DOUBLE Early TO ZOOM x   Pedagogical Documentation in TAP Childhood WITH PHONE OR TABLET approaches and ideas from Reggio Emilia. The director of PGHCC, Barb Bigelow, and I were excited to hear that MELC was offering the opportunity through a study tour to view its environment and its work and to engage in dialogue with its teachers. We rushed to the phone to register for the tour! We were not disappointed. Over two days, our thinking and learning about the Reggio Emilia approach to education deepened, and the experience challenged our assumptions. It was a rich learning experience on many levels. We viewed beautiful, thoughtfully planned environments that had been developed with intense attention to beauty, detail, and organization and with the child’s possible actions in mind. We saw everyday items, such as mirrors, used in unusual ways. Natural materials and loose parts were plentiful. And we saw some equipment, such as light tables, that were new to us at that time. In addition, we viewed educators in thoughtful conver- sation with children, listening carefully and responding to what they heard. But it was during the first tour of the center that I came to a standstill, filled with curiosity and wonder. A simple documentation panel made me stop in my tracks. I turned to Barb and asked, “Have you seen this?” The photographs, precisely arranged in a horizontal format with text beneath each photo, told a story about an exploration of lines. The photographs, traces of children’s work, and explanations provoked me to think about the children’s thinking. But even more importantly, the very idea that inquiry and learning could be made visible in such a way stunned me. I had never before seen or heard of graphic representations of the collaboration between children and teachers. My first thought was “Of course! Why didn’t I think of this before?” Demonstrating children’s work in this way made perfect sense to me, and I wanted to try it—​immediately. Of course, the journey of learning to develop and use pedagogical documentation does not happen quickly. I had to invest some time, study, and experimentation before I was even remotely satisfied with a piece of documentation that I had pro- duced. But the first piece that I tried upon returning from the study tour did have a profound effect on my colleagues at PGHCC. The piece was very simple: an ac- count of a field trip to a pumpkin patch, together with the follow-​up activities and conversations that happened in the subsequent days and a description of what the teachers believed the children had learned. This piece did not include the most awe-​ inspiring reflections, to be sure, but nevertheless it was a beginning. The teachers were delighted to see their work described. It seemed to me that they considered this documentation to be a validation of their work with children. It displayed the hard work, thought, and care with which the teachers developed curriculum. The children themselves were excited to revisit and talk about their experience. We were beginning a long-​term relationship with pedagogical documentation. Why does documentation resonate so deeply with us as teachers? Why, since it first appeared within early childhood settings in Europe and North America, have we embraced it with such vigor? When I ask educators about their thoughts on doc- umentation, their responses almost always mention the way it makes them feel and the ways in which it provokes a response in others. Perhaps this is the most valuable COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL