Crowing Pedagogies
Crowing pedagogies aim to consider the uncomfortable and tense relationships that exist in child care spaces. Relationships that are filled with tear stained faces, long streams of mucous running from noses, combined with loud and seemingly unending wails. In many ways, these relationships are reminiscent of human responses to a murder of crows perched on trees, shrieking out harsh caws while more bothersome crows strew garbage over manicured lawns.
Instone (2015) suggests that crows are “good to think with” because they themselves are not cute and generally considered to be nuisances with loud, some might say, irritating cries. By their ways of being with the world, crows challenge us, Instone asserts, to think differently, to become more open, tolerant and inclusive of “difficult, as well as pleasant, others” (p. 136). Thinking with crows makes space to ask how we as educators respond to crow/children who are difficult/pleasant in spaces that we claim to be inclusive, caring spaces.
Kathleen Kummen
Photo by Sylvia Kind
