Imaginal Cells : Project Work

I heard an artist talking about 'imaginal cells' on the radio, and became so curious about them. Like epigenetics, another scientific concept that seems pulled from the world of fairytales and magic, imaginal cells work as a metaphor for many things I love to ponder. Imaginal cells, as far as I understand them, are cells in a caterpillar or pupae that hold the information of the butterfly that will eventually emerge from the cocoon. They group together in 'imaginal discs' after the caterpillar has dissolved itself into goo, and then reform as wings or antenna or eyes. Look it up here metamorphosis-explainer

The idea of imaginal cells, in my mind, are a great metaphor for project work. It's often hard to explain the tension between children's choice and teacher's intervention when explaining this way of working with the youngest people. Often adults can understand one or the other. They can either see how teachers decide what children will do and lead them though activity toward learning, like they saw when they were little and in school. Or they can picture that children have free choice in which case, the reason for an adult in the picture is mostly to stop accidents and arguments. To me, both the children's ideas and the teachers' are like imaginal cells. Here we are, me with my pedagogical documentation, my store of questions and big, universal ideas, my extra pockets filled with media and materials. And here are the children, with their preferences and passions, their noticing and wonderings. The trajectory of the project and the scope of our eventual learning lie rather dormant as the project gets underway, but they are there. As we explore and research together, the imaginal cellss of our ideas, dialog and intersubjectivity find purchase and begin to grow into a third thing- the project. Anyway, that's how it seems to me.

Here are the seeds of a project that's happening on the playground with the children and teachers in the rainbow room;

 Children noticed two squirrels playing ing their shared space on the playground. Teacher Honey documented and brought them a books about squirrels. While Honey was reading the book, Castle leaned over to me and wondered "Do squirrels need masks?". So we decided to make some signs to show the squirrels about masks.

What will happen next? I can envision a project that becomes about meeting squirrels with empathy and learning more of what they see and care about. The children have named 2 squirrels and I wonder, do squirrels need human names? Do they like them? But so far the children are assuming the squirrels want people things like decorations and masks. I guess we'll see  what  emerges..