hello everyone and a warm welcome to this verbal trust webinar my name is Sasha pal I'm the chief executive officer of the verbal trust and this evening we'll be celebrating the publication of Professor Alison Clark's exciting new book slow knowledge and the unhurried child time for slow pedagogies in early childhood education Alison is going to be joined this evening by three contributors Beverly Kate and Lynn and I'm going to invite all four of them to join me now to say hello good evening hello Allison Hello Sasha Kate Bev hi good to see you hello hi um the way the webinar will work this evening is that we will have first of all um Alison introducing her work which was based on forever trust funded project that Alison began I think just before the pandemic and continued through the pandemic um and as I say produce this wonderful book that we're going to be talking about this evening um Alison will introduce her work and then she's going to be followed by Beverly Dickinson hi beb um good to see you Beth is the nursery manager at tiddler's wrap around in caerphilly in Wales and she's also one of our training traveling tutors so we're delighted to have Bev joining us and she will talk for a little while about her Reflections on reading Alison's work and then after that we'll be joined by Lynn Taylor evening Lynn good to see you Lynn is many things um an author an illustr wonderful illustrator she's also an edge D student and she's a senior education officer for Education Scotland and so we're very pleased to have you with us as well Lynn who will also be giving her own thoughts and Reflections about Alison's book and then Dr Kate Smith Dr Kate is formerly a a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christchurch university in England and uh she's also an author uh she recently co-authored a book with Karen Vincent called supporting early literacies through play and Kate is also with Beverly one of our trainee verbal traveling tutors so delighted to have Kate with us as well so tonight we've got representation from um England Wales and Scotland and through Allison who is a professor of early childhood education at the University of South Eastern Norway as well as being a senior honorary senior research fellow at ucl's Institute of Education we've got fairly widespread representation geographically so they're going to talk for about 40 minutes after which those of you who are joining us from home or from the office will have the chance to put your questions in the Q a box and we'll have a discussion and pick up as many of your questions as we can so it now gives me pleasure to hand over to Alison to introduce her work thank you Alison over to you lovely thank you very much Sasha and thank you for everybody that's joined us tonight um it really is so special to be able to launch a book online and I just noticed very quickly in the different places you've joined us from included Japan where it's 4 a.m so a big shout out to my lovely friend Mary Morris so um what I'd like to do um uh this evening is to start by thanking the froble trust for this opportunity to launch my new book online uh with friends and colleagues I thought in this few minutes introduction I would point to how my research over the past 20 years or so has traveled from listening to slow so when I started to think about this slow has it always been there in the listening discourse and listening is at the heart of slow so I will begin with the listening to young children study and developing the Mosaic approach with Professor Peter Moss whilst I was working at Thomas Coram Research Unit at The Institute of Education in London so it was developing a multi-method and polyvocal research methodology and listening to young children takes time especially when we give children the opportunity to express their views and experiences using several different modes of expression and giving children Educators and parents the chance to revisit the documentation it is about being fully attentive and present in the moment whilst also respecting children's past and future and thinking about it the research process itself had a particular relationship with time um if it was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation it had time to breathe I've just been reflecting on this as Thomas Coram Research Unit is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year and I think in a time of great change in higher education it's really important to celebrate when research cultures are very supportive and positive and Achieve big things I think it was an example of slow research that could develop over time a process that supported creativity and curiosity and was able to take the risk of Uncertain outcomes because it was attempting to do something unusual to bring young children's perspective center stage in qualitative research conversations another marker in my research Journey has been the Living Spaces study from 2005 to 2007 this was a longitudinal study over three years funded by the Bernard van leer Foundation there was a strong temporal Dimension to this study that set out to involve young children in the design and review of Early Childhood environments listening to Children Educators views and experiences about the designed environment opened up another dimension to thinking about slow and the relationship with time past present and future in writing about this study in an article for the American Journal of community psychology in 2010 I commented as follows participatory visual research methods provide possibilities for young children and adults to engage in Alternative forms of knowledge Construction that in turn present challenges to researchers and research audiences these complex Explorations do not provide quick solutions to user engagement but may contribute to new understandings between children and adults professionals and lay communities perhaps this can be seen as a form of slow knowledge not retrievable in the same way as a questionnaire but with the possibility of more rewarding and surprising results so sometimes in coming to the end of a piece of writing I think you Glimpse an idea that holds your attention and this was one of those moments in writing that article so jumping forward 13 years maybe it's not too surprising that I've ended up