Coming to terms with expectations and experience learning: a conversation
‘We began with an enquiry around how Literacy can be supported during Explore Time. For me as an educator that meant looking at all instances of Literacy and where they fit within the NC Literacy guidelines.
Our cultural centre, No. 1 The Crescent, was part of the project and I anticipated their involvement would support the children’s current fascinations and possibly enable new ones to form.This involvement also brought with it some degree of expectation, based around the children’s interest in construction and buildings. I was also struck by the wealth of historical information that the children had access to from this fantastic resource. Alongside this, Michael was our artist for the project, known for his storytelling skills – already we had lots of thoughts around how these could all mesh together.
Although I hadn’t realised it yet I was hooked! I had begun with my own expectations, which were for a large part based on perceived external expectations about what Literacy meant, in an educational sense – reading, writing, story telling, character, poetry, non – information texts etc…, What might an expert storyteller bring to the classroom? And the possible historical and geographical potential with No1 The Crescent.’ (Janine Blackmore, educator)
