Today I am speaking with Debi Keyte-Hartland, a passionate Early Childhood Consultant, trainer, author and speaker, who’s experienced in developing creative environments that invite rich learning and complex thinking. 

I so enjoyed the depth of thinking and permission to re-evaluate the image of the child and development of pedagogies of observation, listening and reflection!

In this episode, Debi pulls together so much of her own creative thinking to enable us to really bring new possibilities to our teaching practice as well as enabling us to value children’s capacity to learn and think for themselves, when given the attunement and listening of a supportive adult.

In this episode we discuss:

• Debi provides an extensive dive into a wide range of pedagogy – from the current thinkers (see all the resource links) to Loris Malaguzzi as a huge influence on early childhood pedagogy.
• We discuss the importance of following what matters to children and how this inevitably leads to a much richer educational experience, one which an educator can link to the Early Year curriculum without any effort!
• Debi presents the image of the child informed by various perspectives – offering us the listener to consider how each image deeply implicates the kind of education we support and offer young people – this has a huge impact on the child, the adult and how we value ourselves as unique learners.
• This conversation presents a deep dive into the relationship between humans and the natural world, influenced by the great thinker Gregory Bateson (see below) and many others. Once again Debi helps us understand how much the vitality of materials influences our learning and opens us up to the possibility of relationships that are influential and change how we perceive the world around us.
• We both share the desire for an ecological, educational paradigm that begins with adults valuing our direct participation in the world around us and how this creates an empathy for all of life.
• She effortlessly describes how an adult’s attunement and observation creates a permissive container for a child to discover the life of a woodlouse and develop their own thinking, which as a side impact creates vast amounts of valuable more traditional knowledge.
• We get a real sense of the value of playful inquiry and the place of art and creativity in both education and our lives.
• Finally Debi introduces us to ‘Warm Data’ developed by Nora Bateson (see below) and follows an inquiry into what we measure really matters!

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-55-debi-keyte-hartland-podcast/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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