriculum through conversations with children

My research explored the scope of what children learn in a child care center. While the starting point was the teachers’ planning, the central focus was on the indirect learning (what some call the “hidden curricu- lum”). This kind of learning includes what children learn from one another, and the implicit messages conveyed by the teachers and by the environ- ment’s structure and resources. As the researcher, I was committed to focusing on the children’s voices and keeping them at the forefront at every stage of the research.

These are the voices that Cannella (1997) has called the “most critical

Conversations with a 2-Year-Old

Alison Stephenson, MEd, Dip Tch, is an early childhood program director at Victo- ria University in Wellington, New Zealand. She has written on a range of curriculum areas, including young children’s outdoor play. [email protected]. Photos © Ellen B. Senisi.

Alison Stephenson

Stepping Back to Listen to Jeff

Young Children • March 2009 91

voices,” the voices that have so often been missing from research about early childhood education. Focusing on the children’s voices was also a way of interrupting my own patterns of thinking, of seeing things in another way. Early on I wrote a list of ques- tions to guide me in interacting with children, and rereading these was a useful reminder of the kinds of inter- action I wanted to have with the chil- dren. The questions included,

• How can children engage with this topic in a way that interests them?

• How open am I to following the chil- dren’s lead?

I found that many children were eager to spend time with an adult who was keen to listen to them. The challenge was to search for ways of talking with them that they would find engaging and that would allow them to share their ideas. I asked families for permission for their children to participate in my research. There was also a consent form for children. I asked parents to decide if their child would understand

My starting point was to spend time with children, listen- ing to and talking with them down at their physical level. I enjoyed the interaction because I was genuinely interested in them and in their ideas. In this study, I used the following strategies with children ages 2, 3, and 4. They would work for any teacher or researcher talking with children.

• To focus conversations about the environment, I shared a folder of photographs of places both inside and outside the center, including adult spaces such as the office and the kitchen.

• To allow children to express their likes or dislikes, I used a chart with photographs of different activities and events in the center, plus counters with happy faces and sad faces. I asked the children to show me which activities they liked the best, but also asked if there were activities they didn’t like. Because there were more photographs than counters, children had to make choices.

• To show which places were most significant to them during photo tours of the center, the children used a digital camera. After I asked the children, “Show me your favorite place,” they took photographs (or asked me to take photo- graphs). I gave prints of the photos to the child photogra- phers on my next visit, which offered a chance for a further conversation.

• To engage children in focused discussions about their learning in the center, I invited them to photograph their favorite pages in their learning portfolios as we looked at them together. A portfolio includes ongoing documentation of a child’s learning recorded in words, photographs, and artwork. Each family receives their child’s portfolio at the end of the year, when the child leaves the classroom.

• To elicit more of the children’s ideas about aspects of center life, I asked individuals or small groups to help me work on unfinished storybooks. One of the storybooks con- cerned a new child who started at a center and then asked children and teachers to teach her so that she could be like them. This was designed to let children share their ideas about what children learn from one another, as well as from teachers.

• To get more direct answers on some issues, I helped chil- dren complete a questionnaire. The questions included,

o What do you like doing at your center? o What are you really good at? o What are you learning to do? o Whom do you like to play with at the center? o Is there anyone you don’t like to play with?

Along with these particular research strategies, I spent a great deal of time observing the children and writing notes, talking with children either individually or in groups, and joining them in their play when invited. At times, and with the children’s permission, I tape-recorded conversations and episodes of play. At other times I kept field notes.

Listening to the answers Listening is paramount. I found that how I listened gov-

erned what I heard. When I consciously stepped back from the interaction, from my own expectations of what I might hear, and listened with an attitude of respect, with open- ness, and in the anticipation that I might hear answers to questions that had not been asked, I was sometimes rewarded with new insights of what it was like to be a young child in a center setting.

Strategies I Used in Talking with Children

I was committed to focusing on the chil- dren’s voices and keeping them at the forefront at every stage of the research.

• How can I avoid children giving me the answer they think I want to hear?

• What are the power dynamics in this data-generating situation?

92 Young Children • March 2009

the process; many helped their child complete the form.

What I learned by stepping back and listening to Jeff

While there were 35 children involved in the research, this is the story of 2-year-old Jeff and what I was able to learn from him. Jeff was a quiet boy with a mass of curly hair. My first impression of Jeff was his solemn smile and big, watchful brown eyes, as he sidled up alongside me to listen to what was happening. Later, as I got to know him better, I came to appreciate the scope of his knowledge and the thoughtfulness of his responses.

