Incubating ideas…
As I write this blogpost on the last day of the year, I am always fascinated about times like these - the liminal moments that sit between the years - offering a chance to pause, reflect, celebrate all that has been faced and achieved over the past 12 months. It’s also a moment in time that sits at the threshold, as we pitch our attention forward to the year ahead. For many friends and colleagues, this is a time where new year’s resolutions will be forged, goals will be set and the seeds of new initiatives can come gently out into the light. Any new intentions, like seeds, ultimately need to be nurtured and tended if they are to take root and sprout.
Image: Isobel, (5 years, 6 months)
Anne and I have a few exciting new seeds to sew in the coming months as we turn our attention towards a long-held plan to write a book together. Born from conversations over the past decade about the type of book we both wish we both had on the shelf when working with teams of teachers in different countries and contexts, we’re hoping to create a resource that supports practitioners and leaders to explore the alignment of their values, pedagogy and approaches to education in holistic, synergistic and complementary ways.
Across the past 20+ years, we have both been involved in the design, development and delivery of professional learning for educators in various national and international contexts; sometimes working together, often working apart, yet always with a similar set of values and andragogical approaches. During this time, we would load our suitcases and laptops with the necessary resources, and, over time, we both noticed that we were taking the same library of resources with us no matter what the workshop was about… why? It seemed that regardless of the assigned topic of the workshop, or where the workshop was held, teachers appeared to arrive with similar questions and tensions that needed to be unpacked and explored. When confronted with questions about the environment we would recommend a certain book or reading, and for assessment it would be another and for listening or thinking it was another, and so on.
As time went by the resources changed here and there, but largely the work we undertook with teaching teams remained the same, informed by a process of participatory professional inquiry and ongoing pedagogical curiosity. After years of curating these resource collections we came to wonder why there wasn't a resource that seemed to address all of these questions, told in a variety of voices, balanced by theory, practice and stories? We were searching for something that had broad-scale application, whilst leaving space for unique, cultural and contextual perspectives to shape the process of collaboration. During this time, we also noticed an unusual paradox, the context for early childhood education around the world can be tremendously complex, and yet strikingly homogenous at the same time. A call to action perhaps?
So, reflecting on the past year and the first stages of our research and writing process, we’re excited to continue our collaborations with teachers in the coming year - buoyed and ready to continue the writing journey in the months ahead.
Stay with us for the journey... we’ll keep you posted as we go!
“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a
bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present.
And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad.”
― C.S. Lewis
Comments
Post a Comment