Observation and the Art of Teaching

This article describes the author’s journey into the work of Patricia Carini and the descriptive processes developed at Prospect School and Center. The author begins with her first experiences learning to observe and describe children using Descriptive Review as a new teacher and graduate teacher education student. She goes on to discuss how this work and her experience as a Prospect Archives Practitioner Fellow followed her into her teaching practice with children and later into her work as a teacher educator. She examines both the personal and political implications this way of looking holds, and how it can be used as a tool for striving toward equity in schools.