• DECOLAP - A L'ÉCOUTE DES ENFANTS (given by Paul DUMONT, Roger FRISCH, Martine GElB, Gérard GRETSCH, Claudine KIRSCH,Jeanne NOUR EL DlN-LETSCH, Christian SCHWARZ)

and

• DIALOGUE AVEC LES ÉLÈVES - WHORF, BAKHTIN ET PALEY (given by Gérard GRETSCH)

• HOW TO BE A TEACHER, A WRITER, AND A RESEARCHER IN YOUR OWN CLASSROOM This title summarizes the complex task she fulfilled in her own professional career and at the same time restates some of the aims of the projects DECOLAP and DECOPRIM1. 50 teachers participated in this workshop.

• Storying: histoires vécues, jouées, décrites, dessinées par les enfants Storying: stories experienced, played, described, drawn by children held by Martine GEIB, Marie-Paul ORIGER-ERESCH

• Écrire, est-ce un jeu d'enfant? Is writing a child' s play. ? held by Gwendy DECKER, Carole STOOS

• A l'écoute des enfants Listening to children held by Maryse PAULY-MEISCH

• Les médias à l'école préscolaire The media in the kindergarten held by Roger FRISCH and Marc WANTZ

• Collaboration entre classes: préscolaire-primaire / primaire-primaire Collaboration between classes: kindergarten-primary school / primary school-primary school held by Brigitte CLAEREBOUT, Nathalie JAEGER and Christian SCHWARZ

• Collaboration avec les parents: Le "language record" comme exemple d'une telle collaboration Collaboration with parents: The "language record" as an example of such a collaboration held by Claudine KIRSCH and Jeanne NOUR EL DIN-LETSCH

In the afternoon session V. G. PALEY introduced the audience to her views and experiences concerning writing. She focused more particularly on the transcription of tape-recorded dialogues of her pupils used both as a research technique and as a means for developing dialogue in the classroom.
However, the purpose of taping classroom conversation is not to capture what children say in the absence of direct adult observation, nor are the recordings disconnected from the author's writing. V. G. PALEY explains: "the reason for writing about the classroom is because the writing process, and whether or not you use a tape recorder is not essential, explains what I am thinking. In a sense I do not know what I am thinking until I make it clear on a page. I do not begin to get the clues of what children might be thinking until I transcribe their voices."
The next important step in her investigative procedure is to bring the transcribed conversations back into the classroom. She thus turns her classroom group into a "continual debating society" to which "let's pretend" is a "scientific method for imagining what might happen". Vivian PALEY understands her role as a "connector of bits and pieces of conversation that not everyone has heard". In other words, the teacher's role is "to create community".

Investigating the process of learning in the classroom by recording classroom conversations and transcribing them is only one aspect of PALEY's research method, which has been adopted as a general procedure by the teachers involved in DECOLAP and DECOPRIM1. All DECOLAP and DECOPRIM1 publications are the result of teacher's investigations concerning themselves and their teaching As V G. PALEY puts it, "I use writing as a tool with which I explain life to myself or even myself to myself. (...) Nothing is more important than explaining yourself. No matter what else is taught."
The power of a project lies in the dynamics it creates on different levels of learning and teaching. The teacher's involvement in a project, be it an official research project or a personal teaching project, has an undeniable effect on classroom culture, on classroom dialogues and on classroom work.
The more aware children are of what the teacher is honestly interested in, the more it will affect their attitudes towards learning. If the teacher is interested in what the children do and think, the children will be interested in what the teacher does and thinks, and this will feed back on teaching. Engaged in such a dialectic process the teacher and the children will come to speak, act and think differently, nothing will remain untouched. It is the awareness of what the work is all about, and the interest in what everyone does and thinks that create a different classroom culture. Everyone's interest contributes to shape and reshape everybody's identity and connect it to the identity of other's. "They know that the reason why I am taping their conversation is to continue the dialogue", says V G. PALEY. For everyone involved it seems to be clear that everyone else is investigating the question of "who it is I'm living with in the classroom ".
V G. PALEY's conceptual framework rests on the assumption that "children are interesting to each other". The interests children develop naturally can be fostered as they can be curbed. Thus it is not necessary to involve an entire class simultaneously in one and the same project. In a group, different children can very well be involved in very different projects. It is up to the teacher to determine how many different activities he can cope with. The crucial factor is the interest everyone has in what the others do. Without the interest in another person's work and thought, the will to investigate, "the eagerness to come to school to see what happens today", there is no hope for a different classroom culture, hence, a different teaching culture beyond the dogmatized discussion about "childcentricity versus teachercentricity".

Are teachers and their work interesting to other teachers to the same extent?

Finally, an important aspect of V. G. PALEY's approach - particularly relevant also in relation to the aims of the present project - is the way she involves the children's parents in her work. She has described this in her book Kwanzaa and Me
Inviting parents to come into the classroom "to tell family stories, memories of when they were young, or stories of grandparents, other family members or family traditions" creates new perspectives for the teacher's work by extending what socio-cultural context, identity and classroom culture mean.

"Just as theatre is expressed in so many ways, so is storytelling a multi-dimensional art form. It must constantly be invented and reinvented. Most importantly, it must represent the classroom community in which it occurs. In some groups there is a strong tradition of storytelling upon which to draw; for others television, cartoons, or fairy tales supply character and plot and rhythm. No matter what the derivation, the inventiveness and spontaneity of the teacher and students will suggest how the storytelling and story acting proceed and develop. " ²
We are happy to publish - with the author's permission - the following transcription of Vivian Gussin PALEY's conference :