It really is a different story when you look just to look. I have become curious in a new way. I am curious about the children. I trust that I will see whatever there is to see because I'm not looking for something or trying to make something be there. In the Tibetan contemplative traditions our six senses, including thought, are our natural gateways to knowing.
Young children learn primarily through sensory experience.
For example in our contemplative lab school the young children at snack time listen in stillness to the gong as the sound crescendos and dissolves. Our teacher education program uses a variety of perceptual exercises to open our immediate senses before we observe and teach. One such exercise focuses on a selected sound. We listen to the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, for instance, focusing on the sound exactly as it is received by the ears. Buddhist practitioners through the centuries have discovered that our sense perceptions are intertwined with our thoughts.