Author: Narda Nelson

Bare feet at Garry Oak Place (Click here for Feet images & musings:))

How did it start?

When Gary Oak Place started, we adopted from other centers, the rule of we can walk bare feet on the grass and sand but need shoes to walk around the rest of the yard. After observing the children’s relationships with shoes, feet, each other, and others, we were curious to see what would happen if we allowed bare feet all over the yard. We decided to document our pedagogical inquiry for this wonderful moment.

Our Curiosities

Do they perceive the change of seasons differently with bare feet?

How might we experience the change of seasons through our feet?

• On hot sunny days or cool rainy days

How do children engage with yard and materials? Does it change if they are bare feet?

• With painting, sand, woodchips, grass…

How might children’s relationships differ? With bugs, with friends, with plants…

What opportunities arise when they are bare feet? For friendships or for nature?

• Touching toes each other, helping socks and shoes…

Are there limits to roadblocks to being bare feet?

• Bikes, tires…

How do children engage with bare feet outside of Garry Oak?

• At beach, park, yard, at home…

What kind of medicine are they receiving from the earth?

• Onion on feet would make fever go down, pressure points on feet (acupuncture)

In April-May, Noreen, David, and Taeko took some time to reflect on the unique role they inhabit as ‘Float educators’ within UVic CCS programming. Among other things, this includes rethinking the way they move between centres and expectations of working in accordance with each centre’s values and ethos statements while collectively “embrace the department’s philosophy and policies, the BC Early Learning Framework, and all provincial regulations to maintain a standard of care that contributes to the Child Care Centre’s philosophy and overarching ethos” (opening line CUPE Local 951 Position Description of a UVic ECE).

How do we see our roles? What does it mean to work as a float within and across teams? How do we meet some challenges a float position demands? When do we feel most grounded and connected as valued contributors to the wider CCS educational project and community?

The fluidity of moving between programs offers a unique lens through which we (Noreen, David, and Taeko) are able to witness and engage in practice. Contributing in practice to ‘living’ (upholding) the philosophy and overarching ethos of multiple centres is something we are responsible for. Yet it does not ‘magically’ just happen. Earlier this month, we had time off the floor to listen and engage with Silvana Calaprice’s conversation on pedagogy, and reflect on our role alongside the purpose of early childhood education (ECPN, 2019); this opportunity has afforded time/space to share our perspectives by writing this blog with Sadaf and Narda, and hear from each other in the process of reflecting on some of the ways our everyday engagement with(in) teams is influenced by:

-expectations from colleagues,

-unforeseen circumstances arising on any given day, and

-our experiences and understandings of our professional role and responsibilities

This journey of collective reflection began with examining what to ‘float’ and/or ‘floating’ means:

float·ing /ˈflōdiNG/

adjective

1. 1. buoyant or suspended in water or air.

“a massive floating platform”

Similar: Buoyant; buoyed up; nonsubmerged; on the surface; above water; afloat; drifting; hovering; levitating

2. 2. not settled in a definite place; fluctuating or variable.

“the floating population that is migrating to the cities”

Similar: Unsettled; not settled; not fixed; transient; temporary; variable

Interestingly, a quick Google search of the words ‘float and pedagogy’ also told us that that Emily Carr University (Vancouver) has created a ‘Float School’ with pedagogical experiments and actions:

Float School is the catalyst and culmination of many embodied, affective, and improvisational experiences that create the opportunity to ask, “what can school be?” We find ourselves asking this question, as artists and educators, because we are often drawn to imagining how else we could learn together, and under what other terms, feelings and environments learning could occur. Float School is at once a site, a time, a collective endeavour, and a school. (para 1)

Tuesday, April 16^th : We sat down together in the Building A staff room, to read our responses to questions Narda and Sadaf had posed out loud. This included responding to questions about who we feel accountable to/for/with in everyday moments with(in) and between centres.

-What stood out for us after reading the first 4 pages of the Family Handbook? -How does what is in the handbook connect to your ongoing commitment to the work we are all doing together, at CCS? Or does it not?