writing this book slow knowledge and the unhurried child this is a book that has sought to listen to many voices and I hope we can just I can just give a little taste of that today the book is built on Research conversations with Early Childhood teacher Educators teachers and researchers from 11 countries making explicit some of the many pressures for hurry in Early Childhood Education and Care on young children and those who work with young children as well as in higher education which I discuss in the opening chapters of part one within this context of accelerated childhoods and pressurized learning the book seeks to demonstrate alternative narratives to thinking about time about what is valued as a worthwhile use of time and of what slow can enable these are discussed in part two of the book looking at slow practices and then the final part is a provocation about what Early Childhood Education and Care can look like in order to face uncertain futures so exploring the concept of timefulness and the challenge of what it may be a slow and patient kindergarten or education across that life course might look like so the book contains generous insights um from my interviewees and thank you thank you um a huge thanks to those of you for your time and experience and I think some of you might be listening to me now and these interviews have also been deepened by my dialogue with focus group of Early Childhood Education and Care Educators and students to all of whom I'm extremely grateful so contained within the examples in the book are the voices and experiences of children too one example um is sunny boy from the wonderful work of Jackie cousins who was one of the first books that I read about um explicitly um exploring and enjoying listening to young children so sonny boy said in Jackie's study times as long as it takes I hope there will be many more opportunities to involve young children in these discussions and to learn from them about different ways of relating to the clock such as my Icelandic and Croatian colleagues have been exploring recently so the book also includes perspectives drawn from theorists who have accompanied me at different stages of my pedagogical Journey I have engaged with pardon me with the ideas lived out in the preschools of Reggio Emilia over many years now including the pedagogy of listening as described by Kalina ronaldi and the work of the Italian Arista vervecki I find the following quote from a teaching and learning Scotland publication about Reggio first published in 1999. time and how children and adults use it is Central to the Reggio philosophy the Rhythm and pace of the child is always given overriding importance and then here is a second quote from the same publication taken from a talk by bertolini called education and Time family time and children's time bertoloni says in other words in Daily educational practice we tend to give importance to a way of life that leans more towards slowness by that I mean towards reflection and observation I really love that phrase leans more towards slowness the pedagogical ideas of Frederick froble have become increasingly important to me and the opportunity to tease out some of the links between for a billion principles and thinking about less hurried education Tina Bruce and Helen Tovey have been among those to draw attention to the links between frobo's emphasis on the importance of time for play of interaction with nature and a pedagogical relationship that rests on freedom with guidance these are some of the connections between slow pedagogies and verbillion principles that I have subsequently been able to explore through the expertise and commitment of Donna green and Falkirk educators other theorists have been new to me for example the Japanese Canadian curriculum theorist Ted Aoki and his concept of lingering beautifully described to me in my interviews with Sylvia kind and Tamina Cheyenne it really has been a learning Journey for me so my book also contains perspectives beyond the discipline of Early Childhood including from sociology Theology and geology helping me to see the importance of taking the longer View to look beyond the immediate that may in turn reveal what is urgent for the children and students we are working with I hope that this book will contribute to an emerging conversation about where are the different relationships with time in early childhood education and Beyond two other sectors of Education we're fast forward has become the default setting how might early years culture be different as a result and what vocabulary can we use to talk about it celebrate it and advocate for it long writing projects including Theses and books are altered in some way by the context in which they have been written so just briefly to end two factors stand out to me in writing this book firstly I have the privilege to be based in a Norwegian University the University of Southeastern Norway and have benefited hugely from cross-cultural conversations about Early Childhood pedagogy and living well secondly this study and the writing process has been carried out through through the pandemic I think the book is a different book as a result strange things happen to our sense of time a chance for a rethink about how values aligned with practice so back to the beginning slow has always been there in the listening discourse and listening is at the heart of slow but slow is not an end in itself what does slow enable thank you so um those are my few thoughts to um to start the evening and I'm now really pleased to be able to hand over to Bev Dickinson who's going to be one of our three responders today sharing her expertise and her first thoughts on how it connects with her own work so over to you Bev thank you thank you Allison um so firstly I just want to say this book has been a joy um we've been exploring it as a whole setting and particularly um resident well particularly resonated with us was your uh section about um our everyday um we sat as a group and looked at um where there's time fullness and that is in our garden and our outdoors with nature um where children you know they begin by planting from seed and parents are encouraged to join in as well so it is it's got the a community approach to it and the garden offers obviously a Timeless approach because