ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses the ways and things one observe when in interaction with children and begins to consider how to interpret what people see and hear in terms of what they know. Interpreting what is seen and heard refers to make sense of our observations. In 1964 a therapist called Virginia Axline wrote a book called Dibs in Search of Self where she traced the progress of a 5-year-old boy called Dibs, who had been described as 'defective'. Susan Isaacs started an experimental school called the Malting House School in Cambridge. Her purpose was to throw light upon both the intellectual and the social development of these children. Carlina Rinaldi tells us that listening is the premise for any kind of learning relationship. Kate Pahl based her observation techniques on assuming that everything a child says or does is significant in building up a picture of the world and this is similar to what Clifford Geertz called 'thick description'.
