As a little girl, my family and I would bundle up each year to watch my adored grandfather march in the Remembrance Day parade. As a RAF veteran of the second world war, every November 11th he would proudly march and I would eagerly await his arrival as I stood in the crowds on Duckworth Street. I remember filling with tears as he would parade past, filled with such pride and love for him. I also knew as a child that there was something bigger happening as we gathered to honour armistice. I did not have the words yet but I could feel deep reverence and respect for the ceremony ongoing as the brisk November air would nip at my face. My grandfather never smiled during this march, his expression was always sombre and serene. I vividly remember the bright red poppy pinned to his suit, the colourful regalia and recognition ribbons fastened to his coat. I remember the sound of his metals clinging and the soles of his well shined shoes as they tapped the pavement with each step.

Before he passed, I spent every possible moment I could with him. I remember sitting by his bedside as he shared stories of his wartime experiences with me. While there were friendships and memories that he chose to share, there was much that I am certain he protected me from as a child curious to learn everything about his past lives. He was an incredible story teller who saw beauty everywhere. I adored him and still miss him terribly. To this day, I cannot watch a parade of any form without feeling overcome with emotion. To be honest, the same holds true for school assemblies, graduation and awards ceremonies, concerts and recitals of all shapes and sizes. With embarrassment, I find myself drying my eyes as indiscreetly as possible, or if possible hiding behind sunglasses, feeling frustrated with my status as the sole proprietor of tears during what are usually intended to be celebratory gatherings.

I had the recent privilege to attend a lecture with Antonio Tiniti, atelierista of the preschools and infant toddler centres Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. It was his retirement and he was lecturing on "The Inventive Grammar of Graphic Language" with Maddalena Tedeschi. While the topic and content is worthy of its own post, something else happened during that morning together. Antonio spoke of freedom, of space, of colour and beauty. He spoke of colour as nourishing and feeding the metaphorical process of learning, and how colour becomes the narrative for young children. He spoke of the plurality of colour which constantly flows and changes for children without rules or definitions. Antonio described the extremely sensitive sensory systems of young children at the age of 2 and 3 years, and how they can "smell the perfume" of colour. He presented the pleasures of drawing as a way of nourishing and feeding the self. I realized as he was speaking that I had never heard children's work with marking, print and use of colour described with such illumination and beauty. There was such reverence in his words and his descriptions of the work of young children that surprisingly I found that 'parade feeling' sneaking into my being as he spoke. I had to steer my gaze into a singular space and work quickly to shut down the surge of emotions pulsing through me.

When children explore they use their bodies, their eyes, their entire being to discover the world around them. Children zoom in and out with their eyes, with their bodies. They see, they feel, they react, they discover, they watch and they cherish the world around them. Their filter for zooming in and out is opaque allowing emotion to reign and rule. Raw and natural beauty guides all observations and interpretations of the world around them. When children are in contact with the world, they can see and touch everything. They use their whole being to respond to what they discover and create. Their learning is in real time. It is beautifully distanced from linear progressions, it ebbs and flows with each breath of their gentle being.

It is us, adults, who have difficulty processing the sensations of observation. We guard and segment ourselves into personal and professional, into private self and public self, into moments and time. We create checklists, endless to do lists where we cross completed actions off feeling fulfilled with task completion. No doubt, tasks do require completion and diligence, but linear behaviour has a dangerous edge in the business of education. If learning takes patience and time, then we need to reassess our observations of achievement and success, alongside of our image of the child.

The etymology of the word observe derives from Latin, observatio, meaning to take notice, to pay attention. At the risk of forgetting where we started, our child selves lie somewhere between comfort and discomfort where we choose what to attend to, and what not to attend to, based on the demands at hand. Our ability to zoom into beauty becomes impeded by the list of what is most pressing and urgent. May I be so bold to challenge our adult selves to zoom into beauty? To seek those moments when we are so struck by beauty and wonder that emotions surge through our being, to find the parade moments. To look for opportunities to re-interpret what we have seen, what we know and how we experience the world around us. To pursue flow and let everything else pause so that we can become absorbed in moments of discovery, exploration and learning.

I began this post with reconnecting to my child self and precious memories. As Antonio spoke I realized that the constant tension between emotional output and input is omnipresent. It is our own silent intersectional awareness and our own willingness to pause, to feel, and to see that propels us to, or from, beauty. That tender parade feeling comes when we allow ourselves to feel reverence, respect and connection with something bigger than ourselves. It is laced with gratitude, awe and possibility. It needs to be part of all we do in education. Loris Malaguzzi cautioned educators about the spread of a lack of awareness and underuse of the intelligences, abilities, skills and knowledge that we all possess. To quote Malaguzzi on this rainy Sunday afternoon we need to "get out from under this big blanket of conformism and passivity, and re-discover the desire to think, feel and plan" beautiful educational experiences that keep us close to the child. With beauty in mind, a walk in the rain awaits with perhaps a few puddles to be splashed along the way.