you know this links past present and future all the forbidian principles are there the unity and connectedness with nature and our garden needs patience uh children are patient they know that for each stage the plant is out from when we plant it from seed um we Marvel enjoy that that plant brings us at that time um and I think you know frogle gave us the term the kindergarten and you know the same approach is used is San harid um children are able to really look um really look at the changes going on throughout the seasons and they have the time to really explore and engage is what they're doing um uh sorry I've lost my track a little bit um yeah so so we were looking at our practices there and then we started to look at how this transfers to other practices with within our setting um and it really made us sit back and look at our own relationships with time and what time looks like for the children uh many of our children attend wrapping on children so they'll have two and a half hours a day to come in so we looked at you know were they getting the same experiences as the children who are there longer um part of this we really looked at was snack time um so a couple of weeks ago we had a unexpected snow shower and snack was quickly abandoned and all the children raced to get on their Wellies and get outside enjoy the snow because it was just very brief snow shower and we stayed at the rest of the mornings the children not only experienced the snow falling and beautifying there every day but they also seen it return back to what was familiar to them and it struck me that the next day we returned back to I was quite A hurried snack um again it's a rolling snack so trying to fit everybody into snack time and we started to really question the value of it and we carried out some observations and also noticed that lots of the snack was wasted um I think for the minute snack time was announced it kind of increased some of the it changed the atmosphere a little bit for both the practitioners and the children so we started to look at you know was there an approach which really included the children and the choices to go for snack it was something we had implemented it's been there since I can remember um so there was no real Children's Choice as to when they would go and sit and have snacks so this has really made us think about this um we plan to have a weekly Gathering so to really look we look throughout our setting and look for the forms and we look for the forbelian principles and the links to our wonderful curriculum um but I think this is one that has been overlooked so I think it's back to the drawing board on that one um part of our Welsh curriculum is ethically informed citizens and I think you know when we're forced when we're kind of hurrying children in for a snack when they're not ready um we have to question that side of it as well thank you very much Bev and thank you so much for you stepped in as well so we're extremely grateful for for your Reflections and I think just to pick up so say on on on those last thoughts about snack time I think it's interesting when you say you know it made you think so what do you value because I think I think having having the the confidence to kind of rethink okay so so what are our values here what is so important what is making us have to rush so much and are the things that we can do to slow that down I think is so important um and I think it's interesting also that link that when you do that is the this link between children's agency and and the relationship with time so what what does a slower Pace or a more aware um uh a sort of sort of reacting to time in a different way uh less Bound by clock time the whole time you know does that allow children to to have more agency yeah we've kind of changed to inviting them you know do they want to eat snacks so yeah I'm in this just the beginning but hopefully yeah thank you and I think you so clearly show how that relationship with the outdoor environment um you know it's such a central part of of Robles work and also how how how many on so many different layers what children can learn from that kind of the pace and Rhythm of the natural environment and I think that illustrates you know these are not new ideas they're absolutely embedded within Early Childhood um pedagogy and practice but I think they can slip with all these other pressures that there have been and the acceleration the emphasis on measurement um so it's kind of for me it's around okay let's let's have the confidence to to to celebrate what we know really does work um yeah and and it's also I think you know we have the hay scheme in Wales and practitioners who get a bronze and a silver and a gold um so I think it is quite results driven as well yeah uh you know so it's challenging that I think to look at the different ways to do it yeah I think we're all measured and whatever yeah lovely thank you very much Bev that that's great I'm going to invite Lynn now for her response this is Lynn Taylor from education Scotland over to you Lynn hi Alison hi everyone um Allison I am so honored to be here tonight and you know that I am gushing about your book and I think many of I can see many familiar people from from my part of the world too and they're here tonight too and I'm sure they'll join me insane about how much of an emotional response we're having here to your your work um I think especially because of what we've been through in the last few years and are still going through here in Scotland especially would it I'm going to pick one give me three bits of the book if that's okay industry to be bits of it out just just just what's resonating here um with me in particular um especially because when we were faced with this expansion of our early learning and child care in Scotland where we're going um into children being in half day sessions and through the week to end this 11 40 years ago in Scotland this can I feel time aspect that children would be in for 30 years a week um or longer depending on how flexible or what was going to happen and we were really worried at that point about what do we do if and we really didn't know if we did more of the same of what we were trying to cram into a three and a half hour session with the children we were really worried about the outcomes