Everything is Pedagogy
Welcome to the Everything is Pedagogy podcast: Imprints of Inquiry, Possibilities for Play, the Pursuit of Questions, and Provocations for Living. This podcast, formerly known as Pursuing Questions and The Playful Podcast, is for those cultivating an ethos towards mutual flourishing, healing, learning and living well throughout the human experience. This is a passion project and the views represented here are my own. My name is Kim Barton (she/her), I am a RECE with an MSc, working as a pedagogical leader in Guelph (2 rivers) on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenossaune, and Attawandaran peoples, and the treaty lands of Mississaugas of the Credit. Part of my responsibility as a guest on these lands is to ensure that I visit well, to express gratitude for Indigenous perspectives needed to protect the Lands and Water, learn and unlearn how colonization impacts myself and my work, and share/receive gifts in reciprocity with all my relations.
This work is guided by 4 pedagogical orientations and 4 values:
Imprints of Inquiry: I capture traces of my learning, because I believe they are worthy of being studied, critiqued, and expanded upon. What I say here is a landmark in time; not meant to be a destination. Rather, this knowledge is meant to be interpreted within the context discussed, and to support reflective practice, collaborative inquiry, and educator research.
Possibilities for Play: I aim to cultivate a parallel practice of playfulness by "going public" with experimental ideas to seek feedback, to embrace questioning and being questioned, to practice sharing (knowledge), and to play with new ideas. Much of what I share is in a light-hearted spirit of saying "yes" to what is offered my way, and responding as best I can with a playful intention.
The Pursuit of Questions: I desire to be guided by questions more than answers; by uncertainty more than solutions; by limerence more than destinations; and by the in-between more than the outcome. I am nurturing a process for designing powerful, magical questions to sustain lifelong inquiry.
Provocations for Living: I take up longitudinal inquiries across a wide range of concepts, dispositions, and ideas. What I share is meant to be generative, to activate possibility and life itself by provoking, expanding, and spiralling back to that which is most compelling within a pursuit.
Values:
Curiousity: questions are my compass, over compliance, normalcy, or acceptance.
Time: I do not rush teaching or learning processes, tasks, or people
Creativity: I construct generative offerings of material - new and old.
Reciprocity: I make knowledge accessible in the spirit of mutual flourishing.
You can find out more by checking out my website (https://playfulpedagogies.wordpress.com/) or Instagram (@pursuingquestions) to learn more about the pedagogical companionship and facilitation services that I offer.
Everything is Pedagogy
Spiralized Experiences: What can the shape of a spiral offer us within our human experience?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this mini-episode I capture several thoughts I've had over the past several years that have led me to absolutely revere spirals as metaphors in my personal and professional life.
I'd like to give a generous shout-out to the content creators of the music in this episode.
For show notes and transcript, visit: https://playfulpedagogies.ca/2023/04/04/spiralized-experiences-what-can-the-shape-of-a-spiral-offer-us-within-our-human-experience/
Welcome to the Playful podcast, where we discuss lifelong learning and leisure by lingering at the intersection of recreation, education, and occupation. I'm your host, Kim Barton. Welcome to the journey. I'm excited to play and learn along with you. So if you haven't noticed, I've rebranded my podcast a little bit, and in one of my recent episodes I'll be talking about why I've moved towards. The title Playful podcast and in this episode I'm shedding some light on the new design, which includes many as spirals. Spirals have become quite the meaningful metaphor in my life as well, both personally and professionally. And so in this little snippet, I just share a brief little bit of insight as to why I think they're relevant to early learning and how we can think about spirals in a very generative way. So without further ado, here you go.
I think in Western society we have this idea that cycles and growth are somehow. Antonyms or opposite? But the fascinating thing about life is that it all happens in cycles. If you look at the structure of. Growth. It often actually happens in a spiralized fashion. And certainly in a nonlinear way. And so we're not doing ourselves service. By thinking that the metaphor of a cycle or a spiral is always something that we're caught in or that we're. We're regressing in. I think that. The most learning happens when we revisit experiences and when we act out the same patterns over and over again. The only way to find movement is to find ourselves in those moments, time and time again, and incrementally. Have the conditions to try something slightly different and different. Isn't the opposite of a spiral either, because once again. Difference and change often happens by ...like picture an unfurling leaf, or the cap of a wave, or a tornado or the horns on on. Animals, like the strongest structures in nature do include spirals and it's also such a natural shape so. Can we change our perspective that experiencing a cycle is is somehow limiting or stunting us, when really I think it's the exact opposite? The other thing. I want to mention is I think we have this. Connotation of spirals with like a downward spiral or being caught in the cycle. But I think spirals represent so many different things they represent. The value of of returning and revisiting, they represent that learning and growth is never complete. It's actually infinite. It never ends. They represent the value of nonlinear wandering. And this this way of all things being in orbit. You know, wander away but also return. And then again just this this association with how we can understand the value of a shape that a spiral offers to both physically understand the world but also metaphorically understand. Some of the emotional and philosophical experiences we have.
Thanks so much for listening. You can find me on social media at playful pedagogies and as always, stay playful.