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Cognition, Thinking & Understanding

What do thinking and learning look like, and under what conditions do they thrive? What is understanding and how does it develop? These and similar questions about the nature of human cognition have animated Project Zero inquires for several decades, beginning with early work in the nature of creativity and intelligence, to more recent work that emphasizes a performative view of understanding, a dispositional perspective on thinking, a focus on ‘visible thinking,’ and an exploration of the cultural forces that support good thinking. Over the years, Project Zero research initiatives in these areas have yielded a variety of frameworks and practices that help educators understand, design, and document powerful learning experiences in a range of disciplines and settings.

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Article

Children Are Citizens: The Everyday and the Razzle-Dazzle

A resource from Children Are Citizens

Children Are Citizens: The Everyday and the Razzle-Dazzle

A resource from Children Are Citizens

How do children get to know their city and the city get to know its children? How often are children asked their opinions about their city? The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) established that in addition to children’s human rights to protection from harm and provision of an adequate standard of living, children also possess civil rights to participate in the cultural and civic activities of their communities. We, the authors of this article, maintain that children are indeed citizens from birth with the right to participate in the civic life of their cities. Cities belong to the adults and children who live there—even young children, who are capable of generating compelling insights about their communities.

The recognition of children as citizens is an essential pillar of the Reggio schools. Sustaining the strong bond between children’s and adults’ destinies has characterized 50 years of dialogue and cultural and political collaboration between the city of Reggio and its municipal preschools and infant-toddler centers. Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy, believed that schools are a critical context for fostering the relationship between children and the city. Once Malaguzzi said:

Our children go outside of the school as often as they can. They go to discover what is there or not in the city and to reflect and maybe conquer, with the help of the adults, what could be there . . . [They go] to strengthen relationships with cultural and sports institutions, to run in the fields, to meet the farmers . . . [They go] to discover people’s most beautiful trades, where and how their fathers and mothers work, to make friends with the elderly in their nursing home— images that are missing from their eyes and minds but that are essential to launch themselves into life, into the future. They invite to school the farmer and the factory worker, to hear their stories, their problems, the conditions of the work, and to understand the meaning of life, to feel they are part of a wider community. (see also Cagliari et al., 2016)

How might we help children imagine their futures as active members of their communities? Schools are an ideal setting for fostering a dialogue between children and the city. Like the ancient Greek agora, classrooms can serve as laboratories for life in a democratic community—places where knowledge and culture are both created and transmitted. When children encounter other perspectives—when they discuss, argue, and compare ideas—they are building understanding and making public that which had been private. Cities also provide a construct that three-, four-, and fiveyear- olds can understand—places they can experience and to which they can respond.

This article is written for those who wish to foster a relationship between children and their cities. We start with two examples of children’s contributions to their communities, one from Reggio Emilia—a city with a long and rich history of connecting children to their community, and one from Washington, DC—a city that has more recently built child-community connections. We close by identifying three lessons learned about engaging children in their communities.

From Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Emilia Exchange, v. 23, n. 4, published by NAREA (North American Reggio Emilia Alliance)

Download the PDF (under Resource Links) to continue reading this article.

Download the PDF

Article

How To Be A Global Thinker

A resource from Globalizing the Classroom, Interdisciplinary & Global Studies, Nurturing Global Competence in the Early Years, Educating Global Citizens through a US and China Lens, Signature Pedagogies in Global Education & Global Children

How To Be A Global Thinker

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Tool

Understanding Map

A resource from Cultures of Thinking

Understanding Map

A resource from Cultures of Thinking

A visual depiction of the ways in which students make meaning and understand concepts.

Understanding Map

Tool

Causal Learning in the Classroom Curriculum Modules

A resource from Causal Learning Projects

Causal Learning in the Classroom Curriculum Modules

A resource from Causal Learning Projects

The Causal learning in the Classroom (CliC) modules are designed to complement existing curricula in environmental ecosystems and climate change science. They are focused on the scientific content, principles, and habits of mind. The CliC modules aim to augment students’ learning by revealing to them patterns of thinking that impact their ability to perceive, attend to, and reason about the complex causal patterns embedded in science. They bring science content together with what we know about the nature of human cognition to 1) further what students understand and 2) help students realize why some of these concepts are hard for the public to understand and attend to. It invites students to think creatively about these challenges as they develop their own knowledge and create sustainable lives in our world.

There are two modules in the current set:

1. Becoming Global Thinkers: Thinking about Distant Causes and Effects
2. Becoming Responsible Individuals: Understanding Distributed Causality.

Each module is based upon research that has been carried out on how people think—both in the lab and in the classroom. It is designed to build upon affordances in students’ knowledge, taking what they know from the everyday world and building deeper, more reflective understanding from it.

Download Curriculum Modules (1 & 2)

Book

Children Are Citizens Book 2015

A resource from Children Are Citizens

Children Are Citizens Book 2015

A resource from Children Are Citizens

From the Introduction:

People from all around the world know about Washington, DC. They talk about it, write about it, draw it, and make movies and TV shows about it. But almost always, we hear only the opinions and ideas of grownups. For this book we invited some of our youngest citizens — children from Sacred Heart School, School Within School at Goding (DCPS), Seaton Elementary School (DCPS), the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, and Washington International School — to tell us what they think of our city. We asked them to share their ideas in order to help other children (and adults) know what they think is important about DC. We asked their teachers to help students research the city and discuss their ideas with classmates and children from the other schools. Each teacher guided their students in di!erent ways. The results are thoughtful, informative, and sometimes surprising. You can learn a lot about our city from reading this book.

Download the Book