ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the ways in which close observations of children can be interpreted, drawing particularly on the work of Susan Isaacs and Chris Athey, and on ways of describing children’s attitudes or dispositions to thinking and learning, particularly concepts such as involvement, flow and mastery. Developing on from these, it is useful to consider the relationship between the documenting of observations and children’s thinking, and the parts played by the children themselves in informing adults’ understanding and actions. In recent years, there has been a valuable, and increasing, emphasis on the importance of the children’s own ‘voices’, and the gathering of their own perspectives on their lives (Alderson 2005, Clark and Moss 2001, Morrow 1999, Pramling Samuelson 2004). The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of a particular approach to the description and assessment of thinking, the idea of ‘intelligence’ and ‘intelligence testing’.
On first glance, the title of this chapter may appear paradoxical. How can we possibly observe children’s thinking and understanding, processes which are essentially occurring inside a person’s head? As we saw in Chapter 4, developments in medical techniques allow us the possibility of ‘seeing’ the brain itself in action, but this, of itself, does not give us a view of young children’s thinking and understanding. In addition, these medical and experimental techniques are, of course, not available to practitioners in their daily work with young children nor would it be appropriate for them to be so.
