Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thesis Format

Integrated Article

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Education

Supervisor

Heydon, Rachel

2nd Supervisor

Pacini-Ketchabaw, Veronica

Co-Supervisor

Abstract

In response to the realities of living with global ecological challenges and climate-related risks in the Anthropocene, I draw on the arts of slowing down, noticing, and paying attention to worldly realities in the work of early childhood education as a response to this geological time. Through an inquiry with charcoal and cardboard as part of a common worlding ethnographical project in a childcare centre in London, Ontario, I questioned what it might look like to change the child-centered/humancentric position so prevalent in early childhood education to a more inclusive perspective that includes more-than-humans. As we made this shift I wondered, too, what it might look like to learn with, rather than about, our world. Through my imperfect, experimental path toward a pedagogy of indeterminacy that attunes to onto-epistemologies, I offer a glimpse into how early childhood education might trouble its entrenched humancentric approach.

Summary for Lay Audience

In response to the realities of living with global ecological challenges and climate-related risks in the Anthropocene, I draw on the arts of slowing down, noticing, and paying attention to everyday realities in the work of early childhood education as a response to this geological time. Art materials as simple and common as charcoal sticks and cardboard have provoked an unexpected and significant rethinking of my practices as both an educator and researcher. Through an inquiry with charcoal and cardboard, I wondered, too, what it might look like to learn with, rather than about, our world. Using a series of pedagogical moments, I do not offer answers but rather illustrate the ongoing formation of questions that might bring about alternative ways of doing early childhood education. Through my imperfect, experimental path toward a pedagogy that challenges a goal-driven education, I offer a glimpse into how early childhood education might trouble its own humancentric approach.

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