Everything is Pedagogy

In Season 4, Episode 2. this episode is called Pedagogy, Lately... and it is a car recording after a conference. I reflect on topics such as how bias shows up in our work, the role of pedagogical documentation, my thoughts on teacher research and curriculum planning, the role of tools like protocols and parallel practice. Join me on the quest within the questions! Intro/ Outro Music by <a href=...

Welcome and/or welcome back! Check out this short episode for an introduction to Season 4 and the thinking behind the name change. Intro/ Outro Music by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/lnplusmusic-47631836/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=416544">Andrii Poradovskyi</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/musi...

How would you describe pedagogical leadership? What does the daily experience of pedagogical leadership look like and feel like? While our guiding documents and emerging literature attempts to define this role, there is so much value in exploring how pedagogical leaders describe and document their work. This episode aims to capture some raw thoughts and descriptions of pedagogical leadership - in...

This episode was recorded on a walk home, where I ponder how we could shift our understanding of pedagogy towards a study of subtle systems and relations? What would that conceptualization invite of us? Join me as I ponder this question in this first episode of season 3. Support the show

Why do we document? How do we document? What do we document? When do we document? When does documentation become pedagogical? What activates pedagogical documentation?  What about pedagogy inherently documents? What routines and rituals facilitate and sustain my reflective, responsive, relational documentation practice?  What are the precursors to creating stories about our practice that can revea...

I've spiralled my way back to this question with a desire to unpack why I feel some tension around the terminology of "emergent" curriculum. Is curriculum the active agent? Does it reveal itself? If so, what role do educators play in taking up the passively emerging information? How do we use our interpretations of our experiences with children to respond and expand upon their learn...

In response to questions about celebrating Halloween, I noticed an opportunity to explore why and how we celebrate in early learning communities. From thinking about relationships with families, to upholding integral rituals, to fostering cultural competency, to honouring what a seasons invites, and creating a community protocol for making decisions, this episode documents my journey of reading li...

I'm embedded within the September welcoming routines and rituals, and it's caused me to reflect on building relationships through the lens of parallel practice. As a pedagogical leader and course instructor, I wonder about the experiences  afforded to educators and students that foster or erode connection, and how these experiences mirror that which we hope children and families experien...

I've been curious about mentorship for several years, and I'm only just starting to connect my histories and futures of mentorship with the role(s) of healing, learning, and living well throughout the human experience. Wonder with me, here... Support the show

In this episode, I capture an ah-ha moment where I challenge the all-knowing assumptions of research by claiming its limitations, and instead leaning into the potential of pedagogical inquiry. I reflect on the constraints I sense as a researcher, and the freedom I can embrace within pedagogy. I briefly reflect on my graduate school research to highlight how research feels close-ended, contained an...

What does communal growth require? What questions will we pursue together? Why? And what impact do we notice our pursuits have on our community?  Support the show

From literally exploring movement across our program to being moved emotionally, and to reflecting on how movement during the spring of 2023 is very timely, this episode stretches the question "what moves us?" to its edges. The episode captures my interpretations of children and educators exploring movement and what led us to generating this question as the title for our art exhibit this...

Sometimes we are moved into shifts. And that is what happened here. In this bonus episode I discuss how, in the process of refining my values, vision, intentions, and ethos within this space, I was moved to reconsider the name of the this podcast/journey. While play is embedded within my values, I realized I required a new name that opened me towards new possibilities and propelled me to take up t...

Pauses appear to be the opposite of so many scripts we hold as a collective society. They may counteract efficiency, fail to demonstration meaningful progression towards a goal, are sometimes viewed as stagnation, and often are difficult to represent within outcome-driven agendas. Here, I offer that pause can offer possibility, and aim to describe how a pause can be extremely generative to our wel...

In this mini-episode I capture several thoughts I've had over the past several years that have led me to absolutely revere spirals as metaphors in my personal and professional life.  I'd like to give a generous shout-out to the content creators of the music in this episode.  For show notes and transcript, visit: https://playfulpedagogies.ca/2023/04/04/spiralized-experiences-what-can-the-...

Welcome to my version of "season 2" of this playful podcast. I took a long, playful, pedagogical, and personal pause and now I'm here again to revisit many of the topics discussed in the first 10 episodes. I'm excited to offer these ideas here, but even more excited to hear your thoughts on these topics... so reach out! Let's generously share our wonderings, questions, ide...

Victoria, owner of Side by Side Consulting Services , is a skilled thinking partner for early childhood educators and brings many rich experiences and wisdom to this 2-part conversation. In this episode, and part 1, we engage is an authentic, reflective, and open conversation to explore our experience with, and our ideas about young children's experiences with art, music, and dance. We discus...

Welcome back to a playful episode about play! While I intended for this episode to be about play theorists, the benefits of play, and how play and learning are interconnected, I ended up taking a walk and capturing some recent reflections from my own practice and experience about how I value and notice play, lately. Here, I share my hot takes on keeping play alive in our language and observations,...

What happens when a Human Resources manager (mom), a student teacher (middle sibling), and a grad student (eldest sibling) FaceTime for 5 minutes? Well, when it's my family, we start theorizing about inclusion. What started as a spontaneous video call, turned into a deep conversation that challenged what we thought about inclusion, and called us to rethink how we have experienced inclusion of...

This is not so much an episode but 'going public' with this piece is a growing part of my documentation practice. This 'episode' is a spoken word poem that I wrote over a year ago that marks a particular place in a learning journey. I wrote this under the mentorship of Andrea Breen during my the first semester of my graduate studies at the University of Guelph, and it captures...

In this episode, I had the great pleasure of chatting with outdoor education 'guru' Bob Henderson. As an experienced educator, guide and writer, Bob exudes wisdom when discussing of ways being with people outdoors. Through this conversation Bob and I find many not-so-surprising connections between my own experience as a student and Bob's experience as an educator, despite Bob never...

In this solo episode I reflect on my experience attending the fall conference held by the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO). I wander through reflections and realizations that I had during the conference and since, covering themes of what 'belonging' means and to whom, the limits of the English language, and my obsession with spirals. Note: this episode was recorded at the b...

In this solo episode I reflect on the fight that ECEs are in to professionalize our work and gain respect by leveraging away from being considered as glorified babysitters. I wander through wonderings about different types of care and education across time, space, and cultures, and ask questions that feel unsettling to my own identity as an ECE. Note: this episode was recorded at the beginning of...

In this solo episode, I (finally!) discuss  what play is! I challenge my own vision of play, getting along, and sharing. I also highlight other folks' knowledge, such as definitions of play, types of play, schemas of play, and rhetorics of play. This episode is rooted in early childhood education and care perspectives on play, but I make links to how this understanding can be extended lifelon...

In this solo episode, I introduce a mini-series that I intend to continue called Pondering Pathways, where I take a walk around my neighbourhood while reflecting on what is required to access play. I follow up from my questions about Treaty 3 from my first episode and then I contemplate some systemic limitations related to ability, race, socioeconomic status, and culture. I take a deep dive into s...