The collaborative invention of meaning: A short history of evolving ideas

Abstract

In this paper I trace moments of spontaneous insight occurring among a group of young children in an environment where they are encouraged and supported in their efforts to collaboratively interrogate their own and one another’s ideas. I argue that noticing, confronting, and responding to enigmas, surprises, and evolving meanings as they are happening, enhances learning while also revealing musical structures that are often hidden in the assumptions that inform our notations and analytic categories, thus influencing our teaching. The examples focus particularly on young children at work learning to transform the elusiveness of organized actions — clapping a rhythm, walking a line, drumming — into explanations and descriptions that hold still to be looked at and upon which to reflect.