of our children actually so what do we value we had to really look inside and think what do we value here and how do we turn this into something of quality and what is quality and at the start of the book you talk about living in the shallows and I'm just going to do but it's in the regimes of proformity experience is nothing productivity is everything last year's efforts are a benchmark for this year's Improvement better exam and test results more students going to higher education more Publications we must keep up strive to achieve the new and ever more diverse targets which we set for ourselves in appraisal meetings confess and then confront our weaknesses undertake appropriate and value-enhancing professional development and take up opportunities for making ourselves more productive and that performative as you say is closely linked to productivity and being measurable and again just thinking about what you what you've written from your own research in the book here Allison about that filling out a predefined checklist or Baseline about what a child can do at any One Moment In Time can be far quicker to achieve than carrying out an in-depth observation or sitting and talking together Saving Time can be an important factor in a professional culture where measurement dominates especially when practitioners find themselves needing to collect a greater volume of standardized information about children and more frequent at more frequent intervals and it just really resonates about what actually really really matters and in your book you talk about get bista saying there is no quick fix would it concerns then counter with resistance and the ability to be in dialogue with the world with what is other and what is different and I was like that again that's just made me think about the body of work that we've been doing in Scotland here about what does matter and how do we actually enact that not just you know in policy words that can be so easy to write but how is that actually lived in Daily practice and again what jewelry resonates for me is that being with children going off track with children and Diving deep and it made me think about that when I was in local Authority in the first um Pilots of of the children being in for all these hours we were so worried about but then people coming back to some actual saying you know something it's better and you thought was better but some people but but do you know something we used to rush to the forest we used to get them in get their stuff ready get them all right you know run to the forest do whatever we had to do watch the time watch The Time come back um or with snack and lunch time we used to rush through that and um but we now have time and someone said to me like to dance to the beat of her children and that idea of Rhythm comes through your writing Allison that that Rhythm and beaten and for us as adults to actually dance alongside the child and just breathing of the time to do that that being with is so important and you know that we we call the a national practice guidance here the the kind of subtext is realizing ambition but it's about being me and again that was so intentionally important for us here because it's about how do you how does do you allow that child to reveal themselves to you and how do you celebrate and embrace that asset and would love the child in front of you who they are and really get to know them um and you know I love here obviously you've highlighted some of your wonderful practice that's happening in Scotland we are still wrestling with this we're still experimenting we're still seeing you know what works for our children especially after what we've been through in pandemic and it's it's always that recalibration about where are we now reminding ourselves about where we are now and trying to push back a wee bit against the proformity and our practices as you know Lynn make me as wonderful lived stories documentation practice about what's really meaningful in our documentation in Scotland and how does that um live and breathe the child and how useful is that and how how do we ensure that it's something that's rich and deep and layered in this complex as it needs to be um and also the wonderful work that's been happening in full characters you know what I think Donna's on the chat tonight and um from Lisa and Donna um in full Kirk and Gemma Patterson roundabout Meal Time and for us in Scotland as well we've been looking at the points of transition actually you know the the as Mary and Barnes talks about the the horizontal transitions of the day it's not just about the big transitions that we think about it's about how do we use transitions in our daily lives and how do we actually see the value in them and slow them down and see the learning in them too you know in in our practices so and it's actually my book's just actually popped open when it says rhythms it's back to that Rhythm and beat and dance of the day so um but we've got a lot of work still to do and I think for us in Scotland what your book does and I've been taking it along to meetings even with my secondary colleagues here um because it's about us as human beings actually even us as adults as as in the educational system and and what we do to ourselves and do we take that time and be to slow down and you've it's that message of the urgency of Slauson thank you so much for giving us thank you Lynn I'm going to dive in so so so many so many ideas to pull out there thank you I mean I think you're the first quote that you had was actually Stephen baller not me and um the many cleverer people who have kind of commented on this the sort of the shallowness but I think um we need to hear that too in early childhood education and um and and as we were saying you know to think about as you say what are our values and and what does matter um and I think pulling out biesta as well this idea of you know when he talks about the impatient look in education and I think you know that that is has such an effect on early childhood education as well because of the whole emphasis on can be an emphasis on Transitions and moving on to the next stage and um and after the pandemic this whole discourse around catch-up and you know maybe we need to extend children's hours in order for them to catch up and I think