Final Version May 5 07

263
valleys in between, Felicia has accepted a more dynamic perspective to define her
practice and now sees it as one of hills and valleys.
Since the onset of this research journey, Felicia and I have become collaborators,
meeting periodically to exchange thoughts and reflections. Our meetings are peppered
with stories of Felicia’s work with children and by my eagerness to share resources and
ideas. This process has demonstrated the empowering benefits of constructing knowledge
through the integration of voices. After one meeting, Felicia wrote:
The slide show is so inspiring, and I will be joining NAREA this year,
thank you. Combined with reading A Child’s Work by Vivian Gussin
Paley and Authentic Childhood by Susan Fraser, I should be ready to
implement some changes into our environment this September. It was
wonderful spending time with you and when you should see our classroom
next, you can share credit . . . that you were instrumental in motivating me
to get out of the valley and climb another mountain.
Being satisfied with emergent curriculum is being open to cognitive
conflict. Accepting cognitive conflict as part of practice is an acceptance of theory
in practice. It is the theory of cognitive dissonance that propels the forward
motion and upward, spiralling movement of climbing the mountain and crossing
the zone of proximal development. At the peak of the mountain comes a sense of
satisfaction. As the only participant in this study who has not left the valley of
past practice, Mary has missed achieving a level of satisfaction in her practice.
Teacher as Theory Builder
The teacher ought to be intellectually curious, one who rebels against a
consumeristic approach to knowledge and is willing to build upon
knowledge rather than to consume it. (Rinaldi, 1994, p. 49)
As in Vygotsky’s social cultural learning theories, both the teachers and the child
do not learn in isolation. Individual and social processes interconnect and are inseparable