How would you describe pedagogical leadership? What does the daily experience of pedagogical leadership look like and feel like? While our guiding documents and emerging literature attempts to define this role, there is so much value in exploring how pedagogical leaders describe and document their work. This episode aims to capture some raw thoughts and descriptions of pedagogical leadership - in order to better understand it as a practice. It’s been a year since the last episode in Season 3, so what better way to kick off this season than by delving into pedagogical documentation of this leadership role? Here, I offer and explore metaphors that bring visibility to the foggy contours of an evolving role and the lived experience behind the title 'pedagogical leader.' Some of the metaphors relate to active listening, noticing, professional judgement, confidentiality, and infusing space. Tune in to hear about the highs and lows, slow growth, planes, ships, gathering, and more!

Background sound attribution:

Marble run - piano intro by tenonic -- https://freesound.org/s/725580/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 

Everybody Has a Story (pensive cello & choir) by SondreDrakensson -- https://freesound.org/s/749371/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 

Woodstock Chimes of Mars on Firebeacon Hill, near Boscastle by Philip_Goddard -- https://freesound.org/s/698495/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 

Natural Ocean Waves, Water Droplets & Bubbly Sounds by DudeAwesome -- https://freesound.org/s/386454/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

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This episode was recorded on a walk home, where I ponder how we could shift our understanding of pedagogy towards a study of subtle systems and relations? What would that conceptualization invite of us? Join me as I ponder this question in this first episode of season 3.

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Why do we document? How do we document? What do we document? When do we document? When does documentation become pedagogical? What activates pedagogical documentation?  What about pedagogy inherently documents? What routines and rituals facilitate and sustain my reflective, responsive, relational documentation practice?  What are the precursors to creating stories about our practice that can reveal and illuminate our communal thinking, children's insights, and the big picture questions we are pursuing in our community? These are just some of the questions I'll be pursuing in season 3 as I explore the use of podcasting in my pedagogical documentation practice and reflective practice journey. Join me to hear my own reflections in action, how I decide to respond to various encounters, how I reflect and capture my decision making, how I critique my own best intentions, and how I become changed by studying my own documentation over time.

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I've spiralled my way back to this question with a desire to unpack why I feel some tension around the terminology of "emergent" curriculum. Is curriculum the active agent? Does it reveal itself? If so, what role do educators play in taking up the passively emerging information? How do we use our interpretations of our experiences with children to respond and expand upon their learning? And what the heck do ukuleles have to do with this conversation?? Join me in wondering about an educator's role in offering responsive, informed, and intentional curricula.

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In response to questions about celebrating Halloween, I noticed an opportunity to explore why and how we celebrate in early learning communities. From thinking about relationships with families, to upholding integral rituals, to fostering cultural competency, to honouring what a seasons invites, and creating a community protocol for making decisions, this episode documents my journey of reading literature, taking questions to our staff meeting, and capturing our thinking.  By wandering through the joys and tensions of celebrations that pedagogy invites, this offers a series of thoughts and decisions that are merely one example of pursuing questions about celebrations within in our community.

Disclaimer: this is one version of the story that took place. As a pedagogical leader, I am in the privileged position of having paid time to reflect deeply on events that take place across our centre, and this episode is offered  from my own singular perspective on the topic. Anyone else might tell the same story very differently.

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I'm embedded within the September welcoming routines and rituals, and it's caused me to reflect on building relationships through the lens of parallel practice. As a pedagogical leader and course instructor, I wonder about the experiences  afforded to educators and students that foster or erode connection, and how these experiences mirror that which we hope children and families experience. Play along with me here if you're curious about designing experiences that support congruency between auspice, operators/administrators, educators, children, and families.

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I've been curious about mentorship for several years, and I'm only just starting to connect my histories and futures of mentorship with the role(s) of healing, learning, and living well throughout the human experience. Wonder with me, here...

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In this episode, I capture an ah-ha moment where I challenge the all-knowing assumptions of research by claiming its limitations, and instead leaning into the potential of pedagogical inquiry. I reflect on the constraints I sense as a researcher, and the freedom I can embrace within pedagogy. I briefly reflect on my graduate school research to highlight how research feels close-ended, contained and methodological (in order to be reliable and reproducible) whereas pedagogy, while still being as transparent as possible, feels more open-ended and liberating while still generating knowledge.Join me if you're up for feeling empowered as an educator-as-researcher! 

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What does communal growth require? What questions will we pursue together? Why? And what impact do we notice our pursuits have on our community? 

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From literally exploring movement across our program to being moved emotionally, and to reflecting on how movement during the spring of 2023 is very timely, this episode stretches the question "what moves us?" to its edges. The episode captures my interpretations of children and educators exploring movement and what led us to generating this question as the title for our art exhibit this year. A link to this episode was posted at the art exhibit for students, faculty, staff, and families to listen to and reflect upon. This episode is intended to model how we can seek out new understandings to everyday observations that then launch us into asking huge questions about how the world works. You might want to brace yourself for some abstract thinking to stay with me for this one, and when you do, I hope it launches you into new ways of thinking about your experiences that move you, too.

Find the show notes and transcript here: https://playfulpedagogies.ca/2023/04/15/what-moves-us/  

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