Learning Together in the Early Years

Exploring Relational Pedagogy

Theodora Papatheodorou, JANET R Moyles, Theodora Papatheodorou, JANET R Moyles

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134031252
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Relational pedagogy underpins the core principles of both the cognitive, and social/emotional development of young children, as evidenced in the Reggio Emilia preschools and the Te Whariki curriculum in New Zealand. Emphasising the links between, people, places and ideas and the effects of these on education, educators and learners, it is integral to the English Early Years Foundation Stage, and forms the basis for early years provision around the world.

This book brings together contributions from international experts on early years education to explore and debate relational pedagogy across different countries and in the context of a broad international field. The three sections of the book cover the following areas:

• culture, environment and adult child relationships - how children and adults relate to the culture, ethos and environment in which they function;
• adult-child relationships - how education and care environments directly relate to learning and teaching;
• adult-adult relationships for professional development - in training situations and parental partnerships.

The book will be of interest to all those who want to delve deeper into how these interactions affect teaching and learning and to understand how the context can have its own impact on pedagogical outcomes. Researchers in early years education and students on early childhood education courses will find much here to inspire and challenge their thinking.

1 Exploring relational pedagogy

Theodora Papatheodorou

Despite the increased volume of literature addressing the concept of relational pedagogy, the place of the concept in professional writing is rather limited. Reasons for such an omission may range from difficulties in understanding the concept of pedagogy; conflicting and polarised discourses and policies about education (e.g. child-centred versus teacher-centred education, outcomes/competencies-based versus processes education); global imperatives and demands for a view of education as a private economic good; and perhaps little confidence in, and trust of, professional wisdom and experience of early years practitioners.

In this chapter, I will attempt to define the term relational pedagogy, discuss the underlying principles of the concept and identify its implications for professional practice. The discussion will draw on the work and research of the contributors to this book, as well as relevant literature on relational pedagogy and early childhood and education in general to provide a rationale for the argument that we—early years professionals in any capacity—need to reclaim and embrace relational pedagogy in our work with and for children.

Introduction

The difficulty in embracing the concept of relational pedagogy may be due to the fact that pedagogy itself is a difficult concept to understand and comprehend. Pedagogy is a widely used term in education in Europe and that was my own personal experience, as I was initially educated and worked in the Greek educational system. Pedagogy had a central place in my education as a nursery teacher. On the Continent, the term is used to refer to modules, whole programmes of study and even departments in education faculties. In general terms, pedagogy is understood as the art and science of educating the child and the adult alike. In English educational literature, the term pedagogy appeared mainly during the 1990s and it has been considered as being synonymous with teaching, defined as the act and performance of curricula delivery (Alexander 2000; Lewis and Norwich 2005).

Pedagogy, however, is broader and wider in meaning and purpose. For example, in The Study of Pedagogical Effectiveness (SPEEL), Moyles et al. 2002: 5), state that:

Pedagogy … connects the relatively self-contained act of teaching and being an early years educator, with personal, cultural and community values (including care), curriculum structures and external influences. Pedagogy in the early years operates from a shared frame of reference (a mutual learning encounter) between the practitioner, the young children and his/her family.

According to Brooker (2007: 14):

learning is now seen to be very much the outcome of relationships: between children and their friends and classmates, between children and the adults who care for them in every setting, and between the professional educators and the families and communities who have provided children’s earliest experiences.

We would add not only cultural and ethnic communities, since relational pedagogy also encompasses the building of true communities of learners (McCaleb 1995) especially in the early years. It is the learners who are crucial, content being important only because, through it, relationships can be revealed. It is these very relationships that make relational pedagogy difficult to define because they are never static, continually changing and evolving. It is a co-creative process, ‘organic’ in the sense that relational pedagogy is responsive to the needs, passions and interests of learners (Gold 2005).

Etymologically, pedagogy comes from the Greek word

which has two components: ‘παιδί’ meaning child and ‘άγω’ literally meaning lead but, in the word pedagogy, ‘άγω’ has the meaning of guide. Metaphorically speaking, the interpretation of ‘άγω’ as ‘guide’ suggests that two (or more) people walk side-by-side and hand-in-hand along a route or path that has been walked before by one member of the group, and that member has now taken the role of guide and facilitator in the new journey.

