EARLY LEARNING CONVERSATIONS
with PARENTS & EDUCATORS
An Unswaddling Pedagogy
This kind of pedagogy introduces teachers to new conceptual and practical territories that are meant to release the tensions that define today’s Western education. If our models of education consider each individual child in his/her wholeness, as a complex being who embodies the world: environment, community, humanity, justice, fears, dreams, life stories, care, wonder, and all the rest that brings us into presence, then educators, in their practice will learn to co-imagine and co-create meanings of the world with their students. By proposing an Unswaddling Pedagogy, I seek to unswaddle the wings of educators and students alike.
Unswaddling Pedagogy is a pedagogy that welcomes and releases the creativity, imagination, and all other meaning making qualities and capacities of children. Through my work I am hoping to inspire teachers to be with young children in ways that would literally free everyone and everything involved in the relationship (children, teachers, environment, community, etc.) from activities, actions, experiences, and events that would restrict rather than encourage and guide children’s imaginative and creative ways of making meaning of the world.
I use the term “unswaddling” as a metaphor of an education that protects, feels, imagines, inspire, loves, cares, and respects the child and his/her qualities of being in the world. “Unswaddling” is not meant to signify a complete, chaotic, and unguided liberation; it rather points to a relationship of reciprocal qualitative acknowledgment of capacities and abilities of making knowledge live …
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Upcoming Talks/Workshops/Keynotes
Workshops Testimonials
I’ve attended many of Annabella’s workshops and I have never been disappointed. This most recent one was no different. Each time I am looking to attend a workshop, I am looking not just for knowledge, but for inspiration as well. That is exactly what I have found at every workshop done by this wonderful educator.
Best workshop ever! I had so much fun! I hope to go to more of your workshops.
Books
Unswaddling Pedagogy
by
Unswaddling Pedagogy is a pedagogy that welcomes and releases the creativity, imagination, and all other meaning making qualities and capacities of young children. My intention is to address pedagogy as a way of being present with the child. Through my work, I am hoping to inspire teachers to be with young children in ways that would literally free everyone and everything involved in the relationship from activities, actions, experiences, and events that would restrict rather than encourage and guide children’s imaginative and creative ways of making meaning of the world.
This book is dedicated to educators, teachers, parents, and students that believe in the immense complexity of young children.
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This original and stimulating book will make anyone reconsider what they think they know about early childhood education. Annabella Cant uses her own experience, as an individual and teacher, to bring vividly to life the experience of childhood and to show how we might better engage the imaginations of children in learning. The book outlines a new approach that challenges many of the taken-for-granted assumptions of present educational practice.
Dr Kieran Egan Ph.D.
This book has given me a new image of a child. It was one of the best textbooks I ever read through my educational life.
Behnaz – Amazon comment Nov 25, 2017
Wonder-Full Education
The Centrality of Wonder in Teaching and Learning Across the Curriculum
For many children much of the time their experience in classrooms can be rather dull, and yet the world the school is supposed to initiate children into, is full of wonder. This book offers a rich understanding of the nature and roles of wonder in general and provides multiple suggestions …
Edited by Kieran Egan, Annabella I. Cant, Gillian Judson
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In chapter ‘Wonder for sale’ Annabella Cant gives the stark contrast of where we are with motivating our students in their learning. She uses an example from the preface of a curriculum programme in Canada.
Annabella Cant believes the education system can be turned around and so presents her version of the above preface that demands teachers to look into the eyes of their students in order for the teaching to begin.
Dr Coleen R Jackson
Consultant Principal, Waverley Abbey College