Listening to young children has almost become a buzzword these days, and an increasing number of projects put talk into action. But let's ask first, why listen? Why might it matter? What are the problems or pitfalls?
WHY LISTEN?
The right to participate
A common reason for advocating listening is that it is part and parcel of children's right to participation, one of the main themes of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: 'The child has the right to express his or her views in all matters affecting the child and the child's views shall be given their due weight' (Article 12).
Children in nurseries and other settings should be able to express their views about the services that they attend and to influence these services and their lives in them - and listening is an important part of that process.
One of the Danish Government's guidelines for childcare centres is that children must have the opportunity for 'contributory influence' on their daily routine. And as Danish researcher Kirsten Poulsgaard puts it, 'To secure a contributory influence, the child and adult must reach out and meet, to find an agreed way together. It is the adult's task to create a context where this equal interaction can unfold.' The Danes set this in a wider framework of fostering democracy, as Kirsten explains: 'Children must learn it is useful to argue - and we must understand that permanent boundaries and rigid rules are not democratic.' Getting the child's perspective
There are other reasons why listening might matter. Modern early childhood is increasingly institutionalised. Children, at the behest of adults, spend more time, and from an earlier age, in a variety of childcare services, with other children and adults. This is not in itself a bad thing - just a different way of living childhood. But not only do we need to give children some influence over this institutionalised childhood; we need to understand better what this life is like for children. What is important for them? Who is important? What do they enjoy, and what bothers them? How do they see the relationship between their life in the childcare setting and the home setting? How do they manage living a life in two places? One way to gain a better understanding, to gain something of the child's perspective on her life, is by listening.
Communication and learning
A third reason is that being a good listener is important for everyone - adults and children alike. It enables communication and dialogue. Carlina Rinaldi, former pedagogical director of the municipal early childhood centresin Reggio Emilia, Italy, puts it like this: 'The capacity for listening abounds in younger children...They listen to life inall its shapes and colours. They listento others - adults and peers. They quickly perceive how listening is essential for communication.' Put this way, listening is not an optional extra. It is essential to relationships in all their many forms and with all their many possibilities.
It is essential in other ways, too. Listening and being listened to is central to our learning about ourselves and the world around us.
In Reggio Emilia, they talk about a 'pedagogy of listening'. For them, learning is about a search for meaning in what we do, encounter and experience. Making meaning, in turn, comes through developing interpretive 'theories' about our world, and these theories need listening to by others.
Therefore, argues Carlina Rinaldi, the childcare centre should first and foremost be a place 'where one learns to listen and narrate, and each individual feels legitimised to represent their theories, as well as offer their interpretations'.
So, from a particular view of learning, which sees learning as a process of meaning-making rather than of transmission, listening is the basis for a learning relationship - not just adults listening to children, but adults listening to adults and children listening to adults and other children, and also listening to ourselves by internal listening, the ability to reflect.
MIND THE PITFALLS
Listening without substance
'Listening' is not only a complex concept, but it goes to the heart of the theories, relationships and practices that shape early childhood work. It should not be an add-on, to meet some external requirement. It is not some outcome to be offered as proof of 'quality'. If we choose to listen to young children, it should be because listening is part of our beliefs about learning, relationships, democracy and ethics: in short, it is an integral part of how we think life should be lived.
So, the first problem is listening without substance - not knowing why we want to listen, going through the motions. I do not mean that listening is too grand to contribute to specific objectives. It may play an important role in, for example, audits or drawing up plans for outdoor space, or reviews of individual children. But the best results will come about if listening is part of the culture, the everyday life and ethos of the centre.
Tools and methods
The second problem is having the tools and methods for listening. As already suggested, listening is not a simple process. Children express themselves in many ways, through a 'hundred languages', as they say at Reggio Emilia. So listening requires a broad range of documentation, involving not just hearing but all our senses. It also involves interpreting that documentation. A few tools and methods are discussed here. The field is evolving all the time.
Finding time and space
If we treat listening as a complex, multi-method, reflexive process, involving all our senses and adapted to particular circumstances (as, for example, with the Mosaic approach), then this cannot be a rushed activity. It is not just a case of asking a child a question, then noting their answer. Material comes from many sources, and it needs interpretation. A wide range of people need to be involved in this interpretative process - practitioners, parents and, of course, children themselves, but also others such as managers and politicians. As well as a cultural climate which values listening, there needs to be non-contact time in the working day to document, reflect, discuss. Training and support are also necessary ingredients.
Intrusion and control
Last, but not least, listening carries its own risks. We need to respect young children's privacy. One three-year-old in the Mosaic study said as he closed a session with the researcher, 'I've done enough talking now.' So we need to be aware that listening can be a liberating tool, but that it can also become a way of 'listening in' on children's lives and an unwanted intrusion.
Taking this one step further, there is the risk that listening to young children can become a subtle but effective way to control them. The 'listened to' child may be more easily governed. With the best of intentions, we adults may use listening as a means to reduce children's power in their own lives, to ensure that our agenda is better achieved, to make certain that the child is never beyond the adult gaze.
Let me leave the last word on listening to Carlina Rinaldi, who captures the sense of risk and opportunity. 'It is a difficult path that requires energy, hard work, and sometimes suffering. But it also offers wonder, joy, enthusiasm and passion. It is a path that takes time - time which children have and adults often do not, or do not want, to have.'