In these terms, in the case of educating young children, pedagogy means that the adult and the child embark on a journey together. The adult remains the knowledgeable one but that knowledge is facilitative: the adult is the facilitator rather than the one who sets a clearly predetermined path or route. This notion of pedagogy is best reflected in concepts such as the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD), ‘scaffolding’ and ‘mediation’, all of which form central ideas about learning in the early years (Bruner and Haste 1987; Vygotsky 2002). It has also been encapsulated in Tal Ben-Tov’s term ‘guide’, which she uses to refer to tutors of early childhood practitioners attending the Learning to Live Together programme (Chapter 4).

The ontological foundations of relational pedagogy

Pedagogy—by focusing on the individual as a human being, be it the young child, the teacher, the parents/carers and their being together and their interconnected experience—takes an ontological dimension (Levine, in Meek 1996). It implies a relation, an obligation and the infinite attention which we owe to each other. It invests a dialectical relationship between learner and teacher and acknowledges the particular cultural, social and structural context where such relationships can develop (Levine, in Meek 1996). Understanding pedagogy in these terms means that ‘relationality’ is its core element.

Contributors to this book place interactions and communication at the heart of relational pedagogy which is viewed as a reflective and negotiative process that requires reciprocity, initiation and the sustaining of joint involvement episodes (Dinneen, Chapter 14). All contributors emphasise the importance of intuition, wisdom and trust (see especially Insley and Lucas, Chapter 13; Fowler and Robins, Chapter 17). Relational pedagogy is viewed as the ‘in-between’ space occupied by all those involved in the learning process (Oates et al., Chapter 15). In this space conflict may arise, if feelings and others’ views are not considered, but these conflicts are also negotiated through a dialogical process. Bingham and Whitebread (Chapter 8) suggest that relational pedagogy is for individual and group self-regulation and, as Bergum (2003) has claimed, it is where we are found and feel at home. It is about sensory and emotional experiences for young children and intimate relationships.

Those who visit the renowned Reggio Emilia preschools in Italy are privileged to witness this kind of pedagogy. Despite the fact that the creative approach adopted in Reggio Emilia preschools captures the eye and imagination of the visitor, looking more carefully and listening to the early years practitioners there, it becomes apparent that their pedagogy focuses on children’s self-awareness and well-being acquired through, and because of, the relationships they develop with others (see Cameo 1).

Cameo 1

The teacher is working with a group of four children (two girls and two boys), all sitting around a table. On the table, there is a small basket with little wallets (approx. 9 × 5cm) made from card, glue, colouring pencils, coloured buttons of different sizes and texture, glitter glue, scissors and small folded papers. One of the girls is cutting the folded paper in half and placing the pieces into the basket with the wallets. A boy and a girl are decorating the little wallets with the colouring pens and/or by sticking on colourful buttons. When they finish each wallet, they place it back into the basket and take another one to decorate. The fourth child (a boy) is decorating one of the papers which the first girl has already cut into halves. The preschool

teacher is sitting next to them. The boy addresses the teacher and the teacher replies with a question. The boy responds. The teacher takes a piece of paper and writes a three-word sentence. The boy copies it on to the small piece of paper which he has decorated. He then takes one of the wallets from the basket and inserts the piece of paper. The preschool teacher keeps the wallet in front of her.

The boy moves on to another table and joins four other children. Another girl comes to join the nursery teacher and the other children. The girl takes a small piece of paper from the basket and starts to decorate it. The teacher addresses the girl who, in turn, replies. The teacher takes a piece of paper and writes down a four-word sentence. The girl copies the sentence, then takes the wallet which the other child has just left. The teacher requests the wallet back, saying something. The girl seems disappointed. The teacher takes the basket with the wallets and places it in front of the girl for her to choose one. The girl does so and puts her piece of paper into the wallet. The teacher keeps this wallet in front of her.

In this cameo, it seems that two things are happening; that is, the decoration of the wallets is a collective task, but the messages are individual and written individually by each child (with adult support). Asked about this activity, the preschool teacher explained that the following day it was Ciara’s birthday. Every child wanted to send Ciara a very special message. So she asked each child individually what they wanted this special message to be. Then she wrote it down and the child copied it on to the message slip. The preschool teacher explained further that because not all the children are equally skilful in decorating the wallets, they do this job collectively. This is to avoid children’s disappointment if they compared their decorated wallets with those of others. So, the decoration of all wallets was left to children who were confident and willing to do so. The teacher emphasised that the important thing was the special message the children would send to Ciara, not its packaging (the wallet).

