Teacher body(ing) kindergarten space(s) -an arts-based pedagogical development project for kindergarten teachers

Abstract

This article builds on an arts-based pedagogical development project where a kindergarten educator and a somatic dance teacher have created and conducted dance-workshops for kindergarten teachers, aiming at developing bodily professional knowledge through dance. The research is carried out from a post-human perspective (Barad, Karen, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), moving past the divide of theory and practice (Lenz Taguchi, Going Beyond the Theory/Practice Divide in Early Childhood Education. Introducing an Intra-Active Pedagogy. New York: Routledge, 2010). Methodically the project is placed within performative research (Haseman, Brad, ‘A Manifesto for Performative Research.’ Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy: Quarterly Journal of Media Research and Resources 118 (1): 98–106, 2006) with a creative view on knowledge production and the researcher positioned on the inside of the research. When asking how kindergarten teachers’ understandings of their professional practice moves through this project, the answers are presented as (1) Descriptions from the actual dance workshops, and (2) Analysis of three mo(ve)ments: (1) Bodily-relational learning, (2) Material and spatial learning and (3) Emotional and affective learning, concluding that it is about time to re-body-think early childhood care and education and the kindergarten teachers’ professional knowledge as profoundly bodily.