Noreen:

On Accountability:

“Accountability breeds response-ability”   Stephen Covey

There are many kinds of accountability, within many contexts.  Narda asks “How do we live ‘being accountable’ in the absence of being embedded within one particular team? Accountable to whom?”

A quick simple response might be something like, I’m accountable to myself. I’ve a strong personal code of conduct, of ethics, of morals.  But I feel that’s not really the answer to Narda’s question. Clearly I’m accountable to every single soul who is part of the CCS community. As a Float, I’m not embedded in one single Centre, but rather was hired for Centre A primarily, and every Centre, as needed.  I’m accountable to my employers, my team peers, the families, and children in our care.

And I’m struggling to answer this thoughtfully in the moment – the volume is pumped up this Friday just outside the door!  Will need to be continued.

**********************************************************

David

On professional responsibility(ies) and some of the challenges of being a float:

Thanks for the release time for me to sit down and write something about my own reflections of being a float at UVIC CCS. I have honestly been very grateful for this float job which has offered me consistent opportunities to work alongside different age groups of children ,in consistent length of time, to observe their unique thriving social and physical development and growth. While I have learnt so much from my fellow educators, who are so welcoming, loving, caring, open-minded , and always ready to share and teach, in different programs about how to work with every unique child, I have built up trust relationship with so many children, and their families and my colleagues as well, over the years by living and encouraging empathy and care through my presence, role modelling, and positive guidance, etc, which in my opinion is my first accountability within the greater CCS community. 

As a float, I have played a unique role over the years to serve as a bridge, or rather a comfort source, for the young kids moving up from one centre to a new one where everything is strange especially at the very beginning week or month. It’s been a great relief for their parents to know that there is someone their child knows at the new program who could help the child to feel comfortable to come to the new centre and have a smooth transition to settle down asap. At the same time I make a unique contribution to help the program accommodating such new kids run and operate smoothly through the transitions that otherwise could sometimes be challenging and time-consuming. I believe, through my own experience, that this unique support to such kids moving up is also one of my accountabilities as a float. 

A few of my colleagues once said to me that I am a very solid colleague to work with. Frankly I did not really understand it and thus did not think much about this comment when I heard it for the first time. I started to reflect on it only when I heard the same word Solid for the second time that I realized that my colleagues feel that they could rely on me when they need me. In other word, I am accountable in my colleagues’ eyes. Accountability in my eyes means professional responsibility not only for the children in our care but also the team members we work with. In this new era of pedagogical commitment, it might also require continuous improvements of intentional critical reflections and innovations, individually and collectively, to promote children’s wellbeing and development. 

To work as a float at the greater CCS community, for me, is like participating in a large scale peer mentoring program where everyone, including the children, families, colleagues and myself, is a capable and inquisitive mentor, with unique histories, personalities and theories, to everyone else during our daily engagements, explorations, and relationship building at every moment together. This is how we all grow and learn together through diverse and multiple relations. It can never be overstated how much I personally have learnt and benefited from this special peer mentoring program. 

Last but not least, despite all these benefits of working as a float, it does not necessarily mean that there are no challenges in a float’s daily work. One of the major challenges I have had, especially in the beginning, is the conflict of approaches to or guidance on children’s behaviours in different programs. For example, some programs ask children to keep some materials in use in a designated area while some others may allow them to travel anywhere a child goes. What makes it even more challenging, or confusing, is that sometimes even the same educator would take contradictory approaches on different days. Another challenge I once had as a float in a pre-kindergarten program was what one of the kids said to me when I was trying to offer him some positive guidance on his behaviour toward another child. He said, ” David, you are not in charge of me. You are only a sub!” A few days later, another child in the same program said similar thing to me. 

**********************************************************

Taeko

On understanding her role:

I understand that my role (float) is important to make teams work smoothly within the Uvic CCS.

