{"id":544,"date":"2020-11-06T20:54:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T20:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/?page_id=544"},"modified":"2020-11-06T22:24:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T22:24:56","slug":"manifesto","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/manifesto\/","title":{"rendered":"Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Our pedagogy is guided by\u00a0a devoted commitment to the aspiration of noticing and the active and\u00a0ever shifting process of paying attention.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0In this extended moment of history,\u00a0our world (the children\u2019s world) is characterized by\u00a0ecological and economic\u00a0precarity,\u00a0one that educational systems\u00a0too often try to soothe\u00a0by fostering\u00a0illusions of stasis and stability.\u00a0\u00a0We are committed to bringing this essential\u00a0instability of our surroundings\u00a0to the surface\u00a0of educational encounters with the children.\u00a0 In doing so we (children and educators alike) become more aware and sensitive to the entanglements comprising our world.\u00a0 Such a world ceases to\u00a0conform to\u00a0the\u00a0prescribed flatness of linearity, predictability and\u00a0monotony.\u00a0\u00a0We instead become alive to the possibility, vibrancy, and, also precarity, of a dynamic world that is ever in flux.\u00a0 This\u00a0goal\u00a0must always remain\u00a0an\u00a0aspiration\u00a0however,\u00a0one\u00a0guided by the humble awareness that we can never hope to fully know\u00a0or understand everything our world\u00a0offers.\u00a0 Modesty, not mastery,\u00a0guides our inquiries.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Witnessing the ruins of progress:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

The Pedagogy of Process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our pedagogical emphasis on processes of noticing and paying attention requires a complementary methodological commitment.\u00a0 Foremost, our pedagogical aspiration is deeply invested in illuminating the hidden processes around us.\u00a0 As educators, we seek to guide the children\u2019s learning by intensifying and concentrating their focus by engaging deeply with the experiential dimension of process.\u00a0 Through guided engagement with meaningful and intentional forms of process children may begin to perceive the broader dimensions of external processes reflected within their own practice.\u00a0 The educational emphasis on process is informed by a commitment to fostering qualities of creativity, reflexivity, collectivity and resiliency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Relationality, Materiality and Intentionality <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The foundation of our process-based pedagogy is comprised of the intersecting emphases on relations, intentions and materials. The relations between the human and the more than human world are all to often obscured in educational contexts.  We are committed to rendering these relations visible, audible, comprehensible, even tangible for the children of the centre.  In doing so, we promote a collective, multitudinous engagement with, and appreciation of, the precarious complexity that characterizes the delicate balance of our ecosystem.  Such engagement requires an immersive and reflective involvement with the materials that comprise our world.  Linking our social relations with materials (natural and otherwise) offers context to an otherwise decontextualized society, while helping children see through nature-culture divisions. In doing so, we must actively resist the cult of individuality undergirding child-centred pedagogies and with it, the neoliberal cultivation of consumer subjectivity.  Children must be guided into process through shared, collective experience so that their interpersonal interdependency comes to reflect our wider ecological interconnectedness.  This requires clear, meaningful intentions.  The children must engage in processes that move beyond neoliberal goals of productivity and consumption by formulating intentions that will allow them to pursue their curiosity in ways that will not always yield productive outcomes, but in ways that will ultimately allow them to build their competence while pursuing their curiosity in purposeful ways. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Forest for the Trees <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the forest behind the centre has been our central source of shared inspiration.\u00a0 Our regular encounters with the forest, and the many disparate materials contained in it, remind us that there are no clear divides between nature and culture. Each foray into the wooded area offers unexpected mergers between the natural and human constructed spheres, revealing to us that there are no exclusively cultural and natural spaces, only the comingled space that Donna Haraway calls \u201cnaturecultures.\u201d\u00a0 The story of the forest itself seems to embody this very concept in that it is a human construction designed to fabricate a containable backdrop of nature for the recently, and rapidly, developed subdivision whose sudden population growth has also contributed to the emergence of this very centre. The abandoned wagon wheels and farm implements found in our excursions into the forest remind us of farm fields that once existed, created and tended to for generations by settler-colonials after replacing the indigenous people who lived on the same land.\u00a0 The forest then looms for us acts as a perpetual reminder of the constant volatility, vulnerability and interdependency characterizing naturecultures.\u00a0 It reminds us also to acknowledge that processes (often unseen) link all things and beings together.\u00a0 Western neoliberal values have persistently and consistently obscured this essential connectivity, tantamount to diverting our focus to the proverbial isolated trees. The centre\u2019s process oriented pedagogy resituates our attention back to the wholeness of the forest, figuratively as well as literally.