there there are some some serious questions to ask about whether that is the right approach and who does that benefit and and who who misses out as a result um and I think the um uh coming back to that idea of of Rhythm and I think that's a reminder that although the language I'm using is you know it talks a lot about slow but it's also that there is a sort of recognition that sometimes we're really running alongside children and there are these fast moments and there are these spontaneous moments like Bev was talking about with the snow so it's a kind of an awareness of how we're working with time and then of what choices we're making I think and to be able to discuss that with colleagues and to to be more reflective about that so great thank you very much Lynn so I'm going to invite I'm going to invite Kate now Kate Smith um welcome Kate for your first responses to to the book over to UK yeah thank you so much Alison and thank you for writing such a rich and thought-provoking book which I think is just incredibly timely at the moment for many of the reasons that Lynn has um kind of expressed in that sort of almost like um a desperation to to find a way through this these discourses that that surround accelerated childhood and what I want to talk about actually very briefly is the third section of Alison's book which is really where she invites us and the final section to really think about moving forward and um how we can perhaps find a different way um to respond to the systems and the routine teens and practices and structures that surround young children and the time that's attached to them and our role in that our role as Educators our world as teachers and our role is sometimes is those who teach the teachers and teach the Educators to them or work to support adults working with young children and within that section what arson does which I think is incredibly helpful is um distill the ideas that are presented um in the prior sections around slow knowledge and slow pedagogy into something which you could Define and Allison does Define it as a patient kindergarten and I think that's a really lovely phrase and um that notion of kindergarten being a very broad notion of all types of early year settings and even long long life learning you know a place of learning I think um and I just want to pick out three qualities I'm not going to go through that list I I really recommend everybody turns to page 132 and has has a look at what a patient kindergarten might look like but there's three qualities that I just wanted to pick out one of them is patience the other one is um resilience and the final one is resistance and I want to talk to talk about those particularly around a project I did with a group of teachers and it links very much to what Allison and Lynn were discussing a few moments ago because I feel that those qualities were existent in the work that they did so this was a project called the playful writing project which was looking at literacy practices in a Reception class in England now that's children who are four to five years old but they're in a school setting and within that school setting there's um often a lack of leadership knowledge about Early Childhood um and those discourses around keeping up and catching up certainly in terms of literacy practices is very prevalent and um sometimes these particular teachers and Educators can feel very vulnerable and very alone because sometimes they might be the only earliest um teacher within within a school and um they're often questioned about the value of play so this project was a year-long project and the teachers met monthly they collected videos and photographs um of the children's writing and Mark making and drawing and um this was a chance for them to reflect um on what they saw or what they observed what they felt as well about their practice um and um they were looking particularly around literacy practice which were in children's play not with adult outcomes in mind um and I think this resulted in an understanding of what might be called slow knowledge about enhanced literacy practices is where there were distinct features around the social function of writing and early Mark making and the need for spontaneity and movement and adaptable materials so these three qualities I'll go back to them patience I feel that these teachers really exhibited patients in the work they did together um so they they um you know they came together they had time together to listen to each other to observe what others were doing um their ideas I I think brood you know and they Revisited activities and they Revisited evidence and that was really important so they were patient about their own work and they were because they were involved in the research project it was quite um unique that they had that opportunity to do that um they were also showed resilience um not all their practices were the same sometimes they disagreed about things and they did things like they experimented and they changed racism and materials and that didn't always work you know across the year um but what was really important in terms of the project was we used um Rebellion uh values and principles um as a touchstone to go back to and to revisit as well and these become these were then reasserted in the way they described the pedagogical practice so they they this enhanced their commitment in their work and I think this gave them a resilience um and then resistance so so when they so when these um when these um participants these teachers um worked through this process they were able to have the language I think to be able to challenge the Orthodoxy that surrounded them in school with the language of play and they this the time they had gave them a deeper understanding um to be able to articulate and explain to others the value of the work that they were doing in terms of the children's play um and one of the things that was very important for them was that they became very closed allies and through their community of practice um and this gave them a sense of authority and and and and and Professional Knowledge which was really really important so I would say find your allies their strength in numbers yeah absolutely Kate thank you thank you thank you for those Reflections and I think you know just to emphasize