Hello there
SLIDE 1
Today I am going to look at early childhood education
documentation practices through the lens of recordkeeping. As you all would know, documentation is a key
element of early childhood education and is often used for reflection and
planning activities. Documentation can
also form a key part of early childhood education reporting activities and is
involved in some outputs including assessment.
I should note at this point, that one of the aims of
presenting my ideas at this forum is to seek feedback from early childhood
educators on my observations to date. I
definitely do not have all the answers at this point, and I am only raising
questions. As I get further along with
my research, I hope to present more answers.
But at this point of my research into early childhood
education documentation practices has revealed to me – that documentation is a
really fascinating type of recordkeeping.
When I talk about recordkeeping, what do I mean? I will show you a definition shortly, but I
thought instead of just definitions, I would start with some short clips from
the BBC television series, Who Do You Think You Are? As you may know, this show tracks the family
history of celebrities, through storytelling and recordkeeping. The show often utilises a mixture of personal
recordkeeping and official recordkeeping to tell the family story. The clips I am going to show you today, come
from an episode featuring the famous Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling. In these sections of the episode, she is
tracking down the story of her great grandfather, Louis Volant.
The first clip will demonstrate how official recordkeeping
(just like the kind of official recordkeeping that may take place in an ece
setting through documentation) helps tell the story of Louie’s war
achievements. The second looks more at
the personal recordkeeping – so draws on family letters and photographs. Both are rich forms of recordkeeping and both
help tell the story of Louis in great detail and colour.
SLIDES 2 & 3 (YOUTUBE VIDEOS)
If the videos are unable to play for some reason –
there is a summary taken from a television guide on a blog - Monday, August 03, 2015 - http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/CategoryView,category,WhoDoYouThinkYouAre.aspx – The Genealogy Insider – Diane Haddad
[This episode] took us on a European
adventure through J.K. Rowling's maternal line. The author wanted to learn more
about her mother’s roots in France and why her great-grandfather Louis Volant
received the Legion d’Honnuer in World War I.
Rowling visited stunning places, from the French national archives in Paris to the ancestral village of her second-great-grandmother on France's border with Germany.
Her first stop included a treasure box of family history and helped to set the tone of the show: Sitting in her aunt’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland, Rowling gathered clues to Louis Volant's life. We learned that she shares Louis’s birth date, the same birth date she gave her much-beloved character Harry Potter.
At the national archives, a bit of Rowling's world seemed to crumble as she realized the Louis Volant who received the Legion d’Honnuer wasn't her Louis. The birth date gave it away, along with a handwriting comparison. But further research revealed that Rowling's great-grandfather was nonetheless a hero who performed duties above and beyond what was expected as a member of France's 16th Territorial Infantry Regiment in World War I.
The men in the Territorial Regiments were 35 to 40 years old and were charged with guarding roads and bridges, not fighting. Rowling discovered in military records how, in Courcelles-le-Compte in October 1914, Germans attacked Louis's unit during the “race to the sea.” Louis Volant received the Croix de Guerre for his actions during this battle. To many, this honor was even greater than the Legion d’Honnuer, an award only officers receive.
SLIDE 4
Recordkeeping provides “proof of personal, business and
cultural activity; establishes personal and cultural identity; and functions as
personal, corporate or collective memory”
There are many official definitions of records and
recordkeeping, but I chose this one to highlight as I think it complements the
YouTube videos we have just seen. In the
videos, JK Rowling was visibly moved by the records she was seeing. She was also in many instances seeking evidence
to answer questions – like who was her grandfather, what kind of military
service did he do, why did he leave the family?
Often, in my work as a records professional, we get very caught up in
the value of the business records. This
may be the case also for early childhood professionals. But as these videos show – for JR Rowling,
there was no distinction in the value of the different kinds of records, the
personal records and stories they held, were equally as a valuable to her as
the official military records. Both
types of records helped to paint a picture about the life of her grandfather.
Before I talk more about how recordkeeping theory and ideas
might influence early childhood practitioners understanding of documentation, I
will talk briefly about myself and my current research interests.
SLIDE 5
To introduce a little of myself, I am a Melbourne girl, born
and bred and I live near the beachside suburb of Frankston in Victoria, Australia,
pictured here. I am the Records Manager
at Monash University, where I am also a current PhD candidate. I will talk a little about my PhD in the
following slides. I am also an
enthusiastic yoga student and proud dog owner.
As noted on the
slide, in amongst all of this I have been an active early childhood researcher
since 2011. I have a Masters in Early
Childhood Education from Monash, which included a thesis on children’s rights
and television standards in Australia and I am now a quarter of the way into my
PHD research, which is an interdisciplinary project, combining my interests in
both early childhood education and recordkeeping.
