Working Snapshot of Hawkins Centers of Learning
Dear Hawkins Centers of Learning Friends,
Four years have passed since the first Hawkins Centers of Learning gathering in Boulder, Colorado. During the time since this initial gathering, many ideas have been initiated and are being realized. Our sixth gathering, generously hosted by Skip Hills, Brian McAndrews and their colleagues at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, brought us closer to a definition of Hawkins Centers of Learning, a project that:
• gives visibility to the work and lives of David and Frances Hawkins,
• makes evident the Hawkins’ influence on contemporary education,
• gives voice to the work of those who have studied the work of David and Frances Hawkins,
• supports a process that inspires new ways of educating.
The following is a current working snapshot of Hawkins Centers of Learning…
The archives of David and Frances’ journals, correspondences, articles, books, photos, videos and artifacts, donated to Hawkins Centers of Learning by the Hawkins family, have been organized by Boulder Journey School faculty and friends (Lori Geismar-Ryan, Laura Friedman, Alison Maher, Mary Kendig, Lauren Shaffer, Sam Hall and Ellen Hall) and currently reside in the Hawkins Room for Messing About with Materials and Ideas at Boulder Journey School where they can be explored and studied by visitors to the school. The complete set of Outlook journals, published by the Mountain View Center for Environmental Education, resides there as well. Educators at Boulder Journey School who are involved in the Hawkins Centers of Learning project (Sam Hall, Mary Kendig and Lauren Shaffer) are in the process of scanning articles that are in the public domain for posting on the Hawkins Centers of Learning website: www.hawkinscentersoflearning.org.
Betty Kellogg, documentarian for the Mountain View Center, has been organizing the photographs contained in the archives, as well as photographs from her personal collection. Most recently, Betty has been compiling photographs and reflections to create a narrative of the Pond Study, a project of second grade students and their teachers, facilitated by David Hawkins. In her work, Betty is collaborating closely with Cyndi Gray, documentary filmmaker, educational consultant and colleague of the Hawkins’, who is currently developing a video documentary of the work and lives of David and Frances Hawkins. The goals of the documentary are to:
• capture essential elements of the Hawkins’ background and educational approach in documentary through data and materials collected by Hawkins Centers of Learning and interviews with educators associated with Hawkins Centers of Learning and the Hawkins’,
• distribute the completed documentary to wider educational circles to expand the dialogue on the Hawkins’ approach to learning and teaching.
Betty has donated $5,000 to this project, which has been used for cleaning and restoring negatives and for the purchase of a video camera and software. Cyndi is pursuing additional funding in collaboration with educators at Queen’s University. A $10,000 challenge grant has been initiated by Hawkins Centers of Learning board member, Deborah Dumont and remains to be matched.
One of the ideas of Hawkins Centers of Learning that is gaining momentum is the development of a Hawkins exhibit. Susan Lyon, founder and executive director of The Innovative Teacher Project and Ellen Hall, Hawkins Centers of Learning board member are currently interviewing designers. Carlina Rinaldi, President of Reggio Children and a valued consultant to the Hawkins Centers of Learning project since the beginning is encouraging and supporting the creation of this exhibit that could be displayed inside the International Center Loris Malaguzzi in Reggio Emilia, Italy. One vision for this project is the creation of a core exhibit, with the addition of panels that underline the work inspired by the Hawkins’ in the context in which the exhibit is displayed. Thus, just as we speak of Hawkins Centers of Learning in the plural, there could be multiple place-based exhibits in various contexts throughout the world. Giving visibility to the connection between the scholars, Hawkins and Malaguzzi, that has influenced the pedagogy of the schools for young children in Reggio Emilia, is critical to the Hawkins Centers of Learning project.
The Hawkins Room for Messing About with Materials and Ideas at Boulder Journey School was inaugurated at the reception for Frances Hawkins in June 2007. The room was designed to provide opportunities for adults – teachers, families and visitors – to interact with materials and to engage in study and dialogue about issues in education. The intention was to engage in careful documentation of the research in the Hawkins Room and the ways in which this research could potentially inform and support collaboration with the children at Boulder Journey School as well as work in other contexts. Initial questions included:
• How does offering teachers time and space to explore materials in small learning groups support their work with materials in classrooms?
• What can we learn from documenting how children interact with materials as compared to how adults interact with materials?
• How will the organization of the Hawkins Room for Messing About with Materials and Ideas change based on teachers’ reflections?
• How can this space be translated to other contexts?
Educators at Boulder Journey School spent the school year, ’07-‘08 in small learning groups researching concepts surrounding their study of ‘wheels’, which ultimately expanded to include the entire learning community – children and families as well as faculty. Based on a survey of teachers in fall ’08, the scope of the room has expanded. Mary Kendig has taken on the role of resource librarian and is involved in making connections between the Hawkins’ archives and the investigations taking place in the school. In the Hawkins Room, faculty, supported by Hawkins Centers of Learning board member, Alison Maher and studio teacher, Jen Selbitschka, will continue their research in small learning groups. This year’s explorations will focus on the concepts inherent in sewing and weaving and drawing. Documentation of discoveries, struggles, questions, accomplishments, etc. will continue.