that last point I absolutely do say that as well that you know this is about around communities of practice of finding allies of of of of knowing knowing how who who else can stand by you when you're saying actually we know that there's a different way here and um and and to be able to have the confidence to articulate it um and to demonstrate um the the the value for example through through the the revisiting through the play through the listening um so yeah find your allies and interesting to hear those examples of of patience because I think patients when I when I first read that phrase from uh Gert biesta around um talking about education having an impatient look at the moment um and I thought I found it quite a challenging challenging to think of you know so impatience is that right and then challenging to think okay so what does patience in an education system look like and of course I don't think that's something that we hear would hear politicians draw attention to when we look at that kind of fast-paced um Ridiculousness that can go on so um I think these examples of research that can demonstrate what these slow practices what um allowing children the opportunity for these ideas to brew as you said um and um Tina Bruce's phrase phrase wallowing I think comes in here um but um some lovely examples here and I think that's interesting again pulling out that it's patience and resistance but also resilience the kind of the kind of being able to um to cut to kind of stick with these ideas and and as we say that the confidence of of working standing alongside others so thank you very much Kate and I'm going to hand back to Sasha who's going to keep us in order for this last bit thank you very much Alison and Kate and Bev and Lynn um can I invite all of you to put your your cameras back on if that's all right sorry you're probably just quickly having a glass of water um but what we're going to do now is respond to some of the comments and questions from um our colleagues who are joining us this evening and I just want to pick up on the point of resistance that you were talking about a moment ago Alison and Kate um because actually Rhian asked a question about how we can combat government agendas around things like catch up fast forward um closing the Gap and so on and so forth and you have already begun to answer that question anyway you've talked about the importance of um research and practice that demonstrates ways of resisting those kinds of pressures I wondered if any of you might like to say anything else about Acts or forms of a resistance I'll just go first briefly and then I'll hand over so I think I think an evening light to light in in a small way of of pulling together Reflections across in this case Wales England um Wells England and Scotland is just one example of saying hey we know we know where these alternatives are we can encourage each other we can challenge each other we can we can try and make practice more more visible and I think I think that's that's a big part of um resistance um I think there's some really interesting ideas uh Nathan Archer and Joe Alban Clark have been writing about Resistance 2 in early childhood so there's some some really important um ideas out there I think of encouragement thank you would any of you like to come in as well on this um shall we move on add to that um Sasha and Alison and everyone that um I can just see actually that um Hillary Welland who is the next colleague of mine has just put um a little kind of um comment in the Box about communities of practice and I know that there are those communities of practice there certainly is one that Canterbury Quest Church University and um they will be in other universities um as well um but I I also think um you know social media is fantastic this you know I know there's lots of Facebook groups that that people belong to as well and uh what's up groups and I know that that sounds terrific field but it isn't because it's a way of being able to feel that YouTube a lot you know you're not on your own sometimes if you feel that things aren't quite right they don't sit with your values properly not with what you understand your knowledge you know there's a kind of you need to reach out and feel that you're not you're not on your own there really is it I'm not saying it's like a battle it's like war or anything but sometimes it can feel like that when you're having to defend uh your beliefs in terms of early pedagogy so yeah yeah I think you're absolutely right and I should probably give a shout out to um all the froble networks and the froble network for the UK um which also um gather on um Facebook as well as in person nowadays uh back to face to face Lynn I was going to actually absolutely celebrate that Sasha because it's it's you you push back by being extremely informed and that's something that this Global movement has has really empowered people to you know have that I thought that was kind that but it's the why of how something works or or knowing something just been more informed about the the research and evidence base around about you know why you're doing what you're doing and that's extremely powerful and having that in your tribe actually with that too so that's what the the networks do yeah definitely thank you well I'd like to mention um another colleague who was mentioned very briefly earlier about who I should have mentioned at the very beginning is Gaynor brimble who's asked a question I just want to say Gainer I hope you're getting better and and making a speedy recovery I'm sorry that you weren't able to speak tonight but we're delighted that you're with us and thank you for your question um what Gainer has asked is how might topics or themes used in early childhood education as as an approach influence the pace of learning I don't know if you'd like to come in on this idea of topic based learning and whether it might change or affect the pace of learning well I I think the thing with with um with topic work is I mean one question is where do the ideas where the topics come from and how tuned in are they with the children that you're working with but I think if if these are ideas that that the children want to run with and are and are are curious I think they've come back to those ideas of creativity and curiosity