Meeting Pedagogical Encounters Halfway

Spector, Karen

doi:10.1002/jaal.382

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…As the world is currently being made and unmade, the archives of our body won't escape neoliberalism altogether, but we can actively work to create spaces that intentionally try to offer something different-a space of experimentation, a space of playfulness, and a space of possibilities. As Karen Spector (2015) penned so eloquently, "I am advocating a pedagogy of relational being, which can never be boxed, or distributed, or sold" (p. 448). Fort-building pedagogy is one way to engage in this relational and revolutionary work-or a #playrevolution, if you will.…”

Section: Fort-building Pedagogy: What Happens In the Fort Stays In The Fortmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What happens in the fort, stays in the fort!”: Awakening Embodied Play Literacies through Fort Building in an Early Childhood Methods Classroom

Thiel

2021

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context Neoliberalism has both feet firmly planted in educational contexts around the globe (United States, Australia, United Kingdom). Due to the precarious nature of unstructured play and its unwillingness to fit neatly into a neoliberal framework of quality and high returns on investments, play for play's sake has taken a backseat to standards, “evidence-based” curriculums, and high-stakes testing. These changes are often justified as a way to “mind the gap” or as a way to build a quality workforce in years to come, however, there is a large body of research (including a call from the Pediatrics Association) that suggests play for play's sake is necessary for wellbeing, humanization, and learning itself. Focus of the study In this study, I considered how teachers might get reacquainted with play as a practice in early childhood methods courses through engaging in fort building pedagogy. Specifically, I consider the ways an attunement to embodied play literacies opens up possibilities beyond the commodification of schooling associated with the affective forces of neoliberalism. This essay tries to better understand the ways fort building in particular, moves bodies away from stories of neoliberalism through experimentation and playful practice. Participants and Setting The teachers represented in this study range from soon-to-be teachers to practicing teachers in undergraduate and graduate methods courses in three different university classrooms across the Southeastern United States. The events that produced this data were part of weekly face-to-face class meetings. Research design This article uses narrative writing and thinking-with-theory as a postquali-tative research approach to better understand the ways fort building as an embodied play practice can work against the affective forces of neoliberalism in educational practice. Using action research, this article analyzes the happenings that took place during fort building pedagogy in several early childhood methods courses across the span of five years and three states. Data sources included: observational fieldnotes, written reflections, videos, audio recordings, and photographs. Conclusions Analysis illustrates the importance of teachers (preservice and inservice) getting reacquainted with playful practices from their early years (such as fort building) to unearth and reawaken embodied literacies of play. These reawakenings suggest that when teachers engage in such practices, they actively begin to resist neoliberal ideations of schooling through the process of making forts collectively with peers. The article concludes that fort building is a vital practice in making way for new stories in education and in remembering why play for play's sake is important in early childhood settings.

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Section: Fort-building Pedagogy: What Happens In the Fort Stays In The Fortmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What happens in the fort, stays in the fort!”: Awakening Embodied Play Literacies through Fort Building in an Early Childhood Methods Classroom

Thiel

2021

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…It is no coincidence that a research project aiming to illuminate the material‐discursive forces (and literacies) of our world uses graphica, rather than strictly alphanumeric characters to express and present scholarly data, analysis, arguments, and implications. The materiality of reading this and other graphica texts makes something possible in the classroom that is less possible without their presence, including debates about what counts as research, what counts as reading, the ways in which different modes of texts require different ways of reading, and whether or how these teacher education students and Stephanie become something different as a result of the (pedagogical) encounter (e.g., Barad, , ; Spector, ).…”

Section: “Girlhood Deconstructed”: a Graphic Memoir As Expanding Litementioning

confidence: 99%

“…reading this and other graphica texts makes something possible in the classroom that is less possible without their presence, including debates about what counts as research, what counts as reading, the ways in which different modes of texts require different ways of reading, and whether or how these teacher education students and Stephanie become something different as a result of the (pedagogical) encounter (e.g., Barad, , 2012Spector, 2015 ). From where do I read the world?…”

Section: Feature Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

From Where Do You Read the World?

Jones¹,

Woglom²

2015

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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This article argues for the expansion of critical literacies in teacher education to include literacies offered by the material turn in social theory. A graphic memoir is used as an example of scholarship produced to engage with critical literacies as well as literacies required for a material‐discursive analysis of the social. The piece is illustrative of the deconstructive and multimodal literacies that are important to cultivate with adolescents and adults in teacher education broadly speaking and literacy teacher education more specifically. From where do you read the world, and why? Is a rich provocation for preservice and inservice teachers to contemplate forces that existed prior to their birth and continue throughout life? Supporting the acquisition of these literacies cannot only enhance one's understanding of lived experiences but can also serve as a repertoire of ways of thinking/speaking/being in more just ways in the world, in the classroom, and as a teacher.

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“…3 Pring (2000) argues that since education presents a highly complex practice, and ESD especially so, there is both a 'pull' for ready-made ESD-activities and a 'push' for sharing what is considered successful. Arguably, this creates an interest among policymakers and practitioners of finding generalisable solutions for ESD in the form of 'best practices' and 'good examples' (Biesta 2014;Spector 2015). Pring (2000), Mochizuki (2008) and Spector (2015) argue that 'best practices' present oversimplified explanations to the 'spreading' of ESD-activities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Arguably, this creates an interest among policymakers and practitioners of finding generalisable solutions for ESD in the form of 'best practices' and 'good examples' (Biesta 2014;Spector 2015). Pring (2000), Mochizuki (2008) and Spector (2015) argue that 'best practices' present oversimplified explanations to the 'spreading' of ESD-activities. There are risks of designating standardised educational proposals for diverse groups of people that may impose a universalising worldview (De Andrade and Sorrentino 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I think it works better if we have an example to help us’: experiences in collaboratively conceptualizing the scaling of education for sustainable development practices in South Africa

Mickelsson

2020

Environmental Education Research

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This article aims to contribute to the knowledge of how the 'scaling' of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities is conceptualized in practice through transactional learning encounters. In the context of the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD, I discuss the reactualisation of experiences as part of these encounters. The study is a result of data collected as part of a ReSolve participatory research workshop held in South Africa in 2016, involving researchers and practitioners with experiences of ESD-activities in the Southern African region. To identify and analyse the transactional learning encounters a practical epistemology analysis (PEA) is used. The article draws on a Deweyan theory of learning as transactional encounters, supported with a tentative conceptual framework of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning (SEAL). Throughout the study, I illustrate the transactional encounters, including the re-actualisation of participants' past experiences of ESD-activities. These encounters enabled the conceptualization of contextually relevant concepts of scaling, thus constituting an enabling condition for reflective scaling practices.

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Meeting Pedagogical Encounters Halfway

Abstract: This commentary offers a critique of literacy pedagogy that focuses solely upon a best practices approach to teaching and learning and argues for a relational pedagogy that relies upon diffractive thinking, reading, and writing.

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

“What happens in the fort, stays in the fort!”: Awakening Embodied Play Literacies through Fort Building in an Early Childhood Methods Classroom

“What happens in the fort, stays in the fort!”: Awakening Embodied Play Literacies through Fort Building in an Early Childhood Methods Classroom

From Where Do You Read the World?

‘I think it works better if we have an example to help us’: experiences in collaboratively conceptualizing the scaling of education for sustainable development practices in South Africa

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