Exploring The Perspectives Of Teachers’ Interpretation Of Children’s ‘Play Stories’ In Anji Play Kindergarten

The ‘play stories’ in Anji Play practices that serve to creatively connect children’s self-expression of their play experiences and ideas with adults’ interpretation of them.Therefore,it would be valuable to investigate how teachers construe and derive meaning from the play stories shared by children.The present study used purposive sampling to select ten teachers from four kindergartens that implemented the Anji Play practice as research participants.Data were gathered through interviews,observations,and content analysis,and were coded and analyzed to identify and summarize two states of "no interpretation" and "interpretation" among the kindergarten teachers,and the state of "interpretation" included the following five different perspectives of interpretations:1)Selective description of the content of children’s play stories and the relation to the children’s play2)Symbolic form judgmental interpretation in an overly simplistic using of professional knowledge3)Symbolic form judgmental interpretation in a comprehensive using of professional knowledge4)Symbolic meaning interactional interpretation based on cognitive differences and reconstruction5)Symbolic meaning interactional interpretation based on being open and understanding the true intentions of children’sBased on perspective 1,teachers selectively describe the content of young children’s play stories and their relationship to young children’s play;based on perspective 2,teachers are able to make general or abstract judgments about the symbolic form of young children’s play stories,but have difficulty providing educational support based on this interpretation;based on perspective 3,teachers are able to apply their professional knowledge to interpret the symbolic form of young children’s play stories in relation to their understanding of specific contexts,but it often ignores the child’s intentions.Based on perspective 4,teachers are able to be aware of their own cognitive differences with children about their play and reconstruct their understanding by interpreting the meanings expressed in play stories.Based on perspective 5,teachers interpret the intentions expressed in young children’s play stories in their interactions with young children based on the premise of opening up to them.The main reason for the shift from no interpretation to interpretation is the improvement of temporal and spatial conditions;the reasons affecting the different perspectives of interpretation of kindergarten teachers include multiple aspects and layers of foundational and developmental conditions,for example,teachers’ ways of understanding and specific application of expertise,time for independent learning and reflection,the experience of "being seen" in kindergarten and teaching,and the level of accumulation of situational imagery regarding "children as capable learners"Given the findings of the study,in addition to enhancing foundational conditions,it is advised that,based on attention and recognition of the existence of different states and perspectives of interpretation by kindergarten teachers,kindergarten leaders should enrich teachers’ interpretive perspectives and take ‘ symbolic meaning interactional interpretation’ as the guiding value orientation on interpreting children’s play stories and support kindergarten teachers in learning how to establish educational interactional relationships with young children.