What Animates Place for Children? A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Drawing on comparative work in primary schools in East Anglia (United Kingdom), Oaxaca (Mexico), and the North Slope of Alaska (United States), we explore what children mean when they say places are "special" to them. Focusing on information gathered during walks designed and guided by these children, we examine the experiential, affective, communicative, and dynamic bases of relationality between children and their surroundings. We set out how effective curriculum design can productively incorporate such knowledge. [child cartography, relationality, animation, environmental learning] In a recent article, Irvine and Lee consider how "play, exploration, and narrative imaginary" underpin the ways in which young East Anglian children talked to them about the significance of their "special places" (2018, 1). The present paper draws on that East Anglian material, bringing it into comparison with the experiences and conversations of young people from Oaxaca, Mexico, and the North Slope of Alaska, USA. By doing so, we expand several key concepts in that article. How do we understand children's engagement with their landscapes as "relational"? How might notions of "animation" broaden our understanding of such engagement? What role does materiality play in the enlivening process? And how might these understandings support a curriculum design that takes the existing specialized knowledge of its students seriously? Recent research demonstrates a significant decrease in the amount of time that children spend outdoors, a diminished knowledge of wildlife, and a sense of disconnect with "nature" (e.g., Hillman 2006;Karsten 2005;Malone 2007; Waite et al. 2016). Our research turns this on its head, exploring what in fact connects children to their surroundings across cultures. Here we suggest that "relationality" and "animation" as modes for understanding child/place assemblages support a nuanced comprehension of the continuing importance of taking into account what Ingold (2000) calls "dwelling places" for children's senses of being/identity.If we as anthropologists and educationalists understand better how place becomes meaningful to children, we can contribute to curricula designed more effectively to engage young people's curiosity and intellect through this connection. We argue the relational way in which places become animated for children emphasizes the need-in anthropology as well as in education-to recognize cultural specificity even as we see commonalities threading their way across our study sites. This, in turn, points to the need to take children's unique experiences seriously. Recognizing this aligns with current efforts to decolonize the curriculum, especially as it destabilizes a Eurocentric take on "powerful knowledge." Ardoin makes a strong case for the need to see senses of place (or place itself) as being multidimensional with sociocultural, political, economic, psychological, and biophysical dimensions (2006). And indeed, we find that the notion of place is highly

New pedagogy through philosophy in early childhood

“…Sınıf ortamının ötesinde insan ve insan olmayanlarla ilişkilerin başkalaşması çocukların canlılığa bakışına dair yeni çalışmalarda dikkat çekmektedir. Deneysel, bilişsel, etkisel, iletişimsel ve hepsinden öte dinamik yöntemlerin gerekliliğini vurgulayan çalışmaların birinde, bütün bu yöntemlerin ancak sınıf ortamının sınırlarının ötesinde olanaklı olduğunu belirtilmektedir (Bodenhorn ve Lee, 2022). Mekân ve zaman faktörünün etkisi küçük yaş gruplarıyla gerçekleştirilen etkinlikler açısından oldukça önem taşımakta, çünkü erken çocukluk döneminde ilgisi hızla değişen çocuklar, öğrenmeyi günün her anı farklı alanlarda sürdürmekte.…”