As a float, I enjoy building relationships between children, families, coworkers and spending time with them. We work as a member of the childcare centre teams. I feel like we don’t belong to one particular team, but we belong to all of them. (I would say to UVic CCS teams maybe?) There’s the statement in Family Handbook; “As educators, it is our responsibility to live and encourage empathy and care through our childcare environments, materials, curriculum and pedagogies.” I totally agree with it and I feel like the floats do the same but also more support to make the teams work smoothly. (Ex. We are there for their release time, helping gradual entry etc.) We are a part of teams of course, but we are floating as it flows. Floating wherever they need us.

A few challenges I feel are, As every child is unique, every centre is unique and slightly different for materials, transitions /routines, the way of guidance. It is honor to get different perspectives and learn from them. In the other hand, it sometimes makes me confused as well.

I usually work in infants and toddlers, and when transitions happen between those programs (especially between Acorn and Willow) I could support them for smooth gradual entry. And that is one of my accountabilities as a float working within different programs. Also, even I am not in the program all the time, I feel that our accountability is the same as regular staff and accountable to children/families and teams to provide nurture and qualified care. And I need more communication and taking initiative to be in part of their teams.

****************************************

During our Tuesday, April 16th in-person discussion, Noreen read a previously written piece she had crafted 1 year prior that feels apropos for sharing now in connection with floating questions we continue to sit with.

We invite you, our dear colleagues, to float back with us by reading her recollection from the day a family of owls visited some of the centres (lovely reminder of what happens when cherry blossoms, children, educators and families ‘meet-with’, witnessing us as we witness them):) Thank you for your time and interest in our blog! Noreen, David, and Taeko (in collaboration with Sadaf and Narda):

Noreen’s reflection:

I’ve been thinking about and wanting to write something for a while now, while still familiarizing myself with the new to me ECE language used in UVIC Child Care Services. Having spent the last six months in a “Float Position”, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time in all seven of UVIC Child Care Centres over the past six months. There have been many days when I’ve worked in two Centres in one day, and even three Centres on one occasion! To me there is a light buoyant feeling to the word Float, it’s a cheery word. Like the cherry blossom petals drifting along the ground, after a spring breeze, landing on the roof of a car, or on the sidewalk, to be caught in the wind, lifted up and tossed back in the air before softly settling down again. So I started to write a reflection on this Float position, to share some of what’ve I’ve learned so far.

An ECE Float position requires an Educator to build relationships with dozens of children, their parents, grandparents, and nanny’s, along with each Centres core staff team members, other Float and Supply staff, Administrative staff and Supervisors, quickly. Remembering which child dislikes help with dressing in one room, which verbal cues an Educator uses with a child in another room, who has allergies, and who is practicing toileting skills. What distresses and what comforts and supports in each room. And of course where to keep my personal belongings in each Centre, moving everything back and forth as needed, sometimes with little to no notice. The ability to flexibly adapt is key.

Now settled in to the Cedar Tree Room predominantly, I’ve witnessed a team of Educators massaging the idea of “The Fence” as their overarching pedagogical exploration. A few very recent visits from Narda helped shed more insight and at the same time asked more questions around what a Fence represents in a broader context. What might this fence that surrounds the Cedar Room’s yard on three sides represent to the children, their parents and to the Early Childhood Educators in the

room? Those were some of the initial queries opened for discussion, when the front entrance was locked due to the Covid pandemic and children and their parents learned how to part for the day at the back gate. And there were questions raised too around the non human life on the other side of our fenced community, and how might we be of impact to them?

I asked this of myself when what appeared to be a family of four owls were seen perched on a branch of a tree just on the other side of our Centre’s fence. I saw them when I arrived at 9am, and they were still there when I left at 5pm. Occasionally they vocalized. From their vantage point, we seemingly were not a threat, as far as I could tell. Like they knew that the fence kept them and their territory safely apart from us. (I may be projecting here.) These owls didn’t seem to be bothered by the swooping crows, ravens, circling hawks or eagles either. For a moment I felt like we were almost living in a human zoo – behind a wall, a boundary we had built, to keep our children safe. We look through the fence to see a beautiful world filled with deer, birds, squirrels and magnificent trees and the Erik Carle book came to mind, “Brown bear Brown Bear, what do you see?” I change the words to “Brown Owl Brown Owl, what do you see?” “I see forty people looking at me!” So it is – we are watching what goes on during the day on the other side of our fence. But so too are we being watched on the other side of their fence.

