ABSTRACT
Observing the fluctuations between strength/vulnerability and building/collapse in the first few weeks of a Young Child Observation, the author worried how he was going to make any sense of Faizul’s play. Faizul carefully positions coloured wooden building blocks on top of each other. He starts by placing a small blue cube on the table and then positions larger yellow blocks on top. After four blocks, the emerging tower becomes unsteady and tumbles down. Undeterred, Faizul begins building the tower back up again, using the same smaller base block. The cycle of building and collapse is repeated several times, with Faizul managing to build the tower slightly higher each time. Faizul was a British Bangladeshi child, from a Muslim family, like the majority of the other children who attended the nursery. Faizul’s building projects were often done in competition with other boys.