SLIDE 6
In regards to my PhD topic - I am really interested in
exploring family recordkeeping around the child. So I am looking at how families create,
manage, preserve and provide access to their child’s records in both hard copy
and electronic formats. So for example,
if there was a family occasion, say a birthday, what records are captured to
record this event? What form do these records take, why does the family choose
to keep certain records of the event and discard others? How are these special
mementos' of the event kept over time, who looks after them? What say does the
child have in what is kept or not? How are they records accessed over time? So some of the questions I am thinking about
with this research includes - does an
understanding of recordkeeping help with family story telling, a child’s
learning and their educational development? And also what role do such
practices play in developing a sense of ‘the role that records play in our
lives’ – especially the role records may play in determining identity, which is
a key them in say the Early Years Learning Framework in Australia and related
policy documents.
SLIDE 7
I always like to show this slide when discussing my
research, and the story that goes with it.
As I think it encapsulates what family recordkeeping may mean, far
better than anything I may be able to put down into words at this point. This series of photographs was taken by a
good friend of mine, Alina, who is also a professional photographer. The images feature her son, Felix. Alina took photos of Felix in the same
chair, once a month over the course of his first year. Over time, these images became a beautiful montage
that Alina proudly showed on her Facebook timeline. Yet, at the same time, these photos also form
a tantalising record – documenting Felix’s growth, his developing personality,
and all the ‘series of firsts’ that go along I imagine, in that first year of
life. This photo represents the type of
family recordkeeping that Alina is managing around her child. Another friend has painstakingly cuts squares
of cloth from her son’s clothes from a young age – once he has of course,
outgrown the clothes. She keeps these
pieces in a special place at home, and as quilt maker, her aim is to collect
enough square pieces over his childhood to then compile the pieces into a quilt
that should then be something he can hand over to his own children in
time. She sees the pieces of clothing as
being a type of recordkeeping of her son’s childhood. These examples demonstrate to me, the rich
source of data provided in family recordkeeping and why I have chosen to
research this.
SLIDE 8
But why do I think this research is important? It is
anticipated that such an exploration of family recordkeeping will help to
further expand on existing definitions of recordkeeping literacy. Literacy is a common word within early
childhood education literature, but what does it mean in the context of
recordkeeping? There are related terms such as information literacy, and
library literacy and things such as being ‘digitally literate’. But very little
on recordkeeping literacy. But why is defining recordkeeping literacy
important?
I feel that the issue of recordkeeping literacy is important
because it is fundamentally about improving the awareness and understanding of
what recordkeeping means. For me, one of
the biggest overlapping themes between recordkeeping and early childhood
education, concerns identity. Identity
is a major learning outcome in the Australian Early Years Learning Framework,
however there is no mention of recordkeeping and its relationship to identity
in this document, or other similar types of policy documents. Yet, even a brief look into the recordkeeping
literature and also the early years literature, highlights how important an
issue identity is in both disciplines.
SLIDE 9
Recordkeeping
is a 'kind of witnessing'. On a personal level it is a way of evidencing and
memorialising our lives - our existence, our activities and experiences, our
relationships with others, our identity, our 'place' in the world.
(McKemmish,
1996)
Narratives developed within families give children a
sense of continuity, of belonging to a longer story which reaches back into the
past.
(Swain & Musgrove, 2012)
SLIDE 10
Children
learn about themselves and construct their own identity within the context of
their families and communities. This includes their relationships with people,
places and things and the actions and responses of others. Identity is not
fixed. It is shaped by experiences. When children have positive experiences
they develop an understanding of themselves as significant and respected, and
feel a sense of belonging. Relationships are the foundations for the
construction of identity – ‘who I am’, ‘how I belong’ and ‘what is my
influence?’
(DEEWR, 2009)
So for me, there are strong connections between
recordkeeping literacy and elements of early childhood education pedagogical
outcomes in regards to the issue of identity and this is likely to form a key
part of my PhD research. Yet, in a
related arm to this research, the literature review in particular, has also
flagged that there are other types of recordkeeping activities already being
undertaken in the early childhood education environment, which are often not
identified as such. And this brings me
back to my earlier points around documentation.
As I mentioned at the start, early childhood
documentation is a really fascinating form of recordkeeping.
SLIDE 11
One way that I have started to think about early childhood
documentation through the lens of recordkeeping, is to look at some theoretical
models from both the recordkeeping field and the early childhood education field.
The theoretical model, I am most familiar with, due to my
background, is the records continuum model, and this is a model I will use in
my PhD research.
The Records Continuum Model was developed by Monash
University in the 1990s primarily by Frank Upward and Sue McKemmish, but many
other scholars and practitioners have also helped to evolve the model and the
thinking behind it over time. The
diagram on the left shows the basic nuts and bolts of continuum thinking, in
that records are created and or captured, they are used and managed, then
stored, then access is provided and that this works in a type of continuous
loop – that things are always evolving and moving and interconnected. This model on the left was produced as part
of research into recordkeeping for children in care in Australia. And when we look at that model, say against the
ECE “Planning cycle” model on the right, which has come from the revised
Victorian Early Years Learning framework, we can see some basic parallels. The “Planning Cycle” model also identifies
the different stages of document capture, use, management etc and that this is
also a continuous never ending process.