Feelings of amazement to see owls out during the day, along with a special kind of excitement, privilege even, was mixed with a kind of ominous feeling as well. The symbolism of an owl sighting can mean death, rebirth, wisdom or prophecy, depending upon your cultural heritage, spirituality and beliefs. I was motivated to do a little bit of internet researching, to learn more about owl behaviour, and I think that they may have been very hungry, and/or were perhaps getting ready to try out first flights. Regardless, sharing the immediate environment with the owls proved to be a rich experience for most of us.

Seeing the owls first thing in the morning, upon arrival to our Centre was initially an event really. Staff and children pushed up to the fence, pointing, exclaiming, and cameras were fetched. Periodically, throughout the day, we paused our work play to check in and see if they were still there, and what were they doing. On our side of the fence lunch happened, naps were taken, and still, the owls remained perched in the branches looking down upon us. The time came for parents to come and pick up their children at the end of their days, and the owl news was shared. Some parents were allowed in to the yard to have a quick viewing, while others walked along the fence line, on the other side of our boundary to have an even closer look. This was more than just a trace, as the owls were physically still there, and it was real-time involvement with families, to “ask for their input and reflection.” (BC ELF, 2019, p. 58)

“What were the owls thinking?” I wondered, and continue to wonder today, and I wonder if they’ll return after the weekend? I spoke with some children, and they commented and asked questions such as “maybe their eating – what are they eating?”, “where do they go when it’s raining?”, maybe they just went away, but they’ll come back later”, “maybe they went to sleep” and just like that, the children ran off to get busy in the yard on this side of the fence. We have a great opportunity now to expand this experience, as a living enquiry. What kind of owls were they? Have they been here long? What significance do they hold, if any, for the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory UVIC stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNE ́C peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day? If they do not return, we’ve got photographs, memories, and a few owl feathers that floated down to remember the time that the owls allowed us to watch them through and over the fence. It is my hope that “Remembering the event or moment and retelling it and wondering more about it engages children and extends their thinking.” (BC ELF, 2019, p. 57)

So it seems that what I had initially intend to write about, a reflective piece on my experience as a “Float position”, turned in to a sharing of our experience with the owls over the fence. Yes I somehow floated over into the pedagogical exploration of “The Fence” and it got tossed in to my reflective narrative. Like the owl feathers that floated down to the ground.

*This was my first attempt at writing something while at UVIC Child Care Services. At the time, I welcomed input from those wise owls around me! I know it is through a supportive and keen sense of team work that personal and professional growth can happen. I’d like to help “create environments in which both adults and children can reflect, investigate, and be provoked to deepen understandings.” (BC ELF, 2019, p. 75)

Picking up where we left off with Friday’s Pro-D discussion…

Here’s a link to a presentation Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw gave on June 21, 2021 called Education for worlds to come (Curriculum in Canada Seminar Series, UBC). In it, Veronica talks about what, for her, is missing, overlooked, and/or lost in popularized take-ups of common worlding (CW) pedagogies, particularly through the BC ELF’s brief mention of the framework (when there is so much more to consider, as discussed on Friday).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[5:04] If there is an idea that I want to emphasize today it is that EC education needs to be a possibility of transformation of the status quo. For the invention of otherwise worlds and for thinking about what the human might be…

[6:09] My concern is that perhaps we are a moment in ECE that we have forgotten – we have left behind what bell hooks says – that education is a revolution and a space to invent oneself…