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our pedagogy is guided by\u00a0a devoted commitment to the aspiration of noticing and the active and\u00a0ever shifting process of paying attention.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0In this extended moment of history,\u00a0our world (the children\u2019s world) is characterized by\u00a0ecological and economic\u00a0precarity,\u00a0one that educational systems\u00a0too often try to soothe\u00a0by fostering\u00a0illusions of stasis and stability.\u00a0\u00a0We are committed to bringing this essential\u00a0instability of our surroundings\u00a0to the surface\u00a0of educational encounters with the children.\u00a0 In doing so we (children and educators alike) become more aware and sensitive to the entanglements comprising our world.\u00a0 Such a world ceases to\u00a0conform to\u00a0the\u00a0prescribed flatness of linearity, predictability and\u00a0monotony.\u00a0\u00a0We instead become alive to the possibility, vibrancy, and, also precarity, of a dynamic world that is ever in flux.\u00a0 This\u00a0goal\u00a0must always remain\u00a0an\u00a0aspiration\u00a0however,\u00a0one\u00a0guided by the humble awareness that we can never hope to fully know\u00a0or understand everything our world\u00a0offers.\u00a0 Modesty, not mastery,\u00a0guides our inquiries.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Witnessing the ruins of progress:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Pedagogy of Process Our pedagogical emphasis on processes of noticing and paying attention requires a complementary methodological commitment.\u00a0 Foremost, our pedagogical aspiration is deeply invested in illuminating the hidden processes around us.\u00a0 As educators, we seek to guide the children\u2019s learning by intensifying and concentrating their focus by engaging deeply with the experiential dimension of process.\u00a0 Through guided engagement with meaningful and intentional forms of process children may begin to perceive the broader dimensions of external processes reflected within their own practice.\u00a0 The educational emphasis on process is informed by a commitment to fostering qualities of creativity, reflexivity, collectivity and resiliency. Relationality, Materiality and Intentionality  The foundation of our process-based pedagogy is comprised of the intersecting emphases on relations, intentions and materials. The relations between the human and the more than human world are all to often obscured in educational contexts.  We are committed to rendering these relations visible, audible, comprehensible, even tangible for the children of the centre.  In doing so, we promote a collective, multitudinous engagement with, and appreciation of, the precarious complexity that characterizes the delicate balance of our ecosystem.  Such engagement requires an immersive and reflective involvement with the materials that comprise our world.  Linking our social relations with materials (natural and otherwise) offers context to an otherwise decontextualized society, while helping children see through nature-culture divisions. In doing so, we must actively resist the cult of individuality undergirding child-centred pedagogies and with it, the neoliberal cultivation of consumer subjectivity.  Children must be guided into process through shared, collective experience so that their interpersonal interdependency comes to reflect our wider ecological interconnectedness.  This requires clear, meaningful intentions.  The children must engage in processes that move beyond neoliberal goals of productivity and consumption by formulating intentions that will allow them to pursue their curiosity in ways that will not always yield productive outcomes, but in ways that will ultimately allow them to build their competence while pursuing their curiosity in purposeful ways.  The Forest for the Trees  Finally, the forest behind the centre has been our central source of shared inspiration.\u00a0 Our regular encounters with the forest, and the many disparate materials contained in it, remind us that there are no clear divides between nature and culture. Each foray into the wooded area offers unexpected mergers between the natural and human constructed spheres, revealing to us that there are no exclusively cultural and natural spaces, only the comingled space that Donna Haraway calls \u201cnaturecultures.\u201d\u00a0 The story of the forest itself seems to embody this very concept in that it is a human construction designed to fabricate a containable backdrop of nature for the recently, and rapidly, developed subdivision whose sudden population growth has also contributed to the emergence of this very centre. The abandoned wagon wheels and farm implements found in our excursions into the forest remind us of farm fields that once existed, created and tended to for generations by settler-colonials after replacing the indigenous people who lived on the same land.\u00a0 The forest then looms for us acts as a perpetual reminder of the constant volatility, vulnerability and interdependency characterizing naturecultures.\u00a0 It reminds us also to acknowledge that processes (often unseen) link all things and beings together.\u00a0 Western neoliberal values have persistently and consistently obscured this essential connectivity, tantamount to diverting our focus to the proverbial isolated trees. The centre\u2019s process oriented pedagogy resituates our attention back to the wholeness of the forest, figuratively as well as literally.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-544","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644,"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/544\/revisions\/644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/witnessingruinsofprogress.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}