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SUMMER 2026
SUMMER 2026
Institute on Descriptive Process
July 19-24, 2026
Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts
Registration opening in November, 2025.
New York State CTLE credit available for participants!
The "Institute on Descriptive Inquiry Inc." is an approved vendor for New York City Public Schools. The relevant vendor code is INS414215.
Using Descriptive Process and Reflective Conversations to:
Develop a strength-based stance toward children and families that counters the deficit lens so often applied to our students
Create political ground to reimagine school as public and democratic space, supporting equity, diversity, and complexity
Observation and description of children and their works are central to this Institute. The context for our inquiry is formed both from our shared recollections of ourselves as learners and from reading about and discussing issues such as standards and values, school culture, race, and gender. We will use Prospect’s Descriptive Processes to study individual children and the writing, drawing, painting, model making, talk, and other “works” they produce in their classrooms. A core of the work the group does together is describing from the spanning collections found in the Prospect Archive of Children’s Work housed now at the University of Vermont Special Collections. Participants are urged to bring collections of children’s work with them for the purpose of describing. Readings will be emailed to registered participants well before the start of the Institute.
Everyone will take part in Descriptive Reviews of the Child, Descriptive Reviews of Work, and Reflective Conversations. The Institute is designed to serve “returnees” as well as first-time participants. Those who are new to these processes will get to know them well. Participants, who are more experienced, but not yet confident in the role of chairperson, will be asked to act as facilitators, helping presenters prepare and co-chairing groups. We also encourage groups from the same school to attend together. This enables schools to begin to use the Descriptive Processes as part of their ongoing work.
This residential Institute is a five-day workshop for parents, teachers, and other educators who wish to examine issues of teaching and learning through the perspective of the Descriptive Processes.
The Processes on which this work is based were developed at the Prospect School and Center (1965-2011). This Institute on Descriptive Process (Institute 1) runs concurrently with the first week of the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry (Institute 2), which is a self-governing, collaborative study group, composed of educators and other experienced professionals, that has convened annually since 1978. There are many opportunities for connection and cross pollination of ideas between participants in both of the institutes.
FACULTY
The faculty of this Institute consists of educators who are deeply knowledgeable about the Descriptive Inquiry Processes and ways of thinking about educational practices and issues.
QUESTIONS?
Please contact Taeko Onishi or Kirsten Cole with questions about the Institute or to be added to our mailing list for future announcements.
COVID PRECAUTIONS POLICY
We have outlined these precautions to do our best to keep our community safe while still gathering in person.
Photo taken near Hampshire College campus by Stephane Barile (2022).
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