Among other things, Veronica talks about the creation of the ELF, some of the so-called ‘accomplishments’ and concerns arising for her now, specifically in regards to an unfortunately insufficient (superficial) incorporation of the term common world (common worlding pedagogies) into the revised BC ELF (2019, p. 15). In actuality – as we discussed during Friday’s Pro-D – these pedagogies are layered, complex, often taking years to create and comprehend, requiring us to think carefully about how to experiment and enliven these concepts through methods like slowing down, cultivating new modes of attunement, and creating intentional curriculum- making processes that help us reconfigure children, families, colleagues, and the more-than-human we share place with. Presentation link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6uwAKqHfpM

Around the 9:43 minute mark  in the presentation, Veronica shares concerns about what she has witnessed in conversations with pedagogists and educators as she travels around the province of BC, including observations of the ways common worlding pedagogies are taken-up/engaged with. Her perspective is an important one to consider, as we continue working common worlding concepts, highlighted during our pro-D day discussions.

Reflecting on the dangers inherent in what Veronica has been witnessing in the field, through increasingly popularized ‘applications’ of a common worlding approach, she talks about tendencies to fuse common worlding with romantic notions of ‘Nature’ that reinforce colonial and neoliberal logics. Veronica cautions:

I have become very concerned. The concern is that common worlds pedagogies are becoming de-politicized. By that, I mean that they are becoming ‘The’ answer, ‘The’ solution to our problems. They give practitioners direction for managing and instructing children to be able to achieve predetermined ends. They are used to perpetuate individualism and [function as] the guardian of social privilege. They are used interchangeably with nature-education and stewardship pedagogies. They are used to position children as investment for future economic productivity.

Within the [ELF] framework, common world pedagogies are not just misunderstood but are quickly appropriated with neoliberal aims. Using the words of bell hooks, common worlds pedagogies might not necessarily be understood in counter-hegemonic ways but used politically to maintain the status quo. Children are not encouraged to reinvent themselves. Rather, common world pedagogies are merely used to strive to reinforce domination…As Sharon Todd writes:

On the one hand pedagogy touches on the hope that people can think differently, can change the way they relate to each other, and can form new understandings of themselves and the world. And other the other hand, the demand for ‘learning to become’ carries with it a great burden. For if pedagogy is about the the becoming of the subject, (she says,) then it can become a tool for the most oppressive ends.

Perhaps what I see in the way common worlds pedagogies are working now, is under and educational paradigm that creates adaptive capacities toward individual success. Often early childhood educators quote these pedagogies and draw from theories that are activated and valued within Early Childhood, like theories from Population Health, using EDI, using qualitative evaluations of young children’s engagements, self-regulation theories, neuroscience-scientific theories, social and emotional development around children’s adjustments to society.

If I ask about ‘what is the child and what is the society that we are trying to create through common world pedagogies?’, even though these ideas are not necessarily thought through and hidden in most of these kind of neoliberal pedagogies, [through a neoliberal lens] we would say (and this is what the [ELF] framework says) that we’re trying to create “strong, competent children, in their uniqueness, capable children, self-actualized, well-adjusted within society, a society that works toward individual rights and liberal competencies”. And then in the way in which these pedagogies are practiced, the methods that are used, are: 
-observations of individual children meeting competencies; 
-activities that keep children occupied; 
-play as something that young children do, and also 
-the management of the children through 'health and guidance' 

This, specifically, is what concerns me.

So what does this mean for us? In taking her concerns seriously, as co-founder of the Common Worlds Research Collective and framework, we might want to reflect on the impetus behind doing things that we easily attach to ‘common worlding’ in centres. For example, when taking children to Haro Woods have we stopped to consider: How to do this in a way that resists instrumentalizing the forest as cure for so-called ‘modern deficits’ in children?  Such as going to the forest “because it is inherently good for children, for their eco-social development, to burn energy, etc.” How do we attend to children’s forest relations in ways that do not abandon or white-wash histories of colonization that removed Chekonein (Lekwungen and WSANEC) children and families from these lands in the first place? Alongside honouring joy and excitement often associated with ‘going to the forest’, have we stopped to consider what is required of us, as educators and pedagogists, to go to the forest (and/or other places) in ways that invite reconsiderations of: What kind of human does the forest (world) need? How might we experiment with children to meet with our responsibilities, the politics of place, relations still yet-in-the-making, and entanglements that continue to influence ideas and shape material realities of who can grow in the forest/who can visit/who is excluded (questions about who we imagine ‘belongs’? Who doesn’t? Whose connections to place are historicized or located in the past? Whose relations are understood as ongoing?).

