KEYNOTE ADDRESS:
“Use your W.O.R.D.S.!” But what about ours?
An in-depth, collective analysis of the ubiquitous phrase and its rhizomatic ramifications on children, relationships, and pedagogy. The presentation will shake up some of our pedagogical practices that are ritualized and sometimes… quite trite. It will focus on our responsibility toward children to consider and accept them as complex beings that are making meaning of the world in quite unique ways. Annabella, inspired by her research in Imaginative Education, will talk about ways to engage with young children that might have an “unswaddling effect”. Her passion for creating obstacles to the body-mind-disconnect direction in education will transpire and will be experienced by the audience in immersive ways. She will share her experience with learning a new language: American Sign Language.
1. Communications without spoken words
Somatic understanding in infants and non-verbal children
This workshop will invite educators into the beautiful world of communication where words are not essential. Annabella will share her research in Imaginative Education and particularly the meaning-making tools of Somatic Understanding to demonstrate how imperative it is not to confuse communication with spoken language. She will create an environment of encounters where the participants will be able to see the world through the eyes of those who don’t need sound words to communicate. She will even share some basic American Sign Language that she uses with both verbal and non-verbal children. After this workshop, participants will leave with a treasure box of different perspectives and more confidence in being inclusive educators, ready for the uniqueness of all children.
2. Making Sense of the World Through Imagination
Imagination has been seen as a nuisance and even an enemy of education for a long time. Annabella will share with participants the latest research about the role of imagination in education and will introduce them to the Theory of Imaginative Education. During this interactive workshop, she will demonstrate the application of several strategies that will transform conventional ideas about teaching and learning in early childhood, into innovative ones. There will be dance, music, rhythm, and many smiles. The workshop will engage with the new Early Learning Framework (2019) and will interpret its main principles of practice.
Objectives:
- Participants will be introduced to the Theory of Imaginative Education.
- Explore how to apply cognitive tools to our practice.
- Become familiar with Annabella’s framework of unswaddling pedagogy.
3. Being with American Sign Language
An Imaginative Education approach to learning ASL and Introducing it to young
children
Series of three 4-hr workshops
Introducing ASL to all young children is beneficial for a myriad of reasons. First, let’s imagine how hearing people take for granted the fact that they enter a room and understand what is being said and understand themselves when they communicate. Imagine now entering a room where not only that the language is foreign, but people start taking distance from us due to our inability to understand them. Now, imagine that everyone involved speaks a common language that not only allows everyone to be included but also supports the development of skills that are extremely necessary to be in this world. Some of us are loud, some of us are silent, some are active, some prefer calm, some like eye contact, some avoid it, some start speaking early, some need more time to be confident… but all of us have deep emotions, bodies that like music, movement, and rhythm and minds that love to imagine, tell and listen to stories, and wonder about this world.
This workshop series will introduce participants to the idea of starting to learn ASL through the lenses of the theories of Imaginative Education and Unswaddling Pedagogy. Children learn through embodiment, through their senses, emotions, rhythms, curiosity, wonder, metaphors, etc. Dr. Annabella Cant, an ASL learner herself, introduce imaginative “cognitive tools” that are very familiar to educators. She will engage the participants holistically, through song, movement, play, emotion, humour, and imagination. The participants will learn important facts about inclusion, about how to stay respectful toward the deaf community, and how to approach this new language in an ethical way. Besides following the two theoretical lenses mentioned above, she will introduce sources where participants can learn ASL from Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing teachers; she is presently learning from one of her favourite online educators: Dr. Bill Vicars who organizes his ASL lectures according to frequency of use instead of topics and themes. The workshop series will also approach all the principles of the BC Early Learning Framework.
- Workshop 1: Introduction, positionality, theory, history of ASL, communication to parents about ASL; reflecting on own hearing privilege and how it might shape the approach to learning ASL; considering ASL not just a linguistic entity but a complex cultural and political identity; the historical impact of oralism;
- Workshop 2: Where and how to find courses and lessons that are designed and taught by Deaf educators; where to learn the basics; The “missed work”; avoiding the deficit lens;
- Workshop 3: How Imaginative Education can support your learning as educators; Stories, Rhythms, transitions, and games. Adapt Imaginative Education praxis to emphasize visual storytelling, signed rhythms, and movement-based games.
4. Being ready for the uniqueness of each child
Imaginative Education cognitive tools that will support an inclusive lens
The workshop will invite educators to reflect upon some of the emotional, ethical, and theoretical realities of inclusion. It will convey to participants “cognitive tools” of Imaginative Education that will support educators in navigating the beautiful diversity of children. These cognitive tools are extremely accessible, familiar, and within the grasp of all educators. One of the central themes of the workshop is the profound role of the interrelation between educators, children, families, and the pedagogical environment. Annabella will create an atmosphere of joy by conveying profound ideas in a lighthearted way.
5. Unswaddling Pedagogy
How to be with young children in ways that acknowledge their strengths and celebrate their differences.
In very practical, joyful, playful ways, the workshop will engage with the concepts and practices of swaddling, unswaddling and non-swaddling pedagogies, bringing into the attention of the audience the pivotal role of early education in the designs of life. The presentation will also focus on the “missing beginnings”- the reasons why there is a globally present disconnect between early education and school education. Dr. Annabella Cant will share findings from her research in order to motivate the audience to think with the concepts and better understand the privilege of working with young children. She will continue the conversation on the introduced concepts in and will share two examples of swaddling pedagogies: the “Moulding” one and the “Not-yet” one. Also, she will introduce the theory and practice of Imaginative Education – a pedagogy that she considers close to being unswaddling – together with her own contributions to it, contributions that emphasize the period at the beginning of life: 0 to 5. Participants will get a glimpse of children’s genuine capacity for openness and wonder by feeling it themselves. Annabella will remind her participants how to be joyful, playful, and open, and why these states of mind provoke deep and long-lasting learning in children.
