Sounds of Life and Concern: Echoing Through Lively Storytelling in Early Childhood Education
Abstract
This paper emerges from the journey of a group of early childhood educators seeking to reconnect with land in meaningful and ethical ways. Reorienting from humancentric views, the authors explore “lively storytelling” to bring attention to overlooked stories and create alternative ways of being and thinking. We are called into new relations and ecological entanglements through a sensitive and responsive attunement to the soundscapes of Lynn Creek and Hastings Creek in Vancouver and Bow River in Calgary. Our engagement encompasses a posthumanist framework while weaving interdisciplinary studies in environmental humanities, materiality, and architecture to encourage generative inquiries and dialogue in early childhood classrooms and communities.
Downloads
Metrics
References
Blaise, M., Hamm, C., & Iorio, J. M. (2017). Modest witness(ing) and lively stories: Paying attention to matters of concern in early childhood. Pedagogy, Culture, & Society, 25(1), 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2016.1208265
Duhn, I. (2012). Places for pedagogies, pedagogies for places. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 13(2), 99–107. https://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.99
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2024). Bow River. https://www.britannica.com/place/Bow-River
Gilmurray, J. (2016). Sounding the alarm: An introduction to ecological sound art. Marking the 70th anniversary of ICTM and 20th anniversary of CES Folk Slovenia. Music, Sound, and Ecology, 52(2), 71–84. https://doi.org/10.4312/mz.52.2.71-84
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kind, S. (2010). Art encounters: Movements in the visual arts and early childhood education. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw (Ed.), Flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 113–132). Peter Lang.
Latour, B. (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30(2), 225–248. https://doi.org/10.1086/421123
LynnValleyLife. (2016, December 22). Hastings Creek kept clean by dedicated crew. https://lynnvalleylife.com/blog/hastings-creek-kept-clean-dedicated-crew/
Newton, B. (2006, February 6). Bow River. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Updated July 18, 2016. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bow-river
Nxumalo, F. (2018). Stories for living on a damaged planet: Environmental education in a preschool classroom. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 16(2), 148–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X17715499
Nxumalo, F., & Villanueva, M. T. (2020). (Re) storying water: Decolonial pedagogies of relational affect with young children. In B. Dernikos, N. Lesko, S. D. McCall, & A. Niccolini (Eds.), Mapping the affective turn in education: Theory, research, and pedagogy (pp. 209–228). Routledge.
Taylor, A. (2013). Rousseau’s legacy: Figuring nature’s child. In A. Taylor (Ed.), Reconfiguring the natures of childhood (pp. 3–16). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203582046
Taylor, A. (2017). Beyond stewardship: Common world pedagogies for the Anthropocene. Environmental Education Research, 23(10), 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452
Tuck, E., & McKenzie, M. (2015). Relational validity and the “where” of inquiry: Place and land in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(7), 633–638. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414563809
Tuck, E., McKenzie, M., & McCoy, K. (2014). Land education: Indigenous, post-colonial, and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research. Environmental Education Research, 20(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2013.877708
van Dooren, T. (2014). Flight ways: Life and loss at the edge of extinction. Columbia University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/van-16618
van Groll, N. (2020). Through the kaleidoscope: A common worlds attunement to lively child place relationships. [Master’s thesis, University of British Columbia]. University of British Columbia Open Collections. https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0389813
Vintimilla, C. D. (2019). What is pedagogy? Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory. https://www.earlychildhoodcollaboratory.net/what-is-pedagogy
Wallace, J. N. B. (2019). Listening to climate change: Integrating awareness & acceptance through a more-than-human music [Master’s final project]. Carleton University Institutional Repository. https://repository.library.carleton.ca/concern/etds/sb3979135
Weldemariam, K. (2020) Learning with vital materialities: Weather assemblage pedagogies in early childhood education. Environmental Education Research 26(7), 935–949. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2020.1761300
Copyright (c) 2024 Veronica Ibanez, Karen Tadokoro, Shuxiao (Sheena) Li, Long Hei (Icy) Sze
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to the Journal of Childhood Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.