Voicing Derbarl Yerrigan as a feminist anti-colonial methodology

The paper voices Derbarl Yerrigan, a significant river in Western Australia, through three imperfect, non-innocent, and necessary river-child stories. These stories highlight the emergence of a feminist anti-colonial methodology that is attentive to settler response-abilities to Derbarl Yerrigan through situated, relational, active, and generative research methods. Voicing Derbarl Yerrigan influences the methodological practices used as part of an ongoing river-child walking inquiry that is concerned with generating climate change pedagogies in response to the global climate crises and calls for new ways of thinking and producing knowledge. In particular, the authors found that voicing as a methodology includes listening and being responsive to Derbarl Yerrigan\u27s invitations, paying attention to pastspresentsfutures, and forming attachments through naming. By telling lively settler river-child stories, this paper shows how voicing Derbarl Yerrigan is vital to open new possibilities for education and has implications for settler-colonial contexts, where the focus on learning shifts from learning about the world to learning to become with multispecies river worlds

Dis/orientating the early childhood sensorium: A palate making menu for public pedagogy

This paper shares a multilayered retrospective story of an international exhibit curated for the Climate Action Childhood Network Colloquium as part of a commitment among exhibit curators to reveal the complexities of unpalatable climate futures. In the format of a tasting menu, we offer a sampling of the exhibit installations as a menu of potential alterpolitics in the making. Facing intensifying inequitable climate presents and futures, our intention is that this invitation might create openings for the intersection of local and global concerns. We gesture toward collective but tentative responses for thinking climate action pedagogies through the metaphor of a troubling meal

Children’s Knowledge, Identity and Right to Participation in Driving Curriculum Decision-Making

The research study investigated why and how educators make use of knowledge about children and their interests for the purpose of curriculum decision-making, and the subsequent influence on children’s involvement. The study took a Participatory Action Research approach and examined curriculum construction in childcare-based and school-based Kindergarten settings. Data were collected over a six-month period in 2018 from settings in the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia. Initial interviews were conducted with four Kindergarten educators to find out how they gathered and used information about children and their interests for curriculum purposes. These interviews were followed by a curriculum intervention that took place in one of the settings. Prior to the intervention, four children were selected to be in a focus group. The children’s pre-intervention involvement levels were measured using the Involvement Scale (South Australian Department of Education and Children’s Services, 2008) and through the analysis of video observations taken of the children during everyday classroom experiences. Then, two curriculum intervention activities were implemented with the children in the focus group in order to obtain information about their funds of knowledge and funds of identity. The Shoebox Activity required the children to place personally meaningful items inside of a shoebox and share these items with their teacher. The Photovoice Activity was where children took photographs of experiences in which they participated outside of Kindergarten and shared these photographs with their teacher. Following the curriculum intervention activities, the Kindergarten curriculum was constructed using children’s funds of knowledge and funds of identity. Children’s involvement levels were again measured for the post-intervention ratings, which occurred during the period of time when the adjusted curriculum experiences were offered. Results from the study indicate that children’s level of involvement significantly increases when educators know more about and prioritise children’s knowledge and identity in the curriculum. The study provides an Australian perspective in the areas of research focusing on children’s interests, curriculum construction, and children’s right to participation. This research study can be used to inform policy and build on early childhood educator practices to promote the provision of high-quality curriculum experiences for young children

(Re)forming river-child-blowie relations: Questions of noticing, caring, and imagined futures with the unloved and disregarded

Derbarl Yerrigan is a significant river in Western Australia that has been part of a river-child-walking collective for approximately a year. Many multispecies encounters take place while walking-with Derbarl Yerrigan, but this story of (re)forming relations belongs to Blowie. Dead and dying Blowies, also known as the common blowfish and Torquigener pleurogramma, have been particularly important players in this project that is generating climate change pedagogies with young children. This creative essay works with questions of how young children are imagining, getting to know, and engaging with the often unloved and disregarded Blowie. It is an example of how hacking Anthropocentric sustainability narratives, or doing-it-together, with Blowies and young children is possible

Dis/orientating the Early Childhood Sensorium: A Palate Making Menu for Public Pedagogy

This paper shares a multilayered retrospective story of an international exhibit curated for the Climate Action Childhood Network Colloquium as part of a commitment among exhibit curators to reveal the complexities of unpalatable climate futures. In the format of a tasting menu, we offer a sampling of the exhibit installations as a menu of potential alterpolitics in the making. Facing intensifying inequitable climate presents and futures, our intention is that this invitation might create openings for the intersection of local and global concerns. We gesture toward collective but tentative responses for thinking climate action pedagogies through the metaphor of a troubling meal