Kumara S Ward

Beyond Sustainability: New Visions for Human Econnection in Early Childhood Education

This chapter reconsiders the issues that educators face in engaging with early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) through the contemporary lenses emerging in this age of the Anthropocene. Relational-materialism and posthumanist perspectives expressed through arts-based pedagogies reinvigorate ECEfS and come together to form a synergy that lays the foundation for new ways of thinking and knowing about nature. I argue that arts-based processes, underpinned by the contemporary theories discussed, facilitate econnection, which is a deepening of children’s perceptions of and intra-actions with the natural world so they become an interwoven part of their metacognition, their being and understanding of their own lives. This reconsideration is timely as research shows there is resistance in early childhood settings to engaging with ECEfS and that early childhood services are least likely to meet the standards (with the exception of one other quality standard) in the quality assurance area related to ECEfS. This is despite the Early Years Learning Framework and the National Quality Standards requiring early childhood services to embed sustainability as environmental, social, personal and educational priorities. This chapter explores the effect that the deeply embedded knowledge derived through econnection might have for a reciprocal nature/culture exchange and for a vision of the future that goes beyond what is sustainable and becomes a joyous, creative, and generative process for living and being on the Earth.

Singing in the Forest: Outdoor Education as Early Childhood Curriculum

Outdoor pedagogy comes in many forms and with varying underlying purposes. This chapter demonstrates the author’s journey as a primary school educator whose programme was underpinned by belief in the value of outdoor learning. It begins by highlighting her teaching practice with young children at schools in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales (NSW) using a “postmodern emergence” approach to curriculum. Using art-based pedagogies alongside outdoor experiential education, this programme scaffolded children’s developing sense of place/belonging and econnection to the natural world, assisting them to understand the properties, ecosystems, and habitats of the environment. It positions this practice as a legitimate form of outdoor education by invoking a radical feminist definition that includes intra-action with the natural world through relationships with self, the natural environment, and others.

Combining Acceptance and Commitment Therapy With Adventure Therapy to Promote Psychological Wellbeing for Children At-Risk

With high rates of psychological distress reported amongst children internationally, the development and evaluation of new program initiatives is critical in order to meet the challenge of this burgeoning issue. Both acceptance and commitment therapy and adventure therapy are emerging as popular strategies to elevate psychological wellbeing. This small-scale program evaluation focuses on nine upper primary school-aged children enrolled in a specialist school in Australia for children with challenging behavior and/or emotional needs. Participants completed a newly developed 8-week intervention entitled ‘ACT in the Outdoors’ which combined key principles of both acceptance and commitment therapy and adventure therapy. The program was evaluated via a combination of pre and post participant psychological measures, and post interviews with participants and teachers. The results of this small-scale preliminary evaluation suggest that a portion of the participating children reported improvements in psychological wellbeing and skill development. Improvements appear to be mitigated by attendance and level of psychological wellbeing upon program entry. Based on this premise, the results suggest that more research is warranted to further understand the potential benefit of this innovative interdisciplinary approach.