I used my folder of photographs of different parts of the center as a focus for informal conversations with children. Talking with children about the photos of indoor and outdoor play areas and adult spaces, like the office and the kitchen, provided a way of finding out the names children used to refer to different places at the center and on the playground. Even quite young children with little language were drawn into this activity and seemed to enjoy identifying familiar places. However, listening to what children said about the photographs taught me far more.

Exploring children’s ideas about different spaces at the center

When Jeff looked at the picture of the room where the dress-ups and the family play equipment were kept, he called it “the girl room,” but then after some thought, he amended this

to “the girl room and the boy room and the pretend babies,” which sug- gested he might be juggling different messages he had received about who dresses up, and perhaps even who plays with dolls and cares for babies.

Children’s problem solving

Unexpected moments of interac- tion offered me insights into Jeff’s way of thinking and what his experience of child care might be. One day a younger boy asked me to watch him spinning a hoop around his waist. I tried to take a photograph of the moment the hoop whirled before it dropped to the ground, but each time I was too slow and only captured the hoop hitting the grass. I laughed about the problem and asked him to try just one more time—but still no success!

Jeff watched and listened, and when it was his turn to have a photo taken, he held the hoop high above his head waiting for me to take the photograph. Puzzled at first, I soon realized that he had solved the problem of the hoop hitting the ground. Working within my own frame of thinking, which was focused on capturing the whirling hoop, meant it would have been easy to dismiss his solution. Seeing the

problem from his perspective allowed me to acknowledge he had found a creative solution to a problem I could not solve.

Children’s relationships at the center

Another day, Jeff was on the play- ground beside me as I watched the children play. He looked across to see 4-year-old Evie sitting on a wooden ride-on truck. Jeff often used this truck, so I was not surprised to see him watching her. I was surprised, however, by the conversation that followed.

Jeff said to me, “That girl’s having it.” I was curious about his use of the words that girl, as Evie was a child who attended the center five days a week. When I asked him if he knew the name of “that girl,” he said no. Because Jeff had been coming to the center three days a week for several months, I was astonished that he did not know her name. However, his response high- lighted for me another assumption I had made as an adult: Because I knew every child in the center, I expected that the children would also know each other. Yet when I watched indi- vidual children, I saw how infrequently their paths might cross during a day.

I used my folder of pho- tographs of different parts of the center as a focus for informal conver- sations with children.

Young Children • March 2009 93

A tour with Jeff

Inviting children to give me a tour of the center and take photographs of their favorite places was a strategy I used for talking with children about the environment. I gave the children the option of taking the photographs or of being in the photos in places and with people they nominated. Jeff was one of the youngest children who took me on a photo tour, and like most of the other 2- and 3-year-olds, he chose to have me take photographs with him in them. A description of Jeff’s photo tour provides the final example of what I learned by stepping back in my listening.

Research on Talking with Children While there is only limited research that focuses on the ideas of children

younger than 5 (for example, Carr 2000; Clark & Moss 2001; Wiltz & Klein 2001; Sumsion 2003; Godfrey & Cemore 2005; DeMarie & Ethridge 2006; Clark 2007), such studies suggest a number of ways of talking with children. This research can provide a useful starting point for teachers or other researchers who want to pursue more conversations with children. Here are some areas of consideration.

Group size and setting. The informal interview, for either individuals or small groups, is a well-established approach. Discussions in the research include the effectiveness of interviews with single children, pairs, and small groups (Smith, Duncan, & Marshall 2005), and provide thoughts on the potential benefits of group interviews (Graue & Walsh 1998; Ring 2000; Lewis 2001) as well as the challenges they present (Dockrell, Lewis, & Lindsay 2000; Ring 2000; Hedges 2002). Some researchers comment on the setting for talking with children and the benefits of using a separate room (Nespor 1998; Dockrell, Lewis, & Lindsay 2000) or of talking with children while they are engaged in classroom activities.

Questions. Examples of the kinds of questions researchers ask children are useful. These include questions about what children like and dislike about their classrooms (Lewis 2001) and their teachers (Godfrey & Cemore 2005); what they like doing best (Wiltz & Klein 2001; Farrell, Tayler, & Tennent 2002); and why they come to the center/school (Ring 2000; Godfrey & Cemore 2005). In exploring children’s engagement in learning, Smith, Duncan, and Marshall (2005) asked questions about why children were involved in an activ- ity and whether the activity challenged them.

