Haideh Hashemi Nouri

Pedagogical Commitments:

As an ECPN pedagogist working on the unceded lands of Coast Salish, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam peoples, I recognize education as a political project with ethical obligations to others (place, time, and all beings). Inspired by the BC Early Learning Framework (ELF; Government of British Columbia, 2019) that asks us to learn to live well together,I walk alongside educators to create conditions for transformation in early childhood education and beyond. Thinking with reconceptualist theorists, we collectively explore possibilities toward a more inclusive and equitable practice. We pay attention to discourses that reduce diversity in the name of education and development. Listening to multiple voices, we make pedagogical choices in response to the context of the program in which the educators work. To make education a site for a more livable world for all (Vintimilla et al., 2020), we take seriously the obligation to consider diverse ways of being and knowing.

To create ethical spaces for inclusion and equity, we attend to children’s curiosities and wonderings through everyday experiences, and we engage in dialogue to cocreate a curriculum that responds to the specific program context. For example, during classroom visits, meetings, and learning circles, we engage in reflective dialogues, pedagogical narration, and living inquiries—“processes of thinking and learning that happen as children, educators, materials, and ideas interconnect” (Government of British Columbia, 2019, p. 63). Reflective dialoguehelps us consider and understand other perspectives and possibilities. Pedagogical narrations are the stories of our daily experiences that enable us—pedagogists, children, educators, and families—to revisit experiences, linger with them, and reflect on what we were thinking at the time. We discuss what was noticed, what was left behind, whose ideas were privileged, whose voice must be heard, and what matters that can be generated and regenerated.

To include other ways of thinking and being in this process, we open ourselves to new ideas; we experiment and make pedagogical choices that generate thoughtful actions and enliven the curriculum. The surprising events and inquiries connect us together. We collectively wonder and rethink our relations and actions to cocreate a curriculum that brings joy in being together within an inclusive and equitable project called education.