Throughout the rest of the presentation, Veronica moves through 4 different ‘Acts’, sharing facets of her childhood experiences growing up under state dictatorship in Argentina. In so doing, she delves deeper into  power and deeply political framings behind the development of common worlding as a framework and educational approach. In the Q & A she responds to a question from a webinar participant, Dana (in Vancouver), about the depoliticization of common worlding  [37:58]  continuing to try to explain her concerns, saying:

Part of this is what happens in a capitalist space and it is constantly appropriating…I don’t know if it’s unavoidable when education today is about maintaining the status quo...In general, what concerns me is that: we continue to think that all pedagogy(ies) are outside of political aims, outside of political intents. And I don’t think early childhood educators do it because they have bad intentions or anything like that. But I think part of it is: we forget why we are in education. We forget about the political project of subject formation that takes place. That the goal of when we take common worlding pedagogies – or, when we engage in nature education or stewardship/environmental pedagogies - is about maintaining the status quo, maintaining nature/culture divides, maintaining humancentric notions of the world, and so on and so forth.

Thanks again everyone for such deep engagement with the concepts and methods on Friday. Lots to think with as we continue working together! Always.

Hello everyone,

I came across a passage from Deborah Bird Rose (2022), in her last book Shimmer, that might be helpful as many of you continue to draft, refine, re-create ethos statements for your centres. Shimmer focuses on “the majestic worlds of flying fox bats (with wingspans of over 2 meters/6 feet wide!)” [who have persecuted and face extinction after being] declared enemies of settler expansion” in Australia. But the book is equally about love, care, ethics, connectivity, responsibilities, and interspecies mutualism that make life possible – many of the same considerations going into the crafting of your ethos statements.

Writing an ethos statement can be especially difficult if we lose sight of what the word ‘ethos’ means (specifically, within the context of UVic CCS:)). In the most basic of terms, writing an ethos statement involves writing a clear, concise statement about what you – as a team – stand for and what makes your room distinct (commitments, guiding philosophy, approach). It will not be perfect (nothing is). It does not have to encompass EVERYTHING. But it does have to be understandable. Something you can see yourselves in and be able to speak to with families and others who visit your space. Simply put, an ethos statement is ‘aspirational’, something to aspire and point to that describes the pedagogical approach taken within your rooms, as Nina said yesterday in conversation with Crystal in Willow Tree Place. Our ethos statement has to say: “Here we believe (or are committed to)  ______.  And this is how we do it.”

With a focus on bats, love, ethics, life, death, and multispecies worlding, Deborah Bird Rose defines the word ‘ethos’ below.

Ethos: In the context of care, I will be using the term ‘world’ while focusing primarily on individual flying-foxes. The idea that nothing comes without its world defines the term world as a lifeway drawn from the conjunction of body, self and environment, along with the subjectivity that holds it all together. When creatures share their type of body, mode of selfhood, environments and cultures patterns of a biocultural matrix. Such a matrix can be understood as an ‘ethos’ (plural éthea). (Rose, 2022, p. 9)

Bringing this back to what ‘ethos’ means within early childhood education at UVic CCS, we might say…

In the context of child care, we use the word ‘worlding’ while focusing on the way children meet with others (plants, animals, insects, weather, materials, technologies, land forms) within the broader question of what it means to learn to live well together, in each unique centre’s setting. The idea that ‘nothing comes without its world’ defines the term world as a lifeway created through the confluence (entanglement or interdepencies) of bodies, selves, environments, and subjects or citizens who are capable of holding it all together. When children learn to share space through their own types of bodies, modes of selfhood, family and cultural connections, environments – as part of a CCS centre – we can see patterns of each centre’s ‘biocultural matrix’ emerge. For example, “at Cedar Place we value _________, and because of that we do ________ in practice.” Such a matrix – or interweave between educators and children, pedagogy and practice – can be understood as a centre’s ‘ethos in action’.

