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Descriptive Review

The Descriptive Review of a child and child's work was developed in the late 1960s by Patricia Carini and her colleagues at The Prospect School (TPS), a private elementary school (from kindergarten through Grade 8) in North Bennington, Vermont, USA. The Descriptive Review process is one of a number of descriptive inquiry processes developed by TPS and its centre (the Prospect Archives and Center for Education and Research) over the 40 years of its existence. Like all the descriptive processes, it is based in acts of observation and description, reflecting upon what one sees in a community of others. Taking place in school settings, these others often include other teachers, administrators and, importantly, parents.

Purpose

The purpose of the Descriptive Review is to come to know a child by immersing oneself in the expressions and meanings of that person. The belief is that these expressions and meanings will reveal, at least in part, the investments (i.e. what one values—where one has invested time and energy) and capacities of the child. Thus, teachers are able to ‘extend’ those investments and capacities, creating a space in which the child can grow.

The categories for organizing observations evolved away from a more classically developmental (i.e. Piagetian) way of looking at children to less categorical, more flexible and ‘bigger’ ways of seeing persons. Moving increasingly towards a phenomenological orientation, five areas of observation eventually emerged: (1) physical appearance and gesture, (2) connections to others, (3) strong interests and preferences, (4) disposition and temperament and (5) modes of thinking and learning. Recently, a focus on ‘context’—from the schoolroom to home, to the community and beyond—has been inserted into these areas for consideration. As with all reviews, the observations were then shared with a chair or co-chairs, who helped the presenting teacher to formulate a focusing question. The chairs and co-chairs were from among the group of participating teachers and staff. Being a school dedicated to descriptive inquiry, all teachers and staff were familiar with the processes. The question was meant to be exploratory and aimed at discovering the child's strengths and passions rather than ‘problem areas' or ‘weaknesses'. Labels are eschewed, as are questions that focus on ‘fixing’ students. The purpose is to be sensitively attuned to who children are and who they are becoming. While parents are often a part of the review process, the children themselves are not.

Descriptive Review of a Child

The process of the review often begins with reflection on a word that captures something of the child or the focusing question. This may be followed by a Descriptive Review of a child's drawing or other creation or a close reading of a piece of his or her writing. Before the description itself begins, the chair shares the focusing question with the group. The heart of the process is the description itself. The presenting teacher describes the child according to the categories above, speaking uninterrupted for as long as it takes (usually about 30–45 minutes). At the end of the description, the chairs, who have been taking notes, make an integrative summary of what has been presented. This is a crucial step in keeping the picture of the child in sharp relief. Throughout the description, the other members of the group listen carefully, taking note of questions or observations that they might want to return to. Once the description is complete and the integrative statement has been made, the chair asks for questions for clarification or expansion from the group. A free discussion is held at bay until the details of the description have been fleshed out. The session ends with recommendations (as distinct from advice) from the attending group that addresses the question and any other insights that have emerged from the process. Again, at this point, the chair makes an integrative statement that captures the themes and recommendations voiced in the discussion. The function of the chair allows the presenter to be entirely present to what is offered by the group, without her attention being divided between listening and recording or facilitating the process. The entire process generally takes between 2 and 3 hours.

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