Restorying the image of the child’s body in early childhood education

Abstract

This article emerged through the author’s involvement with the University of Victoria’s Investigating Quality in Early Learning Environments project in British Columbia. During an eight-month internship, the author had the opportunity to collaborate with community facilitators in the province; participate in monthly learning-circle discussions with educators and researchers; share pedagogical narrations; connect theory to practice explicitly; and think with children’s bodily encounters. This article contributes to broader and deeper discussions about children’s bodies by placing value on reflective thought, decision-making, and action. While unpacking her own tensions of letting go of common assumptions about children’s bodies, the author considers the ethical and political implications of bodily encounters. To do this, she teases out the growing discourse of risky play and describes the value of thinking in moments of not knowing. Then, the author considers how early childhood education might restory the image of children’s bodies through conversations with other educators in a particular setting, while complexifying young bodies during a risky-play scenario of pulling loose boards onto a staircase. Through post-foundational theory, the educators and the author advocate for bodies by contesting the powers of dominant discourse and considering how bodies might search for meaning in the world. By opening space to think differently, by noticing, and by paying deep attention to the corporeal as it explores and generates truths that bring forth creative evolution, the author was taken by surprise to see what lies beyond that which she thought was possible.

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