The term (ethos) comes from old Greek, where it meant things like character or way of life, but also custom, and customary practices and places. Although not widely used today, the term retains a place in anthropology where the focus is on humans: ‘A people’s ethos is the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood; it is the underlying attitude toward themselves and their world that life reflects. An ethos is what makes a group of ‘kind’ distinct, and this distinctiveness takes many different, but interwoven, bio-cultural forms…An ethos is an embodied way of life; a way of reproducing, of forming social groups. It is everything that together constitutes a distinctive ‘way of being’. (my emphasis, Rose, 2022, pp. 9-10)

Best,

Narda

ps

For those interested, here’s a link to short (17 min) podcast for those interested in hearing more on ‘shimmer’ and flying foxes…

Deborah Bird Rose, Shimmer:

https://soundcloud.com/user-965353504/shimmer

You just have to pay attention and then know that you are privileged to have a glimpse of something that takes you to the heart of reality. That’s what shimmer is. And that’s what I want to say multispecies relationships – in their mutualism, in their beauty, in their commitment, in their intergenerational work – offer us. These flashes, these glimpses into a shimmering world because power flows through it. Deborah Bird Rose (in conversation with Thom van Dooren, September 26, 2018 )

Chinese New Year is like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter all rolled into one…It’s all about food and family for two weeks.” Daniel Low (in Arrais, Times Colonist, 2024), Wong Sheung Kung Fu Club, Victoria, BC

Chinese New Year is a time to feast and to visit family members. Many traditions of the season [honour] relatives who have died. The last event of the 15-day celebration is the Lantern Festival. People often hang glowing lanterns in temples or carry them during a nighttime parade. (Britannicakids.com)

Celebrating the Lunar New Year with food, family and lion dances

 

Communities and governments will work in partnership to affirm children as citizens who are valued members of their communities and contributors to their societies. Adults will work to ensure a space where pride of languages and cultures are cultivated, and in which children can take up social and traditional responsibilities. As part of their efforts to understand, value, and accept responsibility for promoting early learning, all levels of government and all communities will work together to nurture and support children and families, and to support parents, grandparents, and other family members in their efforts to promote children's learning and overall well-being. (BC ELF, 2019, pp. 12-13).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[W]hen you ask people to think about what it means to be human and our relationships with our plant and animal relatives in lands and waters, there’s like a leap that people have to take.

The first leap is always an affective leap—it feels so good to be outside, it feels so good to be listening to birds and watching the waves. All of that is important but it doesn’t help us to answer these larger questions of how do we understand territory, how do we understand migration, how do we understand our responsibilities to one another, how do we understand our stories, and how do we live our stories. So, the second leap is socio-political and temporal…

Walking is really powerful for lots of reasons. And walking along with reading land I don’t think is sufficient. I think it gets us to some of the affective spaces, but not necessarily spaces of reimagining, or remembering, or creation. The story part is vitally important and we have to ask who are we storying with, and what are we storying, and what are we storying towards. It’s not just about telling a story. It’s about the purpose, and the lived relations, and the *axiological dimensions. (Ananda Marin in Bang, Marin, Wemigwase, Nayak, & Nxumalo, 2022, pp. 158-159)

Reference:

Bang, M., Marin, A., Wemigwase, S., Nayak, P., & Nxumalo, F. (2022). Undoing human supremacy and white supremacy to transform relationships: An interview with Megan Bang and Ananda Marin. Curriculum Inquiry, 52:2, 150-161, DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2022.2052635

*From Google: What is the meaning of axiology in education?

