To Örebro University

This presentation outlines a preschool didactic of exploration focused on designing aesthetically-oriented learning environments in which teachers and children dialogically explore themes based on children’s interests. The work expands on recent research on pre-K teaching practices that combine performance art and drama pedagogies, Nordbø (2012); Haugen et al (2006). In this project we apply a performance studies framework, Johansson (2012) to analysis of data from an ongoing qualitative study of one-year old preschoolers. Our claims are based on video and interview data collected in a preschool over a period of four months. Informed consent was obtained from teachers, parents and guardians. We describe how the teachers create “installations” that occasion children’s aesthetic exploration, and argue that the communication that subsequently unfolds between children and teachers promotes their development as culture and knowledge creators, Dahlberg & Lenz Taguchi (1994). These installations form a kind of metaphorical dance: The teacher and children mutually lead one another in remediating the installations in ways that leverage repetition. This enables the children to explore differences and similarities among different iterations of these installations over time. Critical to this process is the practice of pedagogical documentation which teachers use to longitudinally chronicle and narrativise children's experiences of the changing installations. We show how children use their bodies to explore the environment, and how teachers correspondingly adapt these environments in ways that challenge the form and content of prior installations. These observations provide a general framework for practitioners interested in designing and implementing aesthetically oriented preschool activities.