Running With Hermes: Imagining and Traversing a Transcultural Curriculum Path in the Postsecondary Early Childhood Education Classroom

Abstract

While running on a forest path, we imagined the Greek god Hermes flying alongside and interrupting our progress. Similar to navigating alternative routes while running with Hermes, the immigrant educators interviewed for Carolyn Bjartveit’s doctoral study veered from a single curriculum course and playfully exchanged and challenged cultural and Western ideals about pedagogy and childcare. Drawing on the work of early childhood education (ECE) scholars and the research participants’ lived experiences, we critically consider how wild dreams, imaginings, and hermeneutic ideas about play may contribute to our understanding of a transcultural curriculum that acknowledges diversity and difference.

A Conceptual Model of Children’s Rights and Community-Based Values to Promote Social Justice Through Early Childhood Curriculum Frameworks

“…Moreover, educators themselves can employ and encourage children to use diverse and inclusive language, such as "people first" language, whereby putting people before their circumstances (e.g., referring to "a person who is living with diabetes" as opposed to "a diabetic person" or a "family living in poverty" as opposed to a "poor family"); "gender neutral" language (e.g., referring to "firefighters" rather than "firemen"); and "nonheterosexist" language (e.g., referring to one's "partner" rather than one's "husband," "wife," "girlfriend," or "boyfriend"). Exploring philosophies around play through a "transcultural curriculum," for example, may help to facilitate these processes and create spaces to celebrate diversity within early learning centres and classrooms (Bjartveit & Panayotidis, 2015). Immense diversity exists in individual and group characteristics (e.g., race, language, ideas, opinions), but recognizing the "contexts of diversity and the diversity of contexts … [facilitates] an appreciation of how sociocultural diversity interacts with diversity in ecological contexts within which individuals live" (Trickett, 1996, p. 218).…”