We read slowly, never more than one chapter per month; sometimes we repeat a chapter, if we don’t feel finished with it. The dispositions we strengthen include close reading, careful listening and thoughtful conversation. Each meeting, we form a flexible learning group without a fixed destination, with the intention of cultivating a context for uncertainty, diversity and complexity.

The Logic of Action: Young Children at Work by Frances Hawkins
ISBN-10: 0870811614
ISBN-13: 978-0870811616

David Hawkins and the Pond Study, documented by Elizabeth Kellogg
ISBN-10: 1450031129
ISBN-13: 978-1450031127

Loris Malaguzzi was influenced by the writings of David Hawkins, an American philosopher interested in science and education. Among other concepts, Hawkins insisted that teachers need to be learners, as well as children. In turn, David Hawkins was deeply influenced by the work of his wife, Frances Hawkins, who was committed to documenting and studying children’s learning processes. Malaguzzi and Hawkins met in 1988. “Both believed in the importance of seeing children’s processes of learning through action and also of renewing oneself with an open mind. Upon such a common base each was able to learn from the other” (Gandini, 2008).