Tools. Researchers have used a variety of tools when talking with children. Carr (2000) used the structure of a partially completed book as a focus for conversations about learning. Ring (2000) used smiley faces on question- naires about what children liked doing. Godfrey and Cemore (2005), stress- ing the importance of play-based conversations, used props to represent the child care setting. Dockrell, Lewis, and Lindsay (2000) reported on ingenious devices used as rating scales with children. Drawing has also been used for children to express ideas in interviews (Wiltz & Klein 2001). Researchers increasingly use photographs. Photographs of recent activities in the setting were used as a focus in individual and group interviews (Wiltz & Klein 2001; Smith, Duncan, & Marshall 2005; DeMarie & Ethridge 2006). Chil- dren also photograph their favorite places or activities in the setting (Clark & Moss 2001; Clark 2004; Cremin & Slatter 2004; Greenfield 2004; Einarsdottir 2005; DeMarie & Ethridge 2006). A number of researchers use video to record interactions, and both adults (see Wiltz & Klein 2001) and children (Clark 2004) have used tape recorders for this purpose.

the mountain flat. During this process I twice suggested that we take a photo, and he agreed both times. He said I should push the quick view and show him because his hands were sandy. After moving to another part of the sandbox, Jeff began another sand

mountain. A 3-year-old girl came along, and Jeff invited her to help. “Katie’s gone,” he commented to me when, a few moments later, she left and dug elsewhere. In this mountain he introduced rabbit holes—he dug one on his side and told me to dig one

When Jeff approached me, I asked him if he would like to show me his favorite places so we could take photo- graphs of them, and he seemed keen. On the way out to the playground, he paused at a table where stamps and stamp pads (equipment that was not often available) had been set up. He chose this as his first “favorite” expe- rience. After a few minutes of using the stamps, he then led me outside to the sandbox. Here he decided that we would build something together rather than take a photograph.

At his suggestion we made a sand castle, which he later called a moun- tain. He dug out the side of the moun- tain, and then said he was making a waterfall with the sand. He picked up a truck, rolled it down the waterfall sev- eral times, then stood up and stamped

Inviting children to give me a tour of the center and take photographs of their favorite places was a strategy I used for talk- ing with children about the environment.

94 Young Children • March 2009

on my side. We excavated until the holes linked.

An older boy arrived, and Jeff also invited him to join us: “Do you want to help us, Aidy?” By this stage we were at our third site and Jeff had found us two buckets and two scoops. The three of us used the sand, buckets, and scoops to make “dinner” and “cake.” While we “cooked,” Jeff told me his nana was picking him up that day with his new booster seat, and that he had scrambled eggs and bacon the night before for dinner.

Soon Jeff left the sandbox and made his way over to a ride-on truck with a trailer attached. He got on the truck, and had some difficulty turning and backing it up with the trailer attached. When the trailer became detached, he climbed off and reattached it. He told me he was driving off “to get a load.” I wondered aloud if it would be a load of blocks (the plastic blocks were nearby), but he returned with some bark chips and told me he had “a load of books for the library.” I reacted enthusiastically, and he said he would get a big load. I reminded him about taking photos of favorite places, and I asked if he wanted me to take one of him and the truck. He agreed.

I took the photo and then explained that I had to leave soon. We arranged that I would wave when I drove away. Ten minutes later, when I drove past the fence, Jeff was still in that area of the playground, and he looked up and waved.

What I learned from Jeff

I could have driven away that day thinking that the last hour had been wasted and how little I had learned about Jeff’s favorite places. But step- ping back from my research agenda and thinking outside the framework of my planned activity allowed me to hear other messages from our inter- action. What did I learn about Jeff? I learned that his motivation was not to take photographs, or to be photo-

graphed, or even to show me favorite places. Rather, it seemed he was happy to spend time with an inter- ested adult, suggesting that for him it might be the company rather than the place that was significant. Moreover, while my earlier obser- vations had often showed that he usually played independently, here I found that he initiated contact with other children and invited them into his play, at least when an adult was there. While he accepted my plan, it was an aside to his agenda of using his

own experiences in his play and incor- porating others into that. Jeff offered me a glimpse into the wealth of experiences that he drew on in his imaginative play—the mountain, the waterfall, the rabbit holes, the cooking, the trip to the library—which reminded me yet again not to make age-based assumptions. Recalling that he had shared with me details of his family and his home life, I reflected on the significance of the link between center and home. While this link is a fundamental tenet of early childhood education, I was struck yet again by just how strongly this emerged as a significant area of interest for Jeff, and I wondered how effectively teachers support this focus on the home. While the hour with Jeff had given me little quantitative data to enter in a table of favorite places, it had chal- lenged my thinking about the concept of choosing favorite places and about the knowledge and experience of 2-year-olds. It provoked me to think again about what might constitute a child’s interest.

Stepping back from my research agenda and thinking outside the framework of my planned activity allowed me to hear other messages from our interaction.

Young Children • March 2009

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