Pedagogical management 1: children’s initiatives in the classroom

Chapter 6 shows what happens when children take unpredictable initiatives, i.e. initiatives that are not directly enhanced by facilitators. It deals with two aspects related to children’s initiatives: the types of initiatives taken by the children during the SHARMED project and the facilitators’ ways of dealing with these initiatives. These two aspects are particularly important since children’s initiatives show their agency better than their other actions. Agency is shown by unpredictable actions and children’s initiatives are unpredictable in themselves. In particular, Chapter 6 focuses on some interesting ways of coordinating children’s initiatives and managing children’s interruption of interactions and narratives. The chapter provides suggestions about facilitation of children’s initiatives.