Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:45:24.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Locating the Educator in Outdoor Early Childhood Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2018

Kate Dawson  and
A. Elizabeth Beattie
Kate Dawson
Affiliation:
Terra Nova Nature School, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
A. Elizabeth Beattie*
Affiliation:
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: A. Elizabeth Beattie, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, Vancouver Campus, 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, BCCanadaV6T 1Z4. Email: lizbeattie@alumni.ubc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We tell the story of an experience Kate Dawson, her students, and three eagles had at an outdoor preschool. The experience profoundly affected Kate, and prompted us to ask the following questions: What made this experience feel so magical, and what caused it to happen? Why are these magical moments valuable, and how might they impact our pedagogical practices? We posit that magical moments in outdoor early childhood education depend upon relational and pathic knowledge, and understanding of place, rather than intellectual or cognitive knowledge about place. We suggest conditions and practices educators may employ to foster magical moments, including slow ecopedagogy and embodied, sensory, and spiritual attunement to place. We consider our role as educators in the educator-students-place system, particularly when acknowledging that place is agentic, and acts as learner, knower and teacher. To understand place pedagogically, we must think of ourselves as learners and as the objects of learning, as much as thinking of ourselves as knowers. This requires a pedagogy of embodied responsiveness and a surrender to place as teacher. Far from simplifying the work of the educator, living within a relationship of educator-students-place complexifies the practice of teaching.

