Proceedings of the 8th International Academic Conference on Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Early Childhood Education: Listening to A Child’s Voices Through A/R/Tographic Journey
Mengkai Zhang
ABSTRACT:
I explored a transformative pedagogical experience through an a/r/tographic lens. While teaching at a spring camp in Vancouver, I interacted with a 7-year-old child named Max (pseudonym), who imaginatively perceived car tires as living entities with secret lives. Max’s vivid storytelling and serious explanation of the “tire kingdom” profoundly impacted me. When I a/r/tographically walked with him, I felt like his student, and he was my supervisor, taking me into the “field” for living inquiry. Additionally, this encounter sparked my own childhood memories, leading me to create illustrations inspired by Max’s inquiry. I aim to submit these illustrations to a related exhibition and publish them as a picture book, emphasizing the importance of children’s voices, and trying to impact more people through child-led perspective. Through this experience, Max and I navigated the intertwined roles of artist, researcher, and teacher/learner, reflecting on the holistic and immersive learning process fostered by A/r/tography. The interaction highlights the significance of listening to and validating children’s ideas, ultimately enriching our understanding of the world — Children can engage in self-shaping, and at the same time, they can reverse-shape us.
keywords: a/r/tography; child-led perspective; living inquiry; picture book; story as research