Abstract
This chapter explores the mattering of science and art creativities for futuremaking education through the transnational project Naming the world: Enhancing early years literacy and sustainability learning. Set in the context of the new geological age of the Anthropocene, the project was informed by posthuman and new materialist theorising, and the proliferation of ways these have been applied in early years learning. It is based on the belief that children of the Anthropocene will grow into a different future than the one we now know, so we need to learn with them and from them, in their everyday worlds. Through researching in collaboration with these children Naming the world seeks new ways of being, knowing and doing, and emergent creative pedagogies for future-making education. It troubles power politics and policy by transforming the power dynamics between university and practitioner researchers and through engaging with young children as a source of knowledge production and decision making. The project was implemented in two phases: in the first phase university researchers collaborated with young children (0–5 years), through a process of deep hanging out. In the second phase children and educator researchers developed creative pedagogies in response. The chapter outlines the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of Phase 1, in “posthuman” and “new materialist approaches”, and Despret’s “curious practice”. The difficult transition in between is explored as a liminal space of unknowing, a necessary space to enable transformative practices to emerge. The chapter also explores the emergent creative pedagogies that came into being through one of the projects from Phase 2: What can we see outside? (Becoming Bird Project). Through this project, new configurings emerged when Australian Indigenous ecophilosophies came into play, emphasising the necessity of emergence from unknowing for future-making education.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Why Science and Art Creativities Matter: (Re-)Configuring STEAM for Future-making Education |
Editors | Pamela Burnard, Laura Colucci-Gray |
Place of Publication | Netherlands |
Publisher | Brill |
Pages | 35-51 |
Number of pages | 17 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789004421585 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789004396111 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Keywords
- science
- arts
- study and teaching
- creative teaching
- early childhood education