You cannot show everything. Implicits and "absences" in the pedagogical documentation in early childhood services (ECEC)
For a long time documentation has played a central role in revealing learning processes in children in early childhood services, promoting the involvement of families and supporting reflexivity in educational work. We interpret pedagogical documentation in terms of revelatory moments, as a strong document (Ferraris, 2009) which affects reality and changes it. In this framework the choice of moments to be recorded influences the way in which historical memory is constructed. The traces educators collect about the daily life of children are scattered stories that combine to define the identity of both children and educators alike. This article focuses on implicits contained in these stories and how these same implicits are conditioned by the very idea of child and education. What influences the decision to document specific moments (for example crying, moments of treatment, regressions) or whether to leave them out? What message do these traces or “absences” convey to parents, children, educators and society? What educational reality emerges from these documented perspectives?