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Shadows and Tracings: thinking through poetry
Shadows and Tracings snow reveals tracks tracks reveal possibilities possibilities reveal stories shadowy stories of humans and nonhumans that have crossed time and space wonderings and wanderings moments fleeting what tracks go unnoticed when snow no longer reveals shadowy presence remembering and forgetting stories untold erasing, rooting following, leading, walking, crawling, slithering, running, leaping away from and towards paths converging and pulling apart snow reveals tracks who/what walk(ed) these places? waiting watching listening what might the presence and absence of tracks reveal being neither (a)lone nor lone(ly) Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2017) reminds us that speculative inquiry “pushes the boundary of acceptable” (p. 73), while Val Plumwood (2002) writes…
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Trees of Life
A colleague this week reminded me of being a child. She reminded me to think about how I learned about trees as a young girl in school. She remembered learning about trees in a way that was all about what the tree does for us humans. She suggested it was a silly example of thinking about how we centre children and, by extension, the rest of humanity. I was reminded about how I was taught about trees and it was similar to her experience. Trees give US life. Trees give off oxygen for US to breathe; they remove CO2 from the air WE breathe. They clear pollutants for US to…
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The Spider Web
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Snow Monkeys?!?
As one child began to look for the snow monkeys we wondered where this came from. Of course, we can never be fully sure, but the guess is that it began with the vines that are intertwined throughout the forest space, tangled around and across the trees (both the living and the dead). The vines are called monkey vines. But one particular walk there was a lot of snow that clung to the trees and vines, and when you shook them the snow fell and hit our faces, bodies, and the ground. Perhaps the movements of hands, limbs (human and nonhuman) and snow together storied the mythical snow monkey. Perhaps…
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Back to the Forest….
Today we welcomed back the research team after a long break for the holidays. A lot had changed while they were gone, and we were all feeling very excited to jump back in and start up our investigations again. While they were gone we still re-visited some of the ideas that we were exploring with charcoal and paper during our morning meetings, and we still went to the forest as often as we could, but there’s something energizing about their presence. On our first trip back to the forest with Carrie, we went to a part of the forest some of us had never visited before. Immediately I noticed connections…
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Paths
Seeing tracks on the ground from animals and others. Making our own tracks in the snow. Noticing and following tracks and paths of tree branches and vines twining through the snow. Trying to follow an auditory track of a bird we hear in the trees but cannot see. Using landmarks like the school, the path, to find our path out of the forest. Looking at a path as a route or course that tracks movement. We see this in charcoal works, in the concentrated energies in some places, then the trickle-out effect where marks and energy are less dense but still there. Following animal tracks that will presumably lead us…
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Tracks in the Snow
Poems continue to inspire thought – Wanderings and Wonderings Snow reveals the passing tracks of those that have come before us, if only for a brief moment But I wonder what other tracks go unnoticed when snow is not there to remind us Following, leading, erasing Walking, crawling, slithering, running, leaping Away from and towards Paths converging and pulling apart Prints in the snow How many other humans AND nonhumans have stood where I stand Neither alone nor lonely Waiting watching listening Who/what has walked these place before What might these tracks tell us about the presences of others Being and belonging in a multispecies world “Poetry shuts out the…
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Invasion of the Charcoal!
How can such a tiny piece of black charcoal create such angst and yet generate moments of clarity? As the toddler room begins its exploration with paper and charcoal we notice: markings, movements, mess, and at times mayhem! But within the tension of exploring how footprints-bodies-charcoal-papers become entangled, something unexpected emerges! Paper transforms, charcoal bits and pieces transform, tracing transforms, and human relations with charcoal transform. As Shelley and I reflect on the happenings of the past couple of days we sit with the uncomfortable feeling that charcoal is not welcome in the classroom. But we are not abandoning our contentious relationship. Instead we zoom in with great focus. EDGES!…
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Improvisation with charcoal & paper
Laura and I sit at a table with paper and charcoal and a small group of children. Laura notices a large dark scribbly drawing that had previously been made. She says, “This reminds me of a dark forest. Who want to meet me at the forest?” The children and educators use their charcoal to draw paths to the dark forest. They meet and gather there. They begin to find spiders and bats in the forest. They leave and come back several times. Some are hesitant to return but are encouraged to visit again. Their desire to meet others keeps them coming back.
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Witnessing Ruins of Progress: Recuperating “Staying with the Trouble”
Our pedagogy is guided by a devoted commitment to the aspiration of noticing and the active and ever shifting process of paying attention. We are committed to an aspiration, as opposed to a tangible goal or outcome, because it signals our willingness to engage with the only true constants our world offers us: uncertainty and mutability. In this extended moment of history, our world (the children’s world) is characterized by ecological and economic precarity, one that educational systems too often try to soothe by fostering illusions of stasis and stability. We are committed to bringing this essential instability of our surroundings to the surface of educational encounters with the children.…
