Resources
Book Review
From Another Angle: Children's Strengths and School Standards:
The Prospect Center's Descriptive Review of the Child.
Edited by Margaret Himley with Patricia F. Carini.
Teachers College Press, 2000.
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"This volume represents the first effort to present--and teach--the descriptive processes, philosophy, and values developed at the Prospect Archives and Center for Education and Research in North Bennington, Vermont, under the leadership of Patricia Carini." (from the back cover)
This book includes an essay by Patricia Carini describing the Prospect Center's influential Descriptive Review of the Child, a structured conversation in which a presenting teacher methodically describes an individual child to a group; then the group, facilitated by a Chair, engages in a series of questions, comments, responses, and recommendations. Carini describes her commitment to a process of inquiry that helps understand "how a child goes about learning or making something, and not only an assessment of what the child learned, made or did" (9).
The book also includes detailed descriptions of and reflections on three Descriptive Reviews undertaken in different contexts, reviews of: Gabriel, a K-1 student, completed as part of the Elementary Teachers Network, Lehman College, Bronx, NY; Victoria, a 4th grader; completed as part of meeting of Philadelphia Teachers' Learning Cooperative; and Nile, a high school student; completed in connection with the New York City Writing Project. These descriptions are extremely detailed, drawing on transcripts from the reviews, and including information on the context and preparation for the review, as well as reflections on the review by the presenting teacher. Each of the three chapters begins with a sample of the individual child's work.
Of special interest is a chapter, by Carini, called "A Letter to Parents and Teachers on Some Ways of Looking at and Reflecting on Children." In it she describes an "exercise" for parents, teachers and others close to children for "re-viewing [children]--that is, calling them to mind, picturing them in a variety of postures and moods, listening with an inner ear to their voices. The purpose of this re-viewing is the deepened recognition of children. It is meant to give you, the important grown-ups in a child's life, a way to recognize how much you already know and understand... to expand those understandings and to create a context of memory, ever growing and deepening, that will inform your own responses to children as individuals" (56-57).
The book also includes essays on the role of the Chair in the Descriptive Review, whole-school inquiry, and the value of "oral inquiry." It includes an extensive list of Prospect Center resources and related publications.