Wrestling with “Will to Truth” in Early Childhood Education: Cracking Spaces for Multiplicity and Complexity Through Poetry

Abstract

This article intends to provoke ongoing conversations in the early childhood education context about “will to truth,” which Glenda MacNaughton regards as the intent to know and determine the “normal” and “preferred” ways to think, act, and feel as early childhood educators. The pervading existence of will to truth amplifies concerns over fixed and determined ways to think and act as early childhood educators because “truth” and systems of power are closely linked to one another. To honour complexity and fluidity in thinking and acting as early childhood educators, the author argues for moving beyond will to truth and offers poetic practice as one possibility to reinvent habitual understandings.