6. Wonder-full Education
ECCE and the importance of the sense of wonder in children and…educators.
Wonder is a natural endowment that is palpable in early childhood, transparent in school-aged children and invisible in adults. Wonder is a special kaleidoscopic lens that helps us be astonished, surprised, touched and emotionally engaged. The ability to feel, see and provoke wonder should be one of the main didactic competencies of EC educators. Most successful educational theories employ the infusion of wonder into their philosophy.
This workshop demonstrates to teachers the importance of wonder in ECE. Through multiple hands-on activities, games and group tasks, participants will be shown strategies that help keep wonder alive in children and fortify this innate foundation of childhood against later social and cultural strains. Participating in this workshop will help educators be able to see the “wonders” of the usual and erase the dangers of routinized teaching.
7. Divergent Thinking and Imaginative Education
This workshop will engage with the topic of divergent thinking capacities and with approaches that foster these abilities both in children and teachers. Annabella will engage the audience in a self-reflective journey first, then in a series of experiences and experiments that will demonstrate the existence of the sometimes-unknown competencies that we hold and how to practice them in ECCE. The workshop will also introduce some of the “cognitive tools” of Imaginative Education – a theory and practice that generates joyful education. The atmosphere of Annabella’s workshops is full of hope, movement, joy, and playfulness.
8. How imagination can inform inclusion (strategies for inclusive ECCE)
Inclusion is a difficult concept and an even more difficult reality. Early childhood educators do struggle with “applying”, “adapting”, and “designing” inclusion in their classrooms. Sometimes this struggle comes from feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and lack of self-confidence. These feelings are fueled by the lack of time, lack of resources, and mostly… stress.
This workshop/presentation will walk the participants though a multitude of practical and theoretical aspects of inclusion that will try to shift some of the usual misconceptions and fears around this complex aspect of the ECCE everyday pedagogy. Annabella will introduce the participants to the theory if Imaginative Education and will demonstrate and invite the audience to practice, along with her, some of the applications of the somatic cognitive tools. These tools will help teachers see inclusion in a new way.
Be ready to move, create rhythms, build some tools and have a lot of fun!
Objectives:
- Participants will be introduced to the Theory of Imaginative Education.
- Explore how to apply cognitive tools to our practice.
- Become familiar with Annabella’s framework of unswaddling pedagogy.
9. The six hearts of ECCE – based on my keynote at ECEBC
Annabella will share many lessons she has learned from children as an educator and from her students as a university professor. She will disclose to the world that our field has six hearts and will describe each of them through a new lens she calls “Unswaddling Pedagogy.” Her dynamic talk will invite everyone to participate whole-bodily and to reflect wholeheartedly on early childhood education. Be ready to be unswaddled!
10. The Magic of natural materials – For Fall (Oct-Dec)
This workshop will take the participants on a journey of rediscovery. Annabella will present some historical and current advantages to using natural materials in ECCE. Also, she will introduce participants to the Somatic Understanding – a layer of meaning-making that involves the child whole bodily. She will invite you into a world of magic and creativity that will provoke new ideas regarding the use of old materials. All senses will be opened to nature and the group will be researching the tiniest details of the earth’s beauty around us. Annabella will also share the core metaphor of her research: an Unswaddling Pedagogy. A way of being, within the pedagogical relationship, that will never shut down the complexities of children’s competencies.
11. A Composition of Wonder
Exploration of Sound, Music and Movement (with Violet Jessen)
The sense of wonder is one of the most natural and present abilities of all children. The power to explore the world using all senses should always be cherished and fully utilized in childcare centers, as the BC Early Learning Framework suggests. Our workshop will engage with the sense of hearing and the power of sound as a learning tool. Sound is a pedagogical material that, even if untouchable, is always present. Children feel, see, and acknowledge sound in a multitude of ways. Through conversation and hands-on provocations, we hope to uncover questions and make discoveries through experiments with sound, music and movement applying multiple mediums both conventional and unusual. Each participant will walk away with pedagogical materials that can be used immediately.
Suitable for all early learning and child care professionals
Violet and Annabella will share a multitude of active strategies that involve children’s senses. This workshop will engage with sound, movement, and light – a recapitulation of workshops that the presenters created on topics that cannot be “touched”. Be ready to move, dance, feel, create, and have fun!
12. Unswaddling your Facilitation and Presentation Skills (with Ewa Boss)
Every time we enter a class full of children, the magical backpack that contains our experiences, lessons, and challenges, becomes fuller and richer. That backpack is ours and yet, we always feel ready to share its contents with other educators. This pedagogical altruism is the yarn that our profession is weaved with. Sharing ideas can happen instantly, or in hallways, or, in a more intentional setting: through a workshop. Most of us feel more comfortable talking to children than to other adults. This workshop is dedicated to educators and teachers who need that extra “purse” full of strategies and tips about how to approach adult audiences. Annabella will share the story of how she was suddenly thrown into the world of “workshopping” and what she learned along the way. She will fill your imaginary purse with active and humorous strategies that will support you to become, or to enrich your role as, a workshop facilitator.