Introduction
How may early childhood pedagogies help people and culture become more attentive and respectful towards the living world? This question has arisen in various forms in a large design-based research-and-development project, in which pedagogical employees in Danish early childhood institutions were introduced to research perspectives on early childhood nature, science, mathematics, and sustainability education. Research literature on wild pedagogies inspired project participants to reflect upon the role of more-than-human nature in early childhood education and to initiate changes in their pedagogical practices. This article aims to explore and discuss these change processes and the pedagogical dilemmas ignited by the experiments.
Our ambition is to contribute to the literature on wild pedagogies and early childhood education with an empirically based analysis of potentials, challenges, and dilemmas involved in initiating socio-cultural change in the context of early childhood educational practice in Denmark. Inspired by research on transgressive learning (Macintyre, Tassone & Wals, Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020), this article analyzes the change processes with a view to 1) the ways in which new ideas take root in specific contexts in dialogue with existing traditions and 2) the dilemmas and challenges that may work as barriers but are also potential vehicles of change processes.
The philosophy of wild pedagogies is founded on an ambition of changing educational thinking and practice by positioning the more-than-human in a new and more central role. At the core of wild pedagogies is the ambition to unfold education in ways that are intentional but do not exercise control over “the environment and its actors, the learners, or the outcomes” (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Morse and Jensen2018b, p. 161). The emphasis on the role of nature in education, and on children’s freedom and agency, we will demonstrate, speaks to cultural roots of Danish early childhood education, but also to ongoing tensions regarding the balance of educators’ positions and control over children’s freedom and agency. Yet, with the introduction of wild pedagogies, also new tensions and dilemmas emerge, related to the role of more-than-human nature and the approach to time. Attending to and exploring such dilemmas, we propose, are crucial aspects of keeping socio-cultural change processes in motion.
Children and nature in Danish early childhood pedagogies
In Denmark, 94% of all three-year-old children are enrolled in day care centres, suggesting that early childhood education is almost universal (Ottosen et al., Reference Ottosen, Andreasen, Dahl, Lausten, Rayce and Tagmose2022). Employees in these institutions are called pedagogues Footnote 1 or pedagogical employees, and their work is guided by a rather open-ended curriculum guide, stating a common pedagogical foundation and six curriculum themes.
The first sentence of the common pedagogical foundation reads: “Being a child is valuable in itself” (Ministry of Children and Education, 2020, p. 16), reflecting that child-centred pedagogies are important as a line of thought in Danish early childhood education. Emerging from the pedagogical soil of the late 18th century, in the early stage of the Danish kindergartens, they were influenced by pedagogical writers such as Rousseau, Montessori, Pestalozzi, and Fröbel with their references to the “nature of the child” and “a natural development” of children (Schmidt & Togsverd, Reference Schmidt and Togsverd2024, p. 23). Based on the assumption that the child is an active actor from birth, engaging in active and sensory ways with the surrounding world, a child-centred perspective focusing on children’s freedom was established early in the pedagogies of Danish kindergartens (Bayer & Kristensen, Reference Bayer and Kristensen2015). Still, questions related to educators’ positioning vis-à-vis the children in pedagogical situations have been a continuous topic of concern (Broström, Reference Broström2022; Sommer, Reference Sommer2020).
Similarly, nature-based pedagogy has a long history among early childhood pedagogies in the Danish context. Here “nature” is both the state of the child itself, following a tradition inspired by Rousseau (Taylor, Reference Taylor2013), but also the “nature” of outdoor environments. With roots in the late 19th century, the early childhood pedagogical pioneers in Denmark highlighted outdoor life, centred around the place of a garden that allows for children’s embodied firsthand experiences, as an important aspect of early childhood education (Bayer & Kristensen, Reference Bayer and Kristensen2015, p. 69). Today, this outdoor “nature” perspective is visible in the daily life in many early childhood institutions all over the country. In some institutions, outdoor life plays out mostly in breaks during the day; in others, nature pedagogies are part of an overall identity or approach. In general, sensuous and embodied experiences, free and sometimes risky play are valued aspects of nature pedagogies (Edlev, Reference Edlev2015; Hansen, Reference Hansen and Andersen2023).
