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ERIC Number: EJ1157730
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1350-4622
EISSN: N/A
Thinking with Broken Glass: Making Pedagogical Spaces of Enchantment in the City
Pyyry, Noora
Environmental Education Research, v23 n10 p1391-1401 2017
In this paper, I explore thinking that happens in children's meaningful engagement with the city. To open up my argument, I discuss two events during which children are caught up in "intra-active" play with things and spaces. I argue that this mode of being joyfully engaged with one's surroundings is key to what Jane Bennett (2001) calls "enchantment." This experience can be described as a sudden moment of wonder-at-the-world: it is an inspiring event, of being moved by something. It is a disruption that can open up new reflection. Because enchantment is highly affectual, it deepens one's engagement with the world: it fosters "dwelling with." By this, I refer to making a home for oneself in the world, with the world. I approach this engagement and thinking with an acknowledgement of the capacity of the material and non-human world to provoke effects in human bodies: things and spaces thus take part in meaningful everyday encounters that make "dwelling with" possible. This more-than-human understanding allows for alternative ways of conceptualizing learning. Clean-cut categorizations such as "learner", "urban", "nature", and so on become problematic, and learning is re-conceptualized as an ongoing, non-linear and rhizomatic event in which knowing and being are always tied together. While playing, children are open to the unexpected: they are dwelling with the city and take part in creating new "pedagogical spaces of enchantment."
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A