Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child: Time for Slow Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education (Contesting Early Childhood)

Product Information

You can also find out more about the Froebel Trust funded Falkirk project, led by Donna Green - supporting practitioners implementing slow pedagogy in their settings. A core reader for the module: Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child: time for slow pedagogies in early childhood education (Clark, A.) is due to be published by Routledge in late 2022/early 2023 in the Contesting Early Childhood series. This book is built around interviews with 20 researchers and educators from 11 countries. These interviews and supporting articles add an extra international dimension to the module.

Week beginning 27th April 2020 I plan to post a summary of the discussion so far followed by an introduction to the third article.Like Mari Pettersvold, I was curious about Orr’s choice of the word “knowledge” rather than “information” when describing what we are swimming / drowning in right now. Are the decontextualized bits and bytes that flood our eyes and ears really knowledge? Or does knowledge have to be constructed, and can we only lay claim to it if we are somehow changed – i.e., when I truly come to know something, I think and do and notice differently, but information can accumulate and swirl about, undermining engagement, fooling me into believing I know something. Students write a 2,000-word essay in which students will critically discuss: what would be your key points in developing different relationships with time in ELC in the future? There are some other interesting theoretical ideas I want to connect the idea of slow knowledge to- firstly the idea of “ethico-onto-epistem-ology- an appreciation of the intertwining of ethics, knowing and being” (Barad, 2007, p.185). That stood out for me, interesting too because Barad is coming from her work in physics with this thinking. This has implications for our methodologies as researchers and also really confirms for me my positionality within the posthuman frame. I am guided by scholars like Braidotti (2018) here. I am happy in that gang, it feels right. Orr speaks to academics in particular, and there is much here that is applicable to my work in the discipline of higher education, and universities as knowledge institutions in teaching, research and community engagement. Orr refers to universities as generators of ‘fast knowledge’. Certainly the way in which the focus is increasingly on quantifiable research outputs and impact and assesable learning outcomes supports this view. And yet, that there is so much resistance to this way of being (and the books I mentioned are good examples) gives me hope.

The webinar draws on the findings of the international research study funded by the Froebel Trust: Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried child carried out by Professor Alison Clark. This module should appeal to a diverse range of students (including international students) with an interest in exploring alternative narratives in education and in ECEC in particular. A wide range of themes about slow practices will be covered across the age range of early childhood. Each session can be linked to an online resource bank of related journal articles that can be updated as new relevant research is published. Find out more about Alison Clark's research ' Slow knowledge and the unhurried child' in our Froebel Trust online research library. You can also find out more about the Froebel Trust funded Falkirk project, led by Donna Green - supporting practitioners implementing slow pedagogy in their settings. This is the first of three articles that you are invited to read and comment – over the next 6 weeks

About the Series

I am put in mind of John Grey’s comments about ‘progress’, where he says that while there has been much progress in science and technology, it is not matched by progress in politics and ethics. Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child is divided in three parts. Part 1, Reasons to be slow, looks at the pressures in Early Childhood Education and Care to speed up and for children to be ‘readied’ for the next stage. The book then explores different relationships with time for young children and educators. Part2, Slow pedagogies and practices, explore some of the forms slow practices can take including outdoors, in the studio, in everyday routines, through stories, in pedagogical documentation and in ‘slow’ research. Part 3, Moving forward, shows what a ‘timefull’ approach to ECEC can look like, whilst debating the challenges and possibilities that exist.