Witnessing the Tensions
The following artifacts work to illustrate my interpretations of the tensions inherent in early childhood education. Tensions as in what is produced as we navigate and make meaning of the truths, perspectives, ideologies informing our worldviews. In other words, confronting the embedded assumption of our historical-cultural and societal beliefs in respect to education, the feminine/maternal, education/care, gender, class and race (Ahmed, 2016; Ailwood, 2008; Kern, 2019).
Within my paper, I work to illustrate how these performative gender assumptions impose Eurocentric truths that silence, divide and marginalize women (Bernstein, 2011; Kennan, 2017).
My poem was written while I was visiting UBC in the spring of 2022. As the words, ideas and sensations converged, I attempted to knit them together using words in the hopes of illustrating my visceral response. That is to say, my sense of utter overwhelm in recognizing the ways the systems and structures of capitalism, and colonialism, have remained firmly in place (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2015; Rajabali, 2018).
The PowerPoint presentation offers a glimpse of my physical experiences of place, whilst home in the Kootenays. During an on-campus place-based literacy course, I made a quick trip back home and revisited a space I often walk with my dog. My intention was to be in this place, to pay attention, and notice the erased, buried and forgotten stories that are most certainly layered on the land (Bloomart & Maly, 2016; Ingold & Lee, 2016; Styres, 2018).
artifact one
Paper: A Critical Review of Caroline Pratt’s Pedagogical Practice and Contribution in Early Childhood Education (July, 2021)
Witnessing the Threads
The Family Tree(s) is an exemplar of how I have lived with and in relationship to my environments, and of the stories inspired by the trees in my life. It shows how ‘things’ have agency and shape who we are, and how we live in the world (Bennet, 2010; Ellis, 2020).
Unravelling ECE: The tensions, knots and entanglements is a paper I wrote as I was in the midst of exploring the creation of what will be, UBC’s first early childhood education student led journal. This paper enabled me to (re)work how I envision ECE leadership and educator futurities in other pedagogical projects. It was an opportunity for me to begin experimenting with academic writing, creativity, along with problematizing, what is or could be, leadership, mentorship and education with/in early childhood?
The non-innocence of knitting recounts childhood memories, relationships and the complexities of living well with and in place (Styres, 2018; Truman, 2019). Ruby the Rottweiler is never far away, and makes a cameo appearance in the background of this audio, in her own special way 🙂
artifact two
Paper: Unravelling Early Childhood Education: The Tensions, Knots and Entanglements (December, 2022)
Witnessing the Knots
My intention for writing (Re)Storying my ideas from home, was to explore autoethnography, and experiment with meaning making through narrative, through a process of examining my social and cultural position and subjectivity within a particular Canadian context (Ellis, 2020). Witnessing the unravelling, metaphorically enables me to notice how identity, language and meaning making converge to create complex tapestries understanding self with/in our shared worlds (Kress, 1997; Leavy, 2020; Powell & Roswell, 2020).
The paper titled, Critical Pedagogical Intervention was written in response to, and in the midst of academic/professional identity crisis. This event unseated my sense of self; it caused me to question who I was as an educator, and what, if anything I had to offer ECED. I embraced it as an opportunity to work out how I was thinking pedagogy, alongside critique; as an intervention in and of itself this paper was timely for me; as it allowed for a deep dive into the here and now of my life, and to confront how ‘events’ impacted our identity, values and beliefs (Ahmed, 2016; Kennan, 2017; Malone et al., 2020).
I don’t not believe I am alone in this, and in fact see my moment of crisis as representative of many women in ECE, who have dedicated their lives, work and passion to the betterment of children with/in their childhoods (Apple et al. 2022; Jones et al., 2019; Malone et al. 2020; Todd, 2001).
The YouTube video is a reflective and contemplative piece; it refers also to this time ‘of crisis’ in my career/journey. It was recorded in the fall of 2022, at a time, ironically—that I was suffering greatly from laryngitis. The very act of talking was a challenge, and I found myself quite literally fighting for my voice. This event invites me to reflect deeply and to continue to ask, what is needed now, and what will my next steps be?