Nature by Default in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Elliott ◽  
Tracy Young
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
Transformative Engagement ◽  
Historical Antecedents

AbstractThis essay critiques the relevance of historical antecedents about children's play in nature and how these historical and political mechanisms create cultural rovoked by Taylor's (2013) exploration of the pervasive influence of romanticised images of innocent children in nature and our own experiences of never-ending ‘nice’ stories about young children in nature, here we trouble how nature experiences may or may not preclude children's meaningful and agentic participation in sustainability. We question is engagement with nature, a tangible and easily accessible approach in early childhood education (ECE) promoting a ‘nature by default paradigm’ and potentially thwarting a fuller transformative engagement with sustainability. Thus, we argue the case for shifting our frames beyond idealised romanticised notions and human–nature dualisms to a ‘common worlds’ (Haraway, 2008; Latour, 2004; Taylor, 2013) frame guided by collectivist understandings within connective life worlds. Such a shift requires a significant recasting of ethical human–nature understandings and relationships in ECE.

scholarly journals Submission for the AJEE Special Issue for the 18th Biennial AAEE Conference — Sustainability: Smart Strategies for the 21st Century. Nature by Default in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability – ERRATUM

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-223
Author(s):  
Sue Elliott ◽  
Tracy Young
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Historical Antecedents ◽  
Following Error

In the above mentioned article the following error has occurred where some text has been omitted from the abstract. The publisher regrets this error and sincerely apologises for any inconvenience caused:‘This essay critiques the relevance of historical antecedents about children's play in nature and how these historical and political mechanisms create cultural rovoked by Taylor's (2013) exploration of the pervasive influence of romanticised images of innocent children in nature and our own experiences of never-ending ‘nice’ stories about young children in nature, here we trouble how nature experiences may or may not preclude children's meaningful and agentic participation in sustainability.’

scholarly journals Rethinking Play, Diversity and Belonging in Early Childhood Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-243
Author(s):  
Sonja ARNDT
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
The Subject

We might say that children’s play is the foundation of all learning. Often play is recognized as integral to childhood, but children’s abilities to engage in play are complex and these complexities can be easily overlooked. This paper elevates children’s play as critical for their learning, particularly in support of their sense of belonging. The paper argues for an openness to the complexities of children’s play as a crucial practice of their cultural identity, through a critical conceptualization of some of the nuances and uncertainties of children’s subject formation. Drawing on concerns of cultural difference in early childhood education, Julia Kristeva’s foreigner lens and her theory on the subject in process are used to theorise children’s play as an ongoing process of belonging. Through the notions of the semiotic, abjection, love and revolt, the notion of the subject in process is elaborated to reconceptualize play as also in-process and ongoing. Rethinking play as a vital process within the sometimes difficult, often unpredictable experiences of becoming part of a centre community is elevated as crucial for a sense of belonging in early childhood education.

scholarly journals Sámi children as thought herders: philosophy of death and storytelling as radical hope in early childhood education

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110314
Author(s):  
Viktor Johansson
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Indigenous Philosophy ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
North Sweden ◽  
Traditional Stories

This article follows a story played out by children at a Sámi early childhood centre in north Sweden. It does so by reflecting on the children’s story as a form of Critical Indigenous Philosophy. In particular it explores what it could mean for a child to be a philosopher in a Sámi context by developing the concept of jurddavázzi, or thought herder, in conversation with Wittgenstein’s method of ‘leading’, and Cavell’s of ‘shepherding’, ‘words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use’. The children’s play story – involving themes of death, struggles with natural surroundings, and interconnectivity through seeing life in nature – is read in relation to questions about traditional stories raised in the poetry of the Sámi poet, artist and philosopher, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, or Áillohaš. The article ends by discussing how the children’s invitation to follow their story can be seen as a decolonizing pedagogical gesture of the child that requires a particular kind of philosophical listening by the teacher or adult. The article is in its style an attempt to demonstrate a form of philosophical storytelling the children are engaged in.

Human–nature relationships in early childhood education for sustainability: Metaphysical analysis and reshaping

2021 ◽  
pp. 183693912110611
Author(s):  
Neal Dreamson ◽  
Soyoung Kim
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Instructional Approaches ◽  
New Model ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Do So

Popular instructional approaches in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) are co-construction learning, transformative learning and ecological learning. These rely on constructivism that could challenge human–nature relationships of ECEfS. In this study, we aim to discover and reshape human–nature relationships embedded in the approaches. To do so, we deconstruct the approaches through a metaphysical analysis with ontology, epistemology and axiology. As a result, we confirm that they are likely to view humans and nature as two separate entities. For sustainability, we distinguish an ontological view (‘N’ature) and an epistemological view (‘n’ature) and justify the distinction based on posthumanists’ concepts of non-humans and more-than-humans. We present a metaphysically reshaped human–nature relationship and argue that this new model enables teachers to critically review ‘human-made/observed natures’ and participate in the reconciliation between ‘N’ature and humanity. We also apply the model into a waste-recycle activity to clarify its potential practicality.

scholarly journals Making “Cuts” with a Holstein Cow in Early Childhood Education and Care: The Joys of Representation

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Teresa K. Aslanian ◽  
Anna Rigmor Moxnes
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Holstein Cow ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
Livestock Rearing

This article explores children’s play with representations of animals, specifically the Holstein cow, as noninnocent care practices in the context of early childhood education and care environments. We use Barad’s relational ontology and Chaudhuri’s concept of zooësis to activate a temporal diffractive analysis of memory stories about children’s play with cows in ECEC read through facts from past, present, and future livestock-rearing practices. We connect the joy of playing with representations of nonhuman animals to the responsibility associated with multispecies lives, and to care as the production of flourishing.

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