you know are the things in this topic that you've picked up that the children are actually really engaged with and want to inquire them I think it those are those that approach to topic work can really um grow and expand and I think can um typify some of these some of these features of slow pedagogy that was coming out in the interviews as I had an interview with Julia formoncino Olivia Oliveri for monsino from Portugal hugely experienced teacher educator in early childhood and and her her participation in pedagogy is based on topic work and um I think that's one example of this really being able to go in depth so being with children to this ability to and confidence to be able to go off track so yes to have your your sort of some um your your starting points and your ideas but actually to have the confidence that an educator once said to me to be able to go through the door to sort of think oh I hadn't thought of that but actually this is where the children are going and I've got the you know can I step through that door can I kind of actually go go with that idea to run alongside the children to um and to go into depth so I think yeah lots of potential there um and of course this takes us back to um you know 1970s I mean as I say this this is not new this is not new this is about this is partly about reclaiming and making explicit um what we know thank you Alison would anybody else like to come in on that or share with you one okay um I've had a really interesting question from Jan white who is um I'm sure you'll all know is an expert in um outdoor and nature play and learning and and Jan's question is whether you think the cyclical nature of the natural world helps to disrupt linear time that makes us hurry and seek progress absolutely Jan and it's really nice our paths are crossing again uh I was involved in the learning through Landscapes project many years ago and I have learned hugely from from Jan and I think yeah I think the natural what it's as uh as John is saying it is sort of highlights a different um a different way a whole different way of thinking about time that's not sort of clock time based there's some really interesting ideas coming out from um post post-human research at the moment look looking at um The rhythms of the materials that we work with whether that's clay being outside with Clay whether that's wood um and and and through the seasons of the years so I think these are these are all things that that can disrupt the kind of clock time um it's tidy up time now sort of focus um and and I think that that was so so much part of when I was beginning to sort of Brew the ideas for for the research project one question I had was when I was out outside um with a teacher educator um in Norway um working with the students and and I thought you know there is a different Rhythm here and what does that look like indoors so that's one of the questions I kind of brought to the to the interviews and to the book really and I don't know so what does what does this the these slow practices what does that look like inside so in the chapter on slow practices and place I look at Outdoors very briefly and then other people have done so in such detail but also try to look at well what do slow practices look like indoors as well and to have a think about that link between the relationships with the people with the materials with the place thank you Alison um I think that links quite closely with um a comment actually rather than a question that we had Emma had put in the chat that she notices that um the children's behavior in her setting changes and I I'm presuming she means um the worse um with external pressures to get stuff done she'd put and um I was thinking thinking Bev about when you talked about your experience of the children going outside when it was snowing and I wondered whether you had noticed changes in the children's behaviors and what they were doing at that time with that with that time and space uh being outside in the snow and perhaps whether um any of you might also want to comment on this idea of um the pace and the Rhythm and that lovely phrase that Lynn used dancing to the beat of our children um whether that you're seeing differences in children's Behavior yeah absolutely I mean our children we spend the majority of our day Outdoors um you know whatever the weather we use the changes in weather to go out and explore and go on Expeditions and you know really really absorb the changes um I don't think we could go back to where we would all stay inside in the in the wet weather you know or just because the weather's a little bit um non-lice weather then but you know even staff like to get out and about and the learning we've seen from that and you know the children just Thrive with it if they go out with their clear umbrellas and their Wellies on and you know it's just it's really important and that's again my snack time Jarred with us a little bit because we see a different mode with the children and with the practitioners and and I think um you refer to this Allison in your book and um the forever trust feature to the work in in a film uh the full Kirk um slow uh pedagogy project which in which the Educators were talking about the differences that they were seeing in the the children's behaviors and and in the learning that they I think described as much deeper learning that they were seeing happening um in in their settings um I don't know if you want to say any more about that Alison or if Lynn or Kate might like to come in at this point I'll just say a little bit briefly about that project because it was it was such a lovely opportunity to follow my my study with Donna who I first um who took part in my focus group and then took it on as her as RMA thesis and and um so I was just an advisor on Donna's project but we're working with three um early earlier settings in Falkirk and I think one of the key things reflecting on that project was that each of those centers were very were Keen to take part so this is not about in this is not about creating another um another task or intervention you know this is about saying sort of is this something that you want to um that you think you will benefit from to to to to to have the the confidence to explore a bit and two of the centers chose thinking about meal