The attention to nature in Danish early childhood education resembles early childhood perspectives from other Nordic countries. However, the nature of Denmark does not resemble that of the expansive Swedish woods or Norwegian mountains. With a population density of 148 human inhabitants per square kilometre (World Bank Open Data, 2022) and roughly 60% of its area covered by farmland (Danmarks Statistik, 2020), wilderness is rather limited. In this context, we find it both interesting and important to explore wild pedagogies in Danish early childhood education, while keeping in mind that “…wilderness must be seen as a continuum – with more or less degrees of wildness” (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018, p. 43)
Theoretical perspectives: Wild pedagogies and socio-cultural processes of change
Originating in Canadian scholarship (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018), wild pedagogies can be seen as a pedagogical innovation developed largely by scholars from countries with strong outdoor education traditions. In the Nordic context, researchers have discussed wild pedagogies in early childhood education in dialogue with the Nordic pedagogical tradition of friluftsliv (Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022).
Wild pedagogies is a pedagogical approach that resists the desire to control and contain learners, as well as the more-that-human surroundings, leaving learning outcomes rather open. Wild pedagogies propose that learners be allowed the freedom to explore, discover, and learn as they wish, uncontrolled by institutional and cultural norms or learning outcomes. By regarding nature as a teacher and attending to more-than-human agency, learning is no longer only human-based; it becomes a shared project with an open invitation to non-human ways of knowing (Jørgensen-Vittersø et al., Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022).
A key principle of wild pedagogies is the call for radical socio-cultural change in terms of a shift in values and priorities that will support the flourishing of all beings and address the multiple ongoing crises of our time. Education plays a central role in such transformation processes, wild pedagogues suggest. Hence, socio-cultural change is also described as one of the touchstones for wild pedagogies (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018).
Research on change processes in the field of education and learning has suggested different categories to describe differences in the ambitions and consequences of change-oriented educational approaches (Andreotti et al., Reference Andreotti, Stein, Sutherland, Pashby, Suša and Amsler2018; Fettes & Blenkinsop, Reference Fettes and Blenkinsop2023; Lotz-Sisitka et al., Reference Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid and McGarry2015). A key element of these discussions is the difference between, on the one hand, change processes that happen within an existing system, causing processes to shift but without challenging fundamental values and structures, and, on the other hand, change processes that challenge and push the foundations of the existing system (e.g., Fettes & Blenkinsop, Reference Fettes and Blenkinsop2023, p. 3–4).
While they may be instructive when seeking to understand the outcome of change processes, we find such categorizations less useful when aiming to comprehend the micro-processes, drivers, and barriers for change. Formal education systems are characterised by cultural reproduction (Bourdieu & Passeron, Reference Bourdieu and Passeron1990) but also contain the potential to create sprouts of radical change (Masschelein & Simons, Reference Masschelein and Simons2013). Studies on transgressive learning within the field of Environment and Sustainability Education have explored and discussed such micro-processes of socio-cultural change, which hold potential to challenge the status quo, highlighting the role of historical and contextual roots (e.g., Condeza-Marmentini & Flores-González, Reference Condeza-Marmentini and Flores-González2019; Macintyre et al., Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020). In this article, therefore, we wish to explore how wild pedagogies are in dialogue with, but also challenge historical roots of early childhood education in Denmark.
We draw analytical inspiration from the “spiral model of change,” as presented by Macintyre et al. (Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020). With reference to Mezirow (Reference Mezirow1997), the model describes different learning stages in change processes, illustrating the stages with the metaphor of a growing plant with roots, shoots, stems, leaves, blossoms, and seeds. Each stage connects to the next through visible and invisible processes, as well as barriers and absences. In the context of this article, we are interested in the initiation of changes in educational processes that point to the emergence of other ways of being in and knowing the world, hence challenging existing values and structures. Therefore, we discuss the “lower” part of the spiraling model with “roots,” referring to cultural and historical context and knowledges, shoots, referring to small actions and doable changes, and the section between shoots and stems, where barriers and existing norms become visible and are negotiated. This, we suggest, is also the place where dilemmas between different norms emerge and become visible.
