We encourage young children to work together, play with friends, negotiate, and collaborate. We believe that the best and most interesting learning happens when children are thinking together, challenging each others’ theories, and offering up new, sometimes conflicting, understandings. But what about the grownups? How can we encourage co-constructed learning for educators?

A conversation shouted through a cardboard tube gets one of our educators thinking about the value of giving children space to make some noise. She suggests that a healthy classroom is noisy with children connecting, engaging, playing. Emotions are messy, and we want children to get in that mess, in order to practice skills like self-advocacy, social risk-taking, and honest communication.