Keywords

early childhood educationplacepathic knowledgeslow ecopedagogypreservice teacher educationoutdoor teaching and learning
Type
Feature Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 34 , Special Issue 2: Ecologising Education: Storying, Philosophising and Disrupting , July 2018 , pp. 127 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnes, M. (2000). ‘Magical’ moments in mathematics: Insights into the process of coming to know. For the Learning of Mathematics, 20, 33–43. Retrieved from http://flm-journal.org/Articles/17F5B5BCAB5F0949C5D6C28190A11.pdfGoogle Scholar
Bone, J., Cullen, J., & Loveridge, J. (2007). Everyday spirituality: An aspect of the holistic curriculum in action. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 8, 344–354. http://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2007.8.4.344Google Scholar
Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., Cocking, R.R., Donovan, M.S., & Pelligrino, J.W. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (expanded ed). Washington, DC: Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning and Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice, Commission on Behavioural and Social Sciences and Education, National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Butala, S. (2010). The perfection of the morning. New York, NY: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Cranton, P. (2002). Teaching for transformation. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 93, 63–72. Retrieved from http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/liudejan/caha501/caha501/crantontft.pdfGoogle Scholar
Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (1997). Cognition, complexity, and teacher education. Harvard Educational Review, 67, 105–126. http://doi.org/10.17763/haer.67.1.160w00j113t78042Google Scholar
Dennis, S.F., Wells, A., & Bishop, C. (2014). A post-occupancy study of nature-based outdoor classrooms in early childhood education. Children, Youth and Environments, 24, 35–52.Google Scholar
Derby, M., Blenkinsop, S., Telford, J., Piersol, L., & Caulkins, M. (2013). Toward resonant, imaginative experiences in ecological and democratic education. Democracy & Education, 21, 1–6. Retrieved from http://democracyeducationjournal.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1119&context=homeGoogle Scholar
Duhn, I. (2012). Places for pedagogies, pedagogies for places. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 13, 99–107. http://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.99Google Scholar
Elliot, E., Eycke, K.T., Chan, S., & Müller, U. (2014). Taking kindergartners outdoors: Documenting their explorations and assessing the impact on their ecological awareness. Children, Youth and Environments, 24, 102–122.Google Scholar
Ernst, J., & Tornabene, L. (2012). Preservice early childhood educators’ perceptions of outdoor settings as learning environments. Environmental Education Research, 18, 643–664. http://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2011.640749Google Scholar
Greenwood, D.A. (2013). A critical theory of place-conscious education. In Stevenson, R.B., Brody, M., Dillon, J., & Wals, A.E.J. (Eds.), International handbook of research on environmental education (pp. 93–100). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Inwood, H., & Jagger, S. (2014). Deepening environmental education in pre-service education resource. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto. Retrieved from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ese/UserFiles/File/DEEPERGuide2014.pdfGoogle Scholar
Jardine, D.W. (1998). Birding lessons and the teachings of cicadas. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 3, 92–99.Google Scholar
Kimmerer, R.W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous knowledge, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.Google Scholar
Kopnina, H., & Cherniak, B. (2016). Neoliberalism and justice in education for sustainable development: A call for inclusive pluralism. Environmental Education Research, 22, 827–841. http://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2016.1149550Google Scholar
Leopold, A. (1966). A Sand County Almanac: With essays on conservation from Round River. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lloro-Bidart, T. (2016). A feminist posthumanist political ecology of education for theorizing human-animal relations/relationships. Environmental Education Research, 23, 111–130. http://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2015.1135419Google Scholar
Lowan-Trudeau, G. (2013). Indigenous environmental education research in North America. A brief review. In Stevenson, R.B., Brody, M., Dillon, J., & Wals, A.E.J. (Eds.), International handbook of research on environmental education (pp. 404–407). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
MacQuarrie, S., Nugent, C., & Warden, C. (2015). Learning with nature and learning from others: nature as setting and resource for early childhood education. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning Outdoor Learning, 15, 1–23. http://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2013.841095Google Scholar
Malandrakis, G. (2017). Influencing Greek pre-service teachers’ efficacy beliefs and self-confidence to implement the new ‘Studies for the Environment’ curricula. Environmental Education Research, 24, 537–563. http://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2016.1272672Google Scholar
Meadows, D.H. (2008). Thinking in systems. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.Google Scholar
Moss, P. (2014). Transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: A story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nazir, J., & Pedretti, E. (2015). Educators’ perceptions of bringing students to environmental consciousness through engaging outdoor experiences. Environmental Education Research, 22, 288–304.Google Scholar
Ormond, C., Zandvliet, D., McClaren, M., Robertson, P., Leddy, S., & Metcalfe, S. (2014). Environmental education as teacher education: Melancholic reflections from an emerging community of practice. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 19, 160–179. Retrieved from https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/view/1302/721Google Scholar
Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2012). Acting with the clock: Clocking practices in early childhood. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 13, 154–160. http://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.154Google Scholar
Palmer, P.J. (1993). To know as we are known: Education as a spiritual journey/a spirituality of education. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.Google Scholar
Payne, P.G., & Wattchow, B. (2009). Phenomenological deconstruction, slow pedagogy, and the corporeal turn in wild environmental/outdoor education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 14, 1–19.Google Scholar
Pelo, A. (2013). The goodness of rain: Developing an ecological identity in young children. Redmond, WA: Exchange Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology of the child. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Raill Jayanandhan, S. (2009). John Dewey and a pedagogy of place. Philosophical Studies in Education, 40, 104–112.Google Scholar
Rose, D.B. (2004). Reports from a wild country: Ethics for decolonisation. Sydney, Australia: UNSW Press.Google Scholar
Rose, D.B. (2007). Recursive epistemologies and an ethics of attention. In Goulet, J.-G. & Miller, B. (Eds.), Extraordinary anthropology: Transformations in the field (pp. 88–102). Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Smith, G.A. (2002). Place-based education: Learning to be where we are. Phi Delta Kappan, 83, 584–594.Google Scholar
Sobel, D. (2004). Place-based dducation: Connecting classroom and community. Nature and Listening, 4, 1–7. Retrieved from http://www.antiochne.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/pbexcerpt.pdfGoogle Scholar
Spillman, D. (2017). Coming home to place: Aboriginal lore and place-responsive pedagogy for transformative learning in Australian outdoor education. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 20, 14–24.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R.B. (2007). Schooling and environmental education: Contradictions in purpose and practice. Environmental Education Research, 13, 139–153.Google Scholar
Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2015). Learning with children, ants, and worms in the Anthropocene: towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23, 507–529. http://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050Google Scholar
Tomas, L., Girgenti, S., & Jackson, C. (2015). Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward education for sustainability and its relevance to their learning: Implications for pedagogical practice. Environmental Education Research, 23, 324–347. http://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2015.1109065Google Scholar
van Manen, M. (2007). Phenomenology of practice. Phenomenology & Practice, 1, 11–30. Retrieved from http://www.maxvanmanen.com/files/2011/04/2007-Phenomenology-of-Practice.pdfGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In Cole, M., John-Steiner, V., Scribner, S. & Souberman, E. (Eds.), Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes (pp. 79–91). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weimer, M. (2014, September 3). Those magical and mysterious learning moments. [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/magical-mysterious-learning-moments/Google Scholar
Wien, C.A., & Kirby-Smith, S. (1998). Untiming the curriculum: A case study of removing clocks from the program. Young Children, 53, 8–13.Google Scholar