In earlier studies, we have explored the roles of dilemmas in change processes. Engaging in and exploring research dialogues between practitioners, students and educators on dilemmas of sustainability, we have seen that such discussions contain a potential for destabilising fundamental assumptions about knowledge and practice (Hansen, Reference Hansen and Andersen2023). This suggests that emotions, resistance and ambivalences arising when engaging in socio-cultural change processes could contribute to knowledge about potentials and challenges for early childhood education for sustainable development (cf. Hägglund & Samuelsson, Reference Hägglund and Pramling Samuelsson2009; Hedefalk et al., Reference Hedefalk, Almqvist and Östman2015).
Project design and methodology
The change processes explored in this article were set in motion by an intervention that aimed to develop and strengthen pedagogical play and learning environments for nature, science and sustainability in Danish early childhood education institutions. The intervention was part of NAVADA, a large R&D project running for a period of five years (2023–2027). The project aims to explore and develop the ways in which children’s engagements in their surrounding world are responded to through science, mathematics, nature, and sustainability education approaches in Danish early childhood education. Thus, the aim is not to “teach” young children about nature, science, sustainability or mathematics, but rather to contribute to building pedagogical employees’ practical and theoretical knowledge on how to address “emergent science” and connections between science education and sustainable development in early childhood settings (Blomgreen et al., Reference Blomgreen, Christiansen and Ejbye-Ernst2020).
The project design is inspired by Design-Based Research methodologies, which outline systematic approaches to developing theoretical knowledge and social transformation of practice through collaborative and iterative processes (Anderson & Shattuck, Reference Anderson and Shattuck2012; McKenney & Reeves, Reference McKenney and Reeves2019).
Inspired by Action Research (Kemmis & McTaggart, Reference Kemmis and McTaggart2014) and engaged anthropology approaches (Nielsen & Jørgensen, Reference Nielsen and Jordt Jørgensen2018), the cooperation between researchers and the participating pedagogical employees is based on ambitions of dialogic, democratic, and generative collaborations and open-ended learning processes. Design-Based Research represents a rather flexible methodological framework, allowing for diverse methods of inquiry (Wang & Hannafin, Reference Wang and Hannafin2005). Thus, the project seeks to explore and bridge theory-driven and participatory-driven design processes. This allows learning goals to emerge (Majgaard et al., Reference Majgaard, Misfeldt and Nielsen2011) through integrating insights and competencies from the “inside” of practices (Eikeland et al., Reference Eikeland, Frimann, Hersted and Jensen2022). The aim is to generate design principles that may guide or inspire practice and eventually lead to new theoretical knowledge (McKenney & Reeves, Reference McKenney and Reeves2019).
Methods
The first phase of the project (2023–2024) evolved around cooperations between a team with a total of eleven researchers, ten managers and sixty pedagogical employees in ten Danish early childhood education institutions. In collaboration with researchers, pedagogical employees designed and developed, experimented with, and evaluated new designs for science-related play and learning environments. The project phase was divided into three “shifts” of sixteen weeks, each shift involving two pedagogical employees from each institution. The pedagogical employees developed their designs in interaction with small groups of 6–10 children, engaging a total of around 240 children aged 1–6 years. All employees and parents of children involved in project activities gave their written consent to being part of the research. All names used in this article are pseudonyms.
The design process was guided by: 1) science camps (Michelsen et al., Reference Michelsen, Petersen and Ahrenkiel2017), gathering employees from three or four early childhood institutions to examine practical challenges and theoretical knowledge and transform it into inquiries of how to design, test, and evaluate science-related play and learning environments with the capacity to respond to children’s engagements in the world; 2) ethnographic observations (Pink & Morgan, Reference Pink and Morgan2013) documenting the interplay between each new play and learning environment and children’s engagements; and 3) laboratory days (Husted & Tofteng, Reference Husted, Tofteng, Nielsen and Svensson2006), where one researcher and pedagogical employees from one early childhood institution made inquiries and evaluations to qualify and test the specific design of new play and learning environments.
In each institution, the research process of a shift was explored and documented with two questionnaires (answered at the beginning and end of each shift), four sets of field notes and two video clips documenting observations, four protocols documenting laboratory days, two qualitative group interviews with pedagogical employees, two qualitative interviews with managers and three protocols documenting science camps.