Taking Good Care

I stopped to watch a flying insect walking on the ground. One of the children noticed and watched with me. I wondered aloud what the bug was doing. Why wasn’t it flying? Bugs usually fly away when we get close to them. The child replied, “I think his wings are wet.” I agreed and said that a lot of insects can’t fly if their wings are wet. We watched the bug walk across the ground and attempt to climb some blades of grass. I asked the child what kind of bug he thought it was. He told me it was a wasp. I responded that I wasn’t sure because wasps have a lot of yellow stripes, and this one doesn’t. He thought for a moment and said, “maybe it’s a bee.” We didn’t want him to get stepped on, so the child decided we should move the bee. I told him that I didn’t want to pick the bee up with my hand because I didn’t know if it was a stinging bee, so he suggested using a stick. We turned to look for a stick or a longer wood chip, but when we turned back, the bee was gone. We looked around the area, but we couldn’t find him. I said that his wings must have dried so he could fly away because he should be easy to find if he had walked away. After searching a minute more, the child agreed with me and went to play.

I believe that in learning how to care for our more-than-human relations we learn to care for each other. If we believe that the bee is worthy of care and attention, wouldn’t it make sense that the same would apply to a peer? If we are required to care for each other, why are we not required to care as deeply for our more-than-human relations?

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) reminds us how young children often use personal pronouns (he/she/they) for everything. They offer “intention and compassion – until we teach them not to” (p. 57). As we get older, living things are reduced to being an “it” which allows us to reframe them as being somehow less than, and not worthy of the same care. “Saying it makes a living land into ‘natural resources.’ If a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice” (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 57).

Many Indigenous languages are verb-based, which means that things are described by their relationship to other things, or by their use (Styres, 2011). With noun-based languages (such as English) we are able to create an objectification of things that we should be in relationship with. When we do not have the context of how we are in relationship with the things around us, we are able to deny the interconnectedness of the land, our more-than-human relations, and ourselves (Styres, 2011).

As a part of our living inquiries in the BC Early Learning Framework (2019) we are invited to explore pathways involving social responsibility and how we are connected to everything around us. It states that “learning is not an individual act, but happens in relationship with people, materials, and place” (p. 67). To be in relationship with a place, we should consider the Indigenous definition of land and place as put forth by Anja Kanngieser and Zoe Todd (2020). They tell us that in Indigenous philosophy land is not just a physical place, but also an abstract space as it is “conceptual, experiential, relational, and embodied” (p. 386).

When we consider our more-than-human relations (both plants and animals) living on and with the land, how can we be separate from them? We can’t. Whether you look at it from a settler or Indigenous viewpoint, we rely on the land for everything. The land and our more-than-human relations feed and clothe us. If we do not have ground cover like “weeds,” the soil will eventually erode or become infertile (Frick & Johnson, 2002). We will be unable to grow food. If we do not have the pollinators, like our friend the bee, both edible plants and “weeds” will be unable to grow. This is why it is so important to teach the children in our care to live with the land and our more-than-human relations in a good way. To take good care.

References

British Columbia Ministry of Education, Ministry of Children and Family Development, and Ministry of Health. (2019). British Columbia Early Learning Framework. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/early-learning/teach/earlylearning/early_learning_framework.pdf

Frick, B. & Johnson, E. (2002). Weeds – When are they a good thing? Organic agriculture centre of Canada, faculty of agriculture. https://www.dal.ca/faculty/agriculture/oacc/en-home/resources/pest-management/weed-management/organic-weed-mgmt-resources/weeds-good.html

Kanngieser, A. & Todd, Z. (2020). From environmental case study to environmental kin study. History and Theory, 59(3), 385-393. https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12166

Kimmerer, R. W. (2013) Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.

Styres, S. D. (2011). Land as first teacher: A philosophical journeying. Reflective Practice, 12(6), 717-731. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2011.601083