times and two and one shows Outdoors and so working within the very practical constraints of working in those settings in Falkirk and um and for example the expanded hours as we were hearing earlier 11 40 hours in Scotland of provision and and so think thinking around how what does just small changes to how the children are given more agency during meal times um around you know what are the essential ingredients here and how can we make those um routines more more relation more relational so yeah just a couple of um comments um about that project and and that's also on the throwball website um Donna's report thanks Alison we've had a few comments uh which have been fascinating actually to read in the chat um and they are about the relationship between cultures different cultures whether they're big cultures or small cultures and Thai and um Jill had commented for example that the care inspector it talks about dead time [Music] and she asks whether there's such a thing uh as dead time with young children and they this sparked a whole um number of comments about um cultures and and time I wondered if you want to comment on that a little bit uh that's a really hard question isn't it yeah it just showed I think the thinking about the language we use to talk about time is is a really important part of this because I think it's so ingrained and we talk about busy time when we talk about free time what do we mean by that who's golden time all these phrases and I think dead time is real is is quite a quite a phrase because it's like as you say it begs a question well dead for whom you know is this it reminds me of the phrase none none play as well which I kind of I kind of uh feel uneasy about really you know when we as adults decide that something is none none play what does none play look like um if children are engaged in play um so yeah dead time interesting and I think that's just a great example of okay well what do we mean who for what values does that hold Lin bath Kate would any of you like to to say anything about um dead time or about language or about cultures and time and slow I just um I just wanted to um actually on a big I mean it's interesting this thing about how do we describe the practices that we're involved in and how do we use that language together and how far do we accept that or challenge it sometimes it becomes sort of normalized when actually as um Alice is just pointing out what a strange way of describing you know something that might happen with young children and and perhaps devaluing it or giving value to it that that relates to our language but just a sort of slightly different point which is about how you know our cultures you know we kind of do very much you know within this discussion within um you know the British context of Scotland Wales and England were very much so to focused on that Western Viewpoint of of time and actually I think indigenous cultures can really unders disrupt that and help us to understand time in a different way more related as as I said to materials more related to the natural environment and geographical spaces that can open up possibilities open up possibilities of learning um and I certainly in my observations of young children there's a lot of learning that goes on in these times that actually are described as almost like um not learning time like tidying up time and which is actually then there's huge amounts of learning and and activity going on but it's not observed and it's not valued it's an interesting interesting thing yeah thank you Kate actually within our perhaps dominant Western uh perspective uh or cultures um I guess there are lots of variations as well and I'm thinking about one of the the comments that we had I think it was from Caroline forgive me if I've uh remembered this incorrectly which related back to your quoting Jackie cousins example of Sunny Boy Alison and Caroline talked about her own um childhood and said that time within traveler communities is conceptualized very differently um and I guess it is in families you know there will be different ways of dealing with time in in different families and there was another comment about whether early childhood education spaces might be places that are the only spaces where children have opportunities to wallow perhaps if their families are very hurried and under a great deal of pressure and I think that's quite important um for those working like Bev in early childhood settings [Music] um so we are about 30 seconds away from the end of time um I'm afraid to say on this webinar um Alison is there anything you'd like to say just to wrap us up this evening well just thank you for everybody who's engaged in this through the comments and just a shout out to Victoria please save the comments because I haven't been able to read any of them and um but um I I think this is um this is so exciting to be part of an ongoing conversation with so many of you you know this is not a book that's like okay on a shelf and we'll forget about it you know I'm I want this to be I've talked about it being a hopefully helping to open up a dictionary of possibilities so in a dictionary you have many different different words you have different meanings and that those will come from different cultures and traditions and and you know okay we can demonstrate what these different relationships with time can look like in early childhood and maybe we can show other areas of Education too including our teacher education how how we can make more time for students to go in depth absolutely well thank you Allison Bev Flynn Kate thank you so much for your contributions this evening um thank you all for joining us if you want to carry on the conversation I am sure it will be continuing on social media um if uh you can find uh approval trust your doubtless find a conversation about tonight's webinar but as I said I'm I'm sure that many of the networks and communities of practice will also be discussing Alison's book and tonight's uh dialogue so thank you all so much thank you to Victoria for organizing the webinar thank you all for joining us and I hope you have a wonderful evening day well night wherever you are in the world take care and thanks very much thanks very much to Sasha for sharing us like my pleasure good night everyone good night