The entire data set was collectively analysed by the full research group, following guides inspired by Eggebø’s method of collective analysis, which involves a collective review of the empirical material, mapping of analytical themes, and grouping of themes (Eggebø, Reference Eggebø2020). The analysis led to an overview of general patterns in the empirical material, which were analysed in further detail by smaller groups of researchers. This article is based on two analytical themes, identified through collective analysis of empirical material across the ten participating institutions: 1) processes of “letting go of control” in pedagogical practices and 2) dilemmas arising in pedagogical change processes.
We unfold the analysis of these themes through a discussion of examples from the design processes in two institutions, here referred to as The Beach and The Forest. In these institutions, wild pedagogies came to feature as a key entry point for change. Hence, as cases they condense analytical points visible across the empirical material. The examples presented are drawn from qualitative interviews with pedagogues, field notes and video clips.
Initiating socio-cultural change in early childhood education: Negotiating roots, sprouting small actions and doable changes
During the first science camp of each shift, theoretical research perspectives from contemporary research on nature, science, sustainability and mathematics in early childhood education were introduced. In all three shifts, a perspective related to wild pedagogies in early childhood was introduced in the form of an oral presentation based on texts by Blenkinsop, Morse, and Jickling (Reference Blenkinsop, Morse, Jickling, Paulsen, Jagodzinski and Hawke2022) and Jørgensen-Vittersø et al. (Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022). The presentation highlighted the pedagogical ambitions and the six touchstones of wild pedagogies: 1) nature as co-teacher, 2) complexity, the unknown and spontaneity, 3) locating the wild, 4) time and practice, 5) socio-cultural change and 6) building alliances and the human community.
This presentation seemed to appeal to the participants, and in many of the subsequent design processes, educators discussed wild pedagogies and paying more attention to outdoor places and more-than-human nature. In particular, the idea of letting go of the desire to control and contain (Blenkinsop et al., Reference Blenkinsop, Morse, Jickling, Paulsen, Jagodzinski and Hawke2022) appeared potent, stimulating reflection and discussion. In some institutions, such as The Forest and The Beach, pedagogical employees engaged more thoroughly with wild pedagogies, reading the texts themselves and discussing them as part of the laboratory days.
In the following analysis, we will first suggest that the invitation to let go of the desire to control and contain resonates with the “roots” (Macintyre et al., Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020) of early childhood pedagogies in the Danish context, yet also touch upon historical tensions related to the view of children and their learning processes. Then, we explore how the initiation of “shoots of change” (Macintyre et al., Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020) results in the emergence of new kinds of pedagogical dilemmas.
Negotiating the historical roots of early childhood pedagogies in Denmark: Children’s freedom and adults’ position
The early childhood institution The Beach is an excursionary kindergarten. On a daily basis, they drive forty-four children (3–6 years old) roughly thirty kilometres by bus to a house on the coast. At The Beach, the pedagogical employees Ole and Anders were inspired by the introduction to wild pedagogies during the first science camp, and, in dialogue with their colleagues, they decided to install wild pedagogies as an overall theme in the institution throughout all three project shifts. Ole and Anders told us that they experienced the processes of letting go of control and not having a specific educational plan as offering more space for children to explore, become immersed and engaged, and take their own initiatives.
While Ole notes that this implies an ambition to change the cultural view of children, of nature and of the world, the older pedagogue, Anders, highlights that working with children in the forest, with inspiration from wild pedagogies, corresponds with the ideas he had about being a pedagogue when he entered into the profession. Along with other similar statements, Anders’ account suggests that existing positions in Danish early childhood education constitutes fertile soil for introducing wild pedagogies. The ideas of allowing children freedom and letting nature occupy a central space in early childhood resonate with the cultural traditions of child-centred pedagogies and pedagogical orientations towards nature and the outdoors presented earlier in this article.
