Enchanted animism: A matter of care

© The Author(s) 2020. Jean Piaget, whose work continues to be very influential in early childhood education, associated young children’s animism with their ‘primitive thought’ claiming children remain animists until they reach a more advanced and rational stage of development. This article proposes a rethinking of the Piagetian view of animism, suggesting instead that children’s animism be conceived as a ‘matter of care’ which may then offer possibilities for living more responsively and attentively with non human others. Drawing on two recent research projects involving two-to-eight-year-old children, the article contends that children’s playful and speculative ‘enchanted animism’ can create a spaces for curiosity, wonder and immersion in and of the world. The author argues that enchanted animism has the potential to open children to their worldly embeddedness and can ignite possibilities for more responsive and attentive ways of living with an increasingly damaged Earth

Extinction, education and the curious practice of visiting thrombolites

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The Earth is in the midst of a recent acceleration in the rate of species extinction and the unravelling of ecological communities. The authors think with the emerging field of Extinction Studies to explore educational approaches to ecological endangerment and extinction. Using a notion of visiting as ‘curious practice’, we story encounters between the authors, young children and the endangered Noorook Yalgorup-Lake Clifton thrombolites and their ecological community in south-western Australia. These visits were not intended to teach about extinction or the thrombolites. Rather, our aim was to generate pedagogical insights through approaching the threatened thrombolites and their environment with curiosity, openness and attentiveness, and framed by perspectives that trouble human exceptionalism and Western dualisms. Guided by Haraway’s notion of ‘staying with the trouble’, we argue this approach to encountering extinction generates insights into learning and living with ecological crisis in our shared world. Specifically, that for educators and children to relearn the world and their place in it, educators must enable new senses, meanings, perspectives and stories to populate the Earth and for this to occur they should listen with openness to, and think with, children

Aesthetic-ethical-political movements in professional learning: Encounters with feminist new materialisms and Reggio Emilia in early childhood research

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Professional learning is considered essential for early childhood teachers, and is frequently associated with childhood outcomes and dominant constructs of quality which perpetuate neoliberal ideals and position early childhood teachers within a framework of rationality, privileging discourses of masculinity and power. By engaging with feminist new materialist perspectives, with the concept of ‘movement’, and with the theory-practice of the educational project of the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy, this paper extends understandings of professional learning to include nonhuman others as worthy interlocutors, and puts forth an invitation to welcome unease and an aesthetic-ethical-political stance in early childhood education. To complicate normative conceptions of professional learning, fragments from a project that used pedagogical documentation and dialogue to transform children’s relations with waste are presented. These fragments elucidate how professional learning in early childhood education might be aesthetically-ethically-politically conceptually grounded and practiced. The conclusions presented are neither simple nor linear; rather invitations are offered to problematise, to avoid being satisfied with overt, dominant and linear constructs, and to welcome uncertainty in worldly relations

Seeking children's perspectives: a respectful layered research approach

This article discusses why researchers and educators might choose to seek children's perspectives. It also highlights some of the key considerations when seeing children as having the right to contribute to decisions that affect them. The article draws on findings from a study that used pedagogically oriented methods for researching three- and four-year-old children's perspectives about outdoor spaces in the early childhood setting they attended. The article discusses the possibilities and practicalities of this research approach for both research and pedagogy. Examples are provided for others who may be considering working/researching in these ways

Young children's perspectives of outdoor learning spaces: What matters?

Outdoor spaces are a feature of most Australian early learning settings and have potential for many learning opportunities. This article reports on a study that investigated three- and four- year old children’s perspectives of the outdoor environment in their early childhood education setting. The research was conducted using multi-method approaches including child-led tours and photography, photographic elicitation, and conversations. Findings emphasise the importance for children of being able to pretend, move, observe, and be social. These findings have implications for designers of both curriculum and outdoor spaces for young children

Listening with young children: enchanted animism of trees, rocks, clouds (and other things)

This article introduces the notion of enchanted animism, contending that an enchanted re-animation of the world may be necessary for learning to live on a damaged planet. The paper draws on a project with young children which invited them to share what they thought was ‘good’ in the outdoor spaces at their early learning centre. These encounters revealed children’s relationship with nonhuman elements which seemed to be calling in and enchanting children. In particular, children’s playful animation of so-called inanimate things – trees, rocks, clouds – allowed an egalitarian view of the world in which both humans and nonhumans were seen to be engaged in intentional projects. The paper argues that enchanted animism kindles children’s sensitivity to Earthly processes, enabling them to listen to the Earth more attentively, with the awareness and responsiveness that a planetary crisis demands

Environment: The third teacher

We value space because of its power to organize and promote pleasant relationships between people of different ages, create a handsome environment, provide changes, promote choices and activity, and its potential foe sparking all kinds of social, affective, and cognitive learning. All of this contributes to a sense of well-being and security in children. We also think that the space has to be a sort of aquarium that mirrors the ideas, values, attitudes, and cultures of the people who live within it. (Malaguzzi cited in Gandini, 2012a, p.339