Documentation or Mapping - different points of view

Some time ago I was asked to give a talk about documentation in early childhood education. I was prepared to talk about documentation as a pedagogical tool for learning about own practice, but a week before the talk I got an e-mail saying something like this: “We are looking forward to hear you talk about mapping of children’s competence...” I got confused: What was I actually supposed to talk about?!

I made a call to the organizer of the seminar for about 300 practitioners, and was told that I had to say something about mapping because the purpose of the seminar was to start implementation of a new strategic plan for the community which, among other things, focused on mapping of children’s competence. So, I decided to talk about my understanding of the two phenomena: “competence mapping” and “pedagogical documentation” with hope that this would initiate discussion and reflection about ways to understand, and perform, the concepts.

From my studies with children I have experienced how easy it is to make quick judgement about their competence if we do not see ourselves as significant for the meaning making that takes place at the very moment. Meaning is made in a curtain context and communication with young children is highly intersubjective. Therefore can “results” of mapping lose their meaning when they are interpreted separated from the contexts; The “results” can be misleading and even set the child’s self-confidence, motivation, and understanding of social relations, at risk.

Dewey wrote that “life goes on in an environment; not merly in it but because of it, through interaction with it” (Dewey, 2005, p.12), (Environment is understood as both about physical and social.). People make meaning through intersubjective relations with each others in given contexts (Bruner, 1990, Bakhtin and Slaattelid, 2005), and communication contexts have enormous influence on what we say and how we say it (Halliday in Maagerø, 2005). It means that when we meet a child for mapping, even if we are highly careful not to show our expectations, the reason we meet in itself will influence the context and the child’s expectations, feelings and “the results”; Not to mention how our tone of voice, body language and choice of the words can practically decide what the child’s answer will be.

I believe that the largest difference between pedagogical documentation and competence mapping is in our way of seeing ourselves in relation to the “results”. Are we aware of that “results” sometimes say more about us and the pedagogical work a child has been exposed to, than about the child’s competence? If we see “results” as dependent of the child only, it would be so easy to blame the child and deny own responsibility! On the other hand, if our aim is to learn about own pedagogical practice, if we observe carefully and reflect about any kind of “results”, we might have a chance to improve our practice. And instead of comparing children to each other, we would have possibility to respect them as they are, with all their individualities and “personal signatures” (Eisner, 2002) they affects the world around them!

Dewey, J. (2005) Art as experience, New York, Berkley Publishing Group.
Eisner, E. W. (2002) The arts and the creation of mind, New Haven, Yale University Press.
Maagerø, E. (2005) Språket som mening: innføring i funksjonell lingvistikk for studenter og lærere, Oslo, Universitetsforl.