ABSTRACT

This paper draws on the social ecology of Félix Guattari, to suggest that young children learn in complex social and natural situations, in this case ‘getting muddy’. The notion of social ecology will be revived in this paper, to ensure that the human social world is embedded in and part of the natural world, with all its complexities, relations and repetitions (re: muddiness). Children learn from their mistakes, from social interaction, due to their instincts, and as part of an evolving situation, much of which is beyond their control, e.g. their attraction to mud. This paper will search for these types of learning(s) in the affect that can be discerned from teaching and learning, and specifically related to ‘muddy literacy’. One might call the combined notions that will be put to work in this paper as ‘affective literacy’, it is an affective literacy fully imbricated in muddy nature. To achieve this, the paper will attend to empirical research in the early childhood context in Australia, that has charted how children learn from inquiry based learning outdoors in mud, pictures of Aboriginal children outside (and a hand), and a mud classroom painting.

摘要

本文借鉴了 Félix Guattari 的社会生态学，建议幼儿在复杂的社会和自然情境中学习，在这种情况下“变得浑浊”。本文将重提社会生态学的概念，以确保人类社会世界嵌入自然世界并成为自然世界的一部分，包括其所有的复杂性、关系和重复性（re: mudness）。孩子们从错误中学习，从社交互动中学习，由于他们的本能，并且作为不断变化的情况的一部分，其中大部分是他们无法控制的，例如他们对泥土的吸引力。本文将在可以从教与学中辨别出来的情感中寻找这些类型的学习，特别是与“泥泞的读写能力”相关。有人可以将本文中将要运用的综合概念称为“情感素养”，它是一种完全融入泥泞自然的情感素养。为实现这一目标，本文将参与澳大利亚幼儿教育背景下的实证研究，该研究描绘了儿童如何从基于探究的户外泥地学习、户外土著儿童（和一只手）的照片以及泥教室绘画中学习。