Interaction rituals, emotions, and early childhood science: digital microscopes and collective joy in a multilingual classroom

In her original article, “Identity, Agency and the Internal Conversations of Science and
Math Teachers Implementing instructional reforms in High-Need Urban Schools”, Stacy
Olitsky (2021) takes us on an exploration of the identity development and agencies exerted
by two teachers working to implement science instructional reforms in high-need urban
schools. Olitsky (2021) utilizes Interaction Ritual Theory as a lens to examine a seldom
viewed and even intimate aspect of teacher’s worlds, namely teachers’ self-talk. In this
forum article I embrace the invitation extended by Olitsky, through an exploration of the
interaction rituals that took place among students and a teacher working with digital microscopes
in an early childhood classroom. I draw upon the theoretical lens of communitas to
illuminate the power of collective joy that formed. Specifically, I will share two vignettes
from a multilingual early childhood classroom to illustrate how teacher-guided and studentguided
spaces afforded interactions that lead to the development of collective joy. I show
how collective work with the microscopes allowed for joy and surprise to occur within a
classroom of plurilingual students who are participating in their first schooled experiences
of science. I conclude with a discussion of the power of student-driven instructional spaces
as places for students working to learn science, and the language of instruction, to collectively
experience joy as they explore.