Have you ever heard a child say something that made you stop and think, “Wait a minute. I’ve never thought about it that way”?
Today I wanted to talk about theories, or child theories.
Outcome 4.2 talks about problem-solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating. One of the educator strategies is to help and encourage children to express or make visible their ideas and theories to others.
Wait a minute. But what theories are we talking about?
The word “theories” appears in the educator strategy column in the EYLF. The everyday meaning of theory is an established explanation backed by evidence. It’s a set of ideas, and it’s usually quite structured.
You probably know about Piaget’s theory, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, post-humanist theory and many others.
But in the Reggio Emilia approach, we talk about children’s theories. This goes back to Loris Malaguzzi’s vision of children as capable and competent.
Children have their own theories, or explanations, that they build to make sense of the world.
Malaguzzi described the child as competent, capable, creative and rich, as opposed to the idea of the child as an empty vessel proposed earlier by John Locke and followed by the formal education system.
Carla Rinaldi talked about three roles: the child as a protagonist of their own learning, the child as a collaborator working with other children and with educators, and the child as a communicator who uses the hundred languages, or many different expressive media.
A child’s theory, in Reggio terms, is provisional. It is a way of making sense of something. It is an explanation.
For example, recently I visited a nature-based preschool and overheard the following conversation between two boys. They were talking about mosquitoes, and they saw animal droppings on the ground. One child asked:
“Do mosquitoes poo?”
This really stopped me in my tracks because I had never really thought about it.
And children really are quite clever. They offer us a fresh perspective on many things that we have never even questioned or that we have simply taken for granted.
Theories are usually social. They build and develop through groups. Disagreement is normal, and disagreement can be productive.
Children’s theories drive planning in Reggio Emilia, and educators document them for projects, or progettazione, which is usually inquiry-based.
Listening for children’s theories is a very important interpretive act.
Going back to the mosquitoes, the children really didn’t know whether mosquitoes had a full digestive tract and whether they produced waste. So they made a hypothesis: maybe mosquitoes poo, or maybe they don’t.
That could potentially become a theory.
It will become a more developed theory when children say something like:
“Mosquitoes don’t poo because they only drink blood, and blood is a drink.”
Or:
“They do poo, but it’s too small to see.”
Now we have something that is becoming a theory.
But at this stage, it is still a very important part of the inquiry process. And I would definitely document it, which I did.
The thing with questions like this, or theories that can come out of them, is to resist the temptation to give the immediate answer.
As people in Reggio Emilia say, handing the question back to children can start an inquiry and grow into a full-on project.
For example, children found a dead snake on the ground.
Maxim said, “I never die.”
James agreed.
“And I also never die because we are kids,” said Maxim.
Three things make this a theory.
There is a claim: “I never die.”
There is a question underneath it: What is life? What is death?
And there is a reason: “Because we are kids.”
This makes it a theory.
Two children are building a theory through their social interaction. They are exploring the concept of death, which is not an easy topic.
Maxim accepted that the snake is dead and will probably stay dead. All things die. Animals die. But kids are exempt.
And that is their theory.
Have you ever witnessed any unusual child theories?
Have you observed or noticed theories in practice?
I would really like to hear from you.👇🏻
