Unearthing Why

Stories of thinking and learning with children

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Unearthing Why – Stories of Thinking and Learning with Children is a collection of stories offering a distinct and hopeful outlook for the future of education. Each chapter invites you to consider the complexity and beauty of children’s capacity to learn, think and be together. Jill McLachlan’s and Clare Britt’s retelling of their experiences learning alongside children in prior-to-school and primary school based contexts will gently, but compellingly, invite you to join them in considering the deep purposes of education — questioning the ‘whys’, just below the surface, that inform ‘what’ and ‘how’ you teach.

What a treat to have such a rich contribution to the ongoing international conversation about co-researching, teaching, and learning with children. Challenging the notion that curriculum “comes first”, and children follow dutifully, the authors foreground children as active, purposeful protagonists in their own learning. The authors have positioned themselves in a context informed by thinkers such as Malaguzzi, Dahlberg and Rinaldi. This beautifully presented narrative research will be an inspiration for those seeking to pursue humane and intellectually respectful forms of teaching and learning alongside children.

Honorary Associate Professor Alma Fleet

This book has great potential to contribute to and extend the conversations around the inspirations from the educational project of Reggio Emilia. The context of the early years of school offers rich possibilities for dialogue amongst those teachers who might have considered themselves to be outside the ‘Reggio space’. This is a welcome contribution, and one that will no doubt be relevant to contexts outside the Australian one.

Dr Stefania Giamminuti
Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, Curtin University (Perth, WA)