According to Macintyre et al. (Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020), roots constitute “the recognition and reflection of one’s own “place” through a cultural and historical context” (p. 8). The roots of a change process relate to fundamental cultural values, yet, we suggest, roots often contain historical tensions. In our case, while child-centred pedagogies can be considered a fundamental value of Danish early childhood education pedagogies, discussions on early childhood have, for more than a century, been marked by a tension between, on the one hand, the ambition of allowing children freedom and self-directed development through free play and, on the other hand, the ambition of ensuring children’s future possibilities through a more structured, school-oriented didactics or learning orientation (Koch & Jørgensen, Reference Koch and Jørgensen2023). The balance of this dilemma has vacillated between the two sides over time.
An interview with two colleagues of Ole and Anders, Annette and Louise, who were involved in the second project shift at The Beach shows that the introduction of wild pedagogies is seen in relation to such discussions. Annette, on the one hand, suggests that wild pedagogies is a research-based way of challenging school orientation in early childhood: “I believe we have a school system that doesn’t completely work right now. I hope people will realize that we can do things differently in the early childhood education institutions. That people will see that you can … NOT put five-year-olds in a chair for the entire day”. Louise, on the other hand, is also a bit worried about the consequences: “Yes, but I see a dilemma in being so wild and outdoors, free play, free nature, following the children. As soon as they reach school, it is an upside-down world, they will have to [adapt to the school]. I think we kind of position ourselves in a minefield.” (Interview, June 2024).
The discussion relates to reflections on the positioning of adults, which form part of central educational discussions in the Danish context, in relation to nature pedagogies (Fischer & Madsen, Reference Fischer and Madsen2001; Edlev, Reference Edlev2015) as well as more generally. While researchers and practitioners agree on the value of child-centred pedagogies, they have disagreed on how to balance child autonomy and adult-controlled pedagogical framing in attempts to ensure that children are introduced to learning content (see, e.g., Broström, Reference Broström2022). Pedagogues’ discussions on positioning are often inspired by the model of the “three learning environments” (Edlev, Reference Edlev2015), which describe the positions of an educator as being in front of the child, showing, telling, and leading the way; next to the child, assisting, helping, and inspiring; or behind the child, leaving the child to their own explorations and only interacting if reached out to. In the project, discussions about positionings of pedagogues took place during all experiments and were further inspired by Mariegaard’s categorizations of positions in science education, in particular the image of the pedagogue as an improviser aiming to be responsive, encouraging and supportive to children’s initiatives and engagements (Mariegaard, Reference Mariegaard2023).
At The Beach, pedagogical staff answered the call of wild pedagogies to let go of control and allow for spontaneity, complexity, and “the unknown” by letting go of all planning when venturing into nature areas. When a researcher came to observe the “activities,” Anders explained that the activity was to not plan anything. This urged him to stress that this approach was not caused by laziness. In a later interview, Ole posed a lot of questions for reflection related to positioning of adults when allowing more freedom to children:
How should we position ourselves? How much should we direct where the children are going? Should we attempt to direct their interest, their immersion, or should we just leave them to go where they want? Do we need to keep them (under direct supervision)? Do we need to learn to let go of the wish to control? Do we need to work with our own chaos anxiety? (Interview, May 2024).
The dialogues at The Beach suggest that the introduction of wild pedagogies in the Danish early childhood context is facilitated by historical roots of child-centred pedagogies, but also reignites tensions between child-centeredness and school readiness, and between more or less adult-directed educational approaches.
In the following sections, we explore how the introduction of wild pedagogies introduces new ideas about relations between children, adults and nature, constituting shoots of change, which activate new dilemmas.
Shoots of change: knowing and caring for more-than-human nature in known and unknown places
It is spring. The leaves of the beech trees are light green, the water of the small stream has receded after the heavy rainfall of winter. It is still rather cold; the children playing near the river are wearing winter clothes and boots. There are twelve of them and two adults. They have been here before and will come back again next week. This place in the forest is their “base camp.” The adults have suggested that they could make boats today, exploring which materials float and which don’t. Sven and Malik engage enthusiastically in this task, and right now they are busy testing whether moss floats, taking big handfuls of the green, living material and throwing them into the stream, creating an island of moss. As Malik removes a big piece of moss from a stone, he notices a millipede and calls Maria, the pedagogue. “Maria, we found a millipede in the moss, it is turning around.” Maria approaches, followed by four-year-old Axel. She looks carefully and suggests that they remove the millipede before testing the floating capabilities of the moss. Sven and Malik remove the millipede and take the moss to the river, but Axel turns to Maria: “I don’t think it is a good idea to remove the moss from the stones. That will destroy the animals’ home.” Maria looks at him and nods: “That is actually a good point.” She calls the two other boys and asks them if they heard Axel’s point; Axel repeats. “I don’t need more [moss] now,” Malik says quickly. He suggests placing the millipede in some of the remaining moss. Axel carefully takes the millipede from Maria’s hands and places it in the moss still left on the stones.