Currently, we are seeking a grant from the Ford Foundation, which funded the Mountain View Center in the 1970’s and 80’s. These funds will be used to expand the Hawkins Room for Messing About with Materials and Ideas at Boulder Journey School to initially include one additional site. Developing a second setting, a community college demonstration school serving low-income children and early childhood teacher preparation in Monterey County, California, will support cross-collaborative, multi-site documentation of teachers’ explorations, work and research. The grant additionally requests support for expanding the project to eight sites in three years. We project the shared findings will inform and encourage the design and development of similarly inspired learning spaces.
Study of the Hawkins archives by Lauren Shaffer led to the investigation of children’s explorations of water and to the creation of a water lab in their classroom. Lauren also presented provocations surrounding the Outlook article, Music Lesson by Mountain View Center teacher Tony Kallett to the Boulder Journey School Intern cohort in April ’08 and to participants in the 6th gathering of Hawkins Centers of Learning in Kingston in August. It is anticipated that continued study of the archives will inspire future investigations and presentations by educators.
Documented discussions of the book, Journey with Children by Frances Hawkins have taken place at Clayton School’s Family Center, Clayton, Missouri, facilitated by director Lori Geismar-Ryan and at Community Nursery School, Lexington, Massachusetts, facilitated by director Joanne Pressman. Professor Mary Jane Moran continues to facilitate Hawkins Hours with students at the University of Tennessee.
Projects that are in the beginning stages include work with Barry Kluger-Bell, Assistant Director for Science at the Institute for Inquiry and Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich, Principal Investigators of the PIE Institute (Play, Invent, Explore) at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Additionally, faculty at Queen’s University would like to reinitiate the Science Club, inspired by their work with the Hawkins’. Skip Hills contributed the following report:
The Hawkins Center of Learning located in Kingston Ontario has been established under the auspices of the Mathematics, Science, Technology and Teacher Education Group (MSTE) of the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University. The center is dedicated to providing ongoing professional development and support for elementary teachers. Initially the Centers’ efforts will be directed towards a small group of interested teachers. Our activities will be informed by the exemplary pioneering work of Frances and David Hawkins who saw science, teaching and learning as investigative arts. As a result, the project will involve the creation and development of a new kind of teacher Center, hereafter known as the “Science Club”, committed to respecting the accomplishments, interests and needs of participating teachers and to nurturing an experimental, imaginative, and, above all, playful attitude toward teaching and learning. Not only will the Center contain inviting and engaging spaces for inquiry, or “messing about in science”, it will also be equipped with varied materials and resources chosen to foster these ends. One of the principal aims of the Center is to engender a genuine understanding and enjoyment of the topics explored.
The Science Club’s workshops will involve using and revising existing activities, such as those developed for the Elementary Science Study (ESS) and Nuffield Science 5/13, and resources as well as creating new ones for messing about. Participants will be invited to try out some of these activities, to adapt or revise them, or to create new ones, in order to better serve their own educational purposes. Through dialogue and conversation members of the community will be encouraged to share their successes and growing understanding as well as their confusions and frustrations. With participant’s permission, workshop activities will be documented and made available to others with similar interests, especially those involved in other Hawkins’ Centers.
The Center and its resources will be open to teachers, pupils, faculty members, teacher candidates, and graduate students among others.
In South Dakota, Kay Cutler continues to forge connections among educators across the state who are involved and interested in the Hawkins’ work, seeking to organize a second gathering. The first gathering took place in April ’08 in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Several contexts have been proposed to join Boulder, Colorado, Northampton, Massachusetts, St. Louis, Missouri, and Kingston, Ontario, as places for gatherings of Hawkins Centers of Learning. These include Beaufort, South Carolina, hosted by teacher Kristen Common, who has inspired and provoked our thinking through her presentations of video documentation of the children in her classroom at previous Hawkins Centers of Learning gatherings. Other possible gathering venues might be organized in New England (Boston or Cumberland, Maine) by Laura Friedman and Joanne Pressman and in San Francisco by Susan Lyon and Barry Kluger-Bell.
We continue to be amazed by the breadth of our network, most recently making connections with Pond Study teachers, Patti McKinnell, Dean of Students at The Logan School and Jeannie Jacobson, and with Pine Ridge teacher Brenda Duncan, currently Professor of Early Childhood Education at Metro State College.
The current working snapshot of Hawkins Centers of Learning is a work in progress and as such is posted on our website’s blog (blog.hawkinscenters.org), awaiting your reflections, questions and ideas. We look forward to the years ahead as our vision of the possible continues to unfold.
Sincerely,
Ellen Hall, with support from Deborah Dumont, Lori Geismar-Ryan, Sam Hall, Skip Hills, Mary Kendig, Sue Mackler, Alison Maher and Lauren Shaffer