In this kind of pedagogy, the individual is valued and supported through collective endeavour and effort. The subtle messages for Ciara and other children is that what matters is:

1. how they relate to others and how others feel and think about them, not what they receive—‘being’ matters more than ‘having’;
2. the individual’s contribution to collective tasks and efforts, not the type of contribution.

Both of these messages are also reflected in the curriculum experiences of young children in countries such as China, where ‘being’ (especially as a community member) is a vital component and the good of the individual comes second to the supportive collective ideals (Moyles and Liu Hua 1998).

Children’s (and other learners’) self-awareness, self-worth and self-esteem derive from how others relate to them and the acknowledgement of their contribution to group and collective efforts and work (see also Papatheodorou 2007a). Awareness of others and self-awareness because of others has a prominent place in the philosophy and praxis of Reggio Emilia. This is not necessarily explicitly discussed with and articulated to children. Instead, as Brownlee (2004) would argue, the children are respected as being knowing and capable agents and they are given the experiences and support they need to identify the relationships of what they do and why, so as to find valid personal meaning which is also validated by those who share the same cultural and social space.

This central premise of the Reggio Emilia pedagogy is also echoed in the South African concept ‘Ubuntu’, which means ‘I am because of others’ and highlights the uniqueness of each individual and the transformational power and influence each can make in the lives of others (see Sachs, Chapter 5). It is also embraced in the Maori word ‘ako’ which means both ‘to learn’ and ‘to teach’ and reflects the reciprocal and bidirectional processes embraced in the inspirational Te Whāriki curriculum, implemented in the early years settings in New Zealand (see Peters, Chapter 2). These concepts entail, as Farren (2006) states, a pedagogy of the unique and a web of betweenness highlighting the contribution which each individual can make in the learning process and the relational dynamics of various contributions that recognise the humanity in the other.

The cognitive dimensions of relational pedagogy

By its definition and connotations, relational pedagogy immediately brings to mind social relationships. Drawing upon the principles of constructivism and socio-cultural theories (Bruner and Haste 1987; Vygotsky 2002) and the work of Baxter and Magolda, King and Kitchener and her own research, Brownlee (2004) has defined relational pedagogy in terms of three parameters:

1. showing respect to the student as a knower;
2. providing learning experiences that relate to students’ own experience;
3. articulating and facilitating a constructivist approach to learning by emphasising meaning-making rather than knowledge accumulation.

This means that the learner (whatever the age) does not come into a learning environment as an empty vessel to be filled. The learner has experiences and knowledge that become the lenses through which new knowledge, information and experience are filtered and understood to identify relationships between them and construct new ideas that have personal meaning and inform their actions. Again, this was witnessed in one of the Reggio Emilia preschools, where the atelierista was observed working with two children (see Cameo 2).

Cameo 2

The atelierista is working with two children who have lumps of clay in front of them. Through the guidance of the atelierista—in the form of suggestions, modelling and perfecting of skills required—the lumps of clay are gradually transformed and refined to take on a new form and life. Both the atelierista and the two children are deeply involved, absorbed and working intensely on their sculptures. They seem to be completely cut off from the happenings around them.

The children are not left to their own devices but are facilitated to use different tools, to handle the clay in different ways, incorporate new and different materials, to make judgements about the ones that blend and fit well with clay and refine skills required to use the materials. Most importantly, the two children are not given the same guidance and instructions. Instead the guidance is informed by what each child is trying to do and the ways each handles the clay. The children themselves, through constructive facilitation, gradually come to form ideas on how to work with and manipulate clay and to produce refined and meaningful representations, distinctly different from each other. In this instance, didactics take the form of indirect and, when necessary, direct facilitation of children to explore possible alternative avenues and pathways that their work may take and offer specific skills to apply or test such alternatives.

The above observation exemplifies the pedagogy of listening, understood as ‘being fully attentive to the children … seeking to follow and enter into the active learning that is taking place (Edwards et al. 1998: 181). If children use a hundred languages to express themselves (Forman and Fyfe 1998), we—the adults—also need a hundred languages for listening and responding. Non-verbal communication (such as little utterances, facial expressions, body language and gestures, nodding, approval glances, smiles, eye conduct, discreet help) form an ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Exploring relational pedagogy
• PART I Culture, environment and adult–child relationships
• PART II Adult–child relationships at micro level
• PART III Adult–adult relationships for professional development
• Endpiece