That these different stages, feed into each other and influence each
other.
SLIDE 12
The following two models, represent what I think is the broader context of
recordkeeping and again features one model from the recordkeeping literature
and another model (the adapted Bronfenbrenner ecological model) from the same
Victorian Early Years Learning Framework.
If we start with the model on the right, the Victorian Early
Years Learning Framework notes that this diagram “demonstrates how all children
influence and are affected by the environments that surround them. The ecological model that underpins the VEYLF
framework acknowledges the life of each child within a social, environmental,
political and economic context.”
The model on the right is an evolved continuum model,
designed by Leisa Gibbons, a current academic working at Kent State University
in the US. Leisa completed her PhD at
Monash recently.
In this model (and papers produced since), Gibbons provides
a “comprehensive series of principles, concepts and theory that explores
evidence, recordkeeping, multiplicity, plurality and memory making”. As she notes “evidence cannot be
conceptualised as a single one person narrative, but must be understood via
multiple narratives” – which gives us a sense of what she means by multiplicity
and “plurality refers to the multiple uses records and archives have beyond
their management and organisation in official government or business
recordkeeping systems”. This concept of
plurality linked to multiplicity helps to explore the big questions of why and
what impact recordkeeping and archives have on the construction of society
through memory systems. Memory can then be seen as a tool for individual and
collective identity that be restructured only through the use, interpretation
and reconstruction of information”.
The model is interesting too as like with the ecological
model, its central first circle is on the person (and in terms of documentation
– we could maybe say this is where the child and teacher sit as potential
co-creators of the documentation). The
mediated model that Gibbons promotes co creation as being necessary – as it
highlights the need to be inclusive.
That all recordkeeping should enable “multiple and diverse voices to be
heard across space and time”. So in
terms of ece documentation, the voices of children should also be heard, along
with the teachers. As documentation is
often promoted in the literature as a reflective tool for both the teacher,
child and even parents. As the model
moves into the wider circles, we see how recordkeeping of a personal nature,
can then influence the wider community and also the collective memory. I am still exploring this model in relation
to family and ece recordkeeping, but I particularly like the mention of
curating. As when I have been inside
early childhood settings, I have seen that curating is actually a big part of
the ece documentation process. As
Gibbons notes, in regards to her model “curation is about exhibition and
re-presentation of identify, content, communications, memory, participation and
narrative within information spaces and plays a vital role in understanding
these activities and their outcomes as evidence of their value”. Gibbons has applied her model to explore the
value of youtube videos as a form of recordkeeping, but I suspect my research
will be able to explore this model in the context of both family and ece
recordkeeping.
However, I didn’t just want to focus on theory today. I also
wished to just lightly touch upon how a better understanding of recordkeeping
may also assist teachers on the ground, dealing with documentation. As the following slides show, there is
perhaps sometimes a disconnect going on between the true meaning of
documentation and then what is expected in terms of paperwork. I think the two
are quiet distinct and I use the following slide to demonstrate this.
SLIDE 12
Anecdotal conversations that have come to me, via corridor
conversations with teaching professionals, my PhD supervisor has introduced me
to in passing, have revealed on a number of occasions, that teachers in
Australia, can often feel overwhelmed by documentation requirements and that
these practices don’t always contribute anything meaningful to their teaching
experience or that of the children. This is of course, only anecdotal data at
this stage, and not proven, but looking at the different emphasis’ made when
discussing documentation practices, by Rinaldi and others as opposed to the National
Quality Framework, there is an inkling as to why the act of documentation can
sometimes get inadvertently buried under layers of bureaucracy and considered a
burden.
I think a better understanding of documentation as a
recordkeeping activity – may help ece professionals make a clearer distinction
perhaps between what is true documentation, aimed at enriching the childs’
learning experiences and outcomes, as opposed to paperwork requirements tied up
with assessment and other activities and dressed up by policy makers as part of
documentation – when in fact it’s probably not part of the process of enriching
the child’s experience, its actual just burdensome paperwork and should be
identified as such.
SLIDE 13
LAST SLIDE TO BE ADDED
So to return to Who Do You Think You Are – I would encourage
all ece professionals to watch some episodes – and to use the concepts in the
show as a way of thinking about documentation in the ece setting. As the show easily demonstrates how both
personal and official recordkeeping can come together to tell good stories and
how good recordkeeping also involves multiple voices. And demonstrates that one
form of recordkeeping shouldn’t take higher precedent over the other. The record continuum model that I introduced
today – I think shows great potential for educators in terms of providing a
means to understand the value of recordkeeping. It is hoped that by sharing and
growing records literacy as a concept – this will lead to different ways of
understanding ece learning concepts such as identity. Recordkeeping literacy
may also have practical benefits for teachers in terms of helping to
distinguish truly meaningful documentation activities as opposed to burdensome
paperwork activities.