(field note, March 2024)
The Forest is a forest kindergarten driving fifty-five children, aged 3–6 years, from central Copenhagen to a house in a forest area, roughly fifty kilometres from the city. At The Forest, Maria and her colleague Ulla initially engaged in a design experiment aimed at creating more space for children’s nature explorations. Along the way, they became interested in the role and ethics of nature relations in their forest practices, and they read and discussed literature on wild pedagogies (Jørgensen-Vittersø et al., Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022) and life-friendly Bildung (Paulsen & Ziethen, Reference Paulsen, Ziethen and Strarup2023).
Maria and Ulla decided to use a “base camp”—to go back to the same place in the forest every week. Returning to the same place and getting to know it over time allowed the children to feel more confident in their nature encounters and take more control, they pointed out. In a contrary move, at The Beach, Ole and Anders decided to plan excursions to unknown locations. Experimenting with letting go of the desire to control situations while being in nature places known to neither children nor adults, and without any specific aim or project, they attempted to allow nature to become a co-teacher and let spontaneity be part of the educational space (Jørgensen-Vittersø et al., Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022, p. 142).
Shoots of change, according to Macintyre et al. (Reference Macintyre, Tassone and Wals2020) are materializations of small actions with a potential for developing into future transformations (p. 9). A first shoot of change in our experiments were the ways in which pedagogical employees let the meetings between children and more-than-human nature take up a more important space in their educational activities. As in many other of the project experiments, the pedagogical staff at The Beach and The Forest experimented with creating a frame for nature pedagogies that would grant children freedom and agency to explore and learn on their own initiative. This change of educational practice could be understood with reference to the historical discussion on child-centred pedagogies and the balance between freedom and structure in early childhood education. However, through the introduction of wild pedagogies, another element came to take up more space in the old discussion: What about the agency and well-being of more-than-human nature? In other words, the invitation to let nature be co-teacher called for a new type of awareness of why and how to interact with outdoor places characterised by more-than-human nature.
The situation described above, taking place at the base camp of The Forest, illustrates the dilemma quite neatly. As Sven and Malik are building an island of moss in the stream, they engage with the surrounding natural world in an embodied, sensuous, playful, and exploratory way. Doing so, they learn about the quality of the moss, which could be considered emergent science (Johnston, Reference Johnston2014): Does it sink or float? How much moss does it take to make a stable island in a stream? What lives inside the moss? At the same time, the children make the place in the forest “their own.” Just as building caves, fire pits, or camps, a child-made island in a stream may “bridge the gap” between the familiar and the less familiar in children’s realm (Fleer & Pramling, Reference Fleer and Pramling2015), hence creating a sense of belonging to the forest.
While these two processes of getting to know the forest and being in it are epistemologically distinct, they are both challenged by the wild pedagogies prompt to not control or damage more-than-human nature. When Maria and the children start a conversation about life in the moss, they turn their attention to potentially valuable learning processes about life and natural surroundings, and about human responsibility and care for more-than-human nature. Yet, such situations also generated discussions among pedagogical staff, concerning whether the pedagogical attention on not harming more-than-human life could limit the children from engaging in other important experiences and learning processes highlighted by other approaches to nature and science education. The invitation to allow for more space for encounters between children and more-than-human nature hence directed attention to a dilemma between exploration and care, which the pedagogical employees felt a need to discuss further.
The invitation also led to a different, and initially more practical, consideration: Providing more space for spontaneity in the encounters between children and more-than-human nature in pedagogical practice demands a different way of relating to time. Therefore, a second shoot of change is the attempt to let go of constraining time management.
Shoots of change: Catching the bus or saving the future?
