Ferre Laevers

PROFILE

In early childhood circles, Ferre Laevers is the name most commonly associated with the concepts of well-being and involvement. However, his work is widely used in this country as part of the EEL project. There is also considerable international interest in children’s well-being. A recent UNICEF study of children’s well-being placed Britain and the United States of America very low in international comparisons.

His life

Ferre Laevers is Director of the Research Centre for Experiential Education, based at the Department of Education, Leuven University in Belgium. He is also President of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association.

The centre for experiential education, which he established more than thirty years ago undertakes practice-orientated research, development and dissemination. Projects are conducted in collaboration with institutes, agencies and departments of education in at least 20 countries.

His writing

Much of Laevers’ writing about well-being and involvement is in the form of self-evaluation documents. He disseminates his work widely, speaking and researching all over the world. Two books (both published by Leuven University) which have been translated into English are Defining and Assessing Quality in Early Childhood Education; and The Involvement of Children and Teacher Style: insights from an international study in experiential education.

His theory

Laevers’ work around experiential education began in Flanders in 1976. He worked initially with a group of 12 teachers, his research driven by seeking to understand and define the notion of ‘deep-level-learning’. For Laevers such learning requires a high level of involvement - which in turn is related to adult engagement - which emphasizes sensitivity, stimulation and autonomy. Laevers believes that an enabling environment, one that helps children to make connections between previous experiences, and between peers, adults and the resources available to them, is essential.

Emotional well-being is seen as being at the root of involvement - children without a sense of well-being will find it difficult to concentrate or fully engage in activities, experiences and interactions with others. His theories are related to those of humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (page 48 in this book) who suggest that feeling emotionally safe and having a good level of self-esteem make it easier to focus and learn. They also have links with the work of Csikszentmihayli (see How Children Learn 2 page 54) and his theory of ‘flow’. ‘Flow’ describes the deep personal satisfaction that we feel when engaged in something that challenges us, maintains our interest and rewards us in ways that are sometimes difficult to define. The term ‘flow’ is used by Csikszentmihayli in relation to creativity but Laevers applies it to the times when young children are lost in an experience.

Involvement

Laevers has devised the Leuven Involvement Scale to support practitioners in gauging children’s level of involvement. He defines the indicators of the level of involvement as:

The table opposite shows how involvement is graded through observation of children’s activity:

Well-being

Laevers’ defines the key characteristics of emotional well-being as follows:

Wider views of well-being

A recent UNICEF study indicated that British children well-being is low when compared to children in other industrialised nations. The study looked at six indicators of well-being which were:

This ties in with the concerns of several writers and thinkers who have for some time been expressing concerns about children’s well-being in this country (see for example Sue Gerhardt and Sue Palmer).

Putting the theory into practice

Laevers’ research began in practice and has remained firmly rooted there. As well as gauging children’s level of involvement practitioners might also think about whether the activities that are sometimes imposed on children are either worthy or high levels of involvement or likely to generate it. Colouring in, worksheets and tracing are examples of activities which could (and perhaps should) be reviewed in the light of Laevers’ work. Some apparently less-worthy tasks, such as playing Batman, might actually be generating much higher levels of involvement and therefore provide a better educational foundation for learning.

The ten-point action plan which Laevers has devised is also helpful in putting his theories into practice. He suggests that these will support the development of involvement in young children:

  1. Rearrange the classroom in appealing corners or areas
  2. Check the content of the corners and replace unattractive materials by more appealing ones
  3. Introduce new and unconventional materials and activities
  4. Observe children, discover their interests and find activities that meet these orientations
  5. Support ongoing activities through stimulating and enriching interventions
  6. Widen the possibilities for free initiative and support them with sound rules and agreements
  7. Explore the relations with each of the children and between children and try to improve them, where necessary
  8. Introduce activities that help children to explore the world of behaviour, feelings and values
  9. Identify children with emotional problems and work out sustaining interventions
  10. Identify children with developmental needs and work out interventions that engender involvement within the problem area.

(based on action points presented on www.european-agency.org/assessment/resourceguide/documents/2008/11/Laevers.pdf )

His influence

Laevers’ work has had enormous influence internationally. In this country its influence has largely developed through the Effective Early Learning Project (EEL). The project’s directors Chris Pascall and Tony Bertram have established an accredited training programme which makes use of the Leuven Involvement Scale. This has been a very successful programme and has been widely taken up in many parts of the country.

Without doubt one of the reasons for the influence and success of Laevers’ work is the scoring system. In a political climate where measures and targets are regarded as very valuable a system for quantifying what may seem to the lay person like a child’s random activity is seen as very helpful.

laevers.jpg

Comment

Paradoxically it is perhaps this very aspect of Laevers’ work which can be seen as a weakness or a basis for criticism. Some people ask whether we should be attempting to quantify qualitative aspects of children’s learning, play and development.

The other possible area of criticism lies in the focus within the scale on lone activity. Laevers’ current work is focusing on social interaction but given how important we know social development to be to learning it is perhaps insufficiently addressed.

Refection points

References

Effective Early Learning: case studies in improvement Chris Pascal and Tony Bertram (Paul Chapman Publishing 1997)

Growing together at the Pen Green Centre (www.pengreen.org)

Where to find out more

A Process-oriented child follow-up system for young children, Ferre Laevers (Centre for Experiential Education Leuven 1997)