Unkowledging with children

Joining children in a space of unknowing and discovery

Welcome!

This page is dedicated to unknowledging, which I understand as supporting work that honors the unknown in children’s daily lives, and to receiving and being open to children’s knowledge. My name is Teresa K. Aslanian. I have spent time with children pretty much all my life, as many of us have, and have worked in Norwegian early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers for 15 years- mostly as an assistant, and later as preschool teacher and kindergarten director. Since 2018 I have been in academia and am currently Professor of Pedagogy at the University of South-Eastern Norway. There are so many agendas at work in the field, that I have found it necessary to carve a space for what I believe is important for children’s happiness in ECEC. Below is my little manifesto, and below that again, a list of forthcoming projects and a growing library of published work by myself and others relating to unknowledging. I hope this site can contribute to the many small but meaningful ‘watering holes’ scattered about the field of education research that nurture what animates everyday life in ECEC.

An unknowledging manifesto

I aim, from this day forward, through my work as an ECEC researcher and early childhood teacher educator to support children’s flourishing as human beings through engaging in unknowledging practices with children, ECEC educators, and other ECEC stakeholders.

For me, unknowledging takes precedence over knowledge. Knowledge can free when it is desired and attained, but when it is assigned and instilled, it can inhibit and even maim.  However, in so far as knowledge is necessary to explain the need to unknowledge, or to provide a foundation of security from which to unknowledge, knowledge is helpful. In these cases, I will try to convey knowledge as an understood state of affairs within a particular state of affairs, rather than a description of a particular truth or self-sustaining state of affairs.

Unknowledging with children offers a space for human nature to expand beyond and outside of the one-way street currently being paved, signposted and lit for children and early childhood educators by individuals claiming to know why children, as humans, live and die, thus knowing what children need to know in order to live, then die.   

Contrary to the unspoken belief that ECEC educators and stakeholders know why children live and will eventually die, which is inherent in outcomes-based ECEC curricula, through unknowledging I acknowledge that I do not know, but that I care. I know that children are human beings that live and that will die, and I care that they live and that they will die. But I don’t know why or how they come to live or die. By taking this basic shared unknowing as starting point*, I allow the space that is children’s lives to remain open to them and their untaught and unknown knowledge during their first and most expansive and absorbent years of life. Unknowledging makes room for children’s immensity- for silence, imagination, joy, ideas, learning, pain, playing, making and knowing.

Unknowledging with children acknowledges and builds upon our common unknowing regarding how or why we live and die, while also remaining open to it, and in turn and simultaneously joyously, nervously, excitedly or lovingly meeting the unknown, together. Unknowledging together with children and the world reveals the ever-new and surprising life in and power of connections and interconnections. What we don’t know must be more than what we know.

I don’t believe there is any danger of too much unknowledging with children.

 

What might unknowledging look like? It could look like listening to children, partnering with children, exploring with children- without knowing. Anything can be done, – or not done- but it must be done without an ulterior motive. It is the doing with that is valued in unknowledging with children. Doing, or not doing, without knowing, together. Knowing we don’t know, but want to know more, together.

*Inspired by Fredrich Froebel The Education of Man

Forthcoming publications

Philosopher Halvor Kvandal Halvor Kvandal – Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge and I are developing the concept of unknowledging. We presented on the concept at USN’s Dannings konferanse Utfyllende program Danningskonferansen_med abstracts.pdf. A theoretical article is in the works, and an empirical study is planned for this Fall. Halvor also produces the podcast ‘Mellom tro og vitenskap’ (‘Between faith and science’) Mellom tro og vitenskap – Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge .

Skriftserie/Scholarly series: Småsaker/ Minor Issues

Johanne Ilje Lien Johanne Ilje-Lien – OsloMet and I, in collaboration with our research groups BLEST from OsloMet BLEST – sustainability, play, aesthetics and technology – OsloMet and BarneKraft from USN Minor Issues in Early Childhood Education and Care – Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge are developing an open access bi-annual scholarly series publishing multi-modal work about the spontaneous life in ECEC by children, practitioners and researchers to be published by Cappelen Damm. More information coming soon!

A growing library of unknowledging

A small group of children dressed in raincoats and boots play with rainwater using plastic shovels, cups, boats and pail.

“Time’s as long as it takes”

Child, aged four

from Jacqui Cousins’ ‘Listening to four-year-olds’.

Adlibris Bokhandel

Thank you for reading! The unknowledging library is still growing- I welcome suggestions- contact: tea@usn.no

All content and photos copyright Teresa K. Aslanian