While walking in the forest, Anders tells the researcher that adult attention to time often becomes a barrier to children’s explorations of and relations to nature. He talks about a trip to the forest with a substitute teacher, who did not know the philosophy of wild pedagogies, and how she rushed through the forest, asking about the time and wanting to look at the map. When adult bodies indicate that we are in a hurry, it affects the children, and you lose a lot of potential, Anders notes. Later during the day, Ole tells the researcher that even though he acknowledges the value of letting the children decide the speed of specific trip, he admits getting a bit concerned about time, because they have to reach a specific place before the bus comes to pick them up.
(edited field note, June 2024)
Dealing with time binds is not new to pedagogical employees. Time to engage and explore is crucial in nature pedagogies, and “slowness” is considered a positive quality (Fischer and Madsen, Reference Fischer and Madsen2001). Yet, it is often difficult to obtain in the context of institutional structures. However, Ole and Anders seemed to express a heightened awareness of the micro-relations between time, bodies, positions, nature and explorations, which evolved while experimenting with new designs of play and learning environments inspired by wild pedagogies.
According to Jørgensen-Vittersø et al., wild pedagogies encourage slowing down and listening in different ways to our own and others’ bodies, allowing children to connect with more-than-human life and other ways of experiencing time (Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022, p. 145). In line with critiques of the acceleration of modern societies (Rosa, Reference Rosa2010) and time control in the modern world (Maison, Reference Maison2024), wild pedagogies suggest that one approach to a future viable earth may be to look at ways of dealing with time in current educational institutions.
In The Beach and The Forest, pedagogical employees attempted to use their experiments with new play and learning environments to create more open time for children “to be where they are.” At The Beach, Ole and Anders practiced their wild pedagogy experiments on day trips, which only happened once in a while, but took all day. Normal time structures and routines at the day care institution were put on halt. At The Forest, Maria and Ulla did their experiments at least once a week and generally stayed within the regular time structure of the kindergarten, being back in time for lunch. Still, the weekly visits to the same place over several months offered the children an extended time experience, allowing for knowledge of the small seasonal changes of the place. Logbook writings with the children supported the children’s reflections on continuity and change.
Observations and conversations with pedagogical employees suggest that experimenting with ideas of wild pedagogies highlighted tensions about time in institutional everyday life and added to an ongoing discussion about the dilemma between the ambition to practice good pedagogy and ensuring the relatively smooth operation of an institution. These tensions may indicate that the time structures of early childhood institutions are a pragmatic result of what is possible, mirroring the time structures of the surrounding society (Hochschild, Reference Hochschild1997; Rosa, Reference Rosa2010). Yet, in the reflections of the pedagogical employees, another layer was added to the discussion, with a focus on the future. According to Ole, creating time for children “to be where they are” is necessary if children are to be supported in becoming “better caretakers of the earth.” Similarly, Maria, in an interview at the end of the project shift, pointed out the relationship between allowing children space and time in nature and a future change of worldview leading to a more sustainable world. The actual link between more time in nature and future sustainability was not spelled out in detail, but the idea of slow pedagogy (Clark, Reference Clark2022) and the change of institutional time management as a key element in socio-cultural change towards sustainable and life-friendly futures stood out in the discussion across the empirical material.
Diving into the discussion of time in pedagogical practice thus opens a much deeper conversation on how modern people live their lives in a preset and rather constrained time structure, and the consequences this may have for future life. Even though the project offers only a small window to ponder and appropriate time differently, it is an important “shoot of change” that can foster new and important experiences of time. Yet in the long run, this “shoot” might be very difficult to push—pedagogues quickly face barriers which, to a large degree, are out of their hands, and which demand a stronger cultural and political change.
Discussion
With the analysis of experiences with and discussions about wild pedagogies in two Danish early childhood institutions, we have intended to bring attention to the micro-processes of change: to the historical continuity that forms part of change processes, to the emergence of new practices and perspectives, and to the difficulties and dilemmas faced by educators when trying to push education in new directions.
In the article that supported the introduction of wild pedagogies in the project, Jørgensen-Vittersø et al. (Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022) propose that when children harm animals or nature, it is often due to cultural norms supporting violence and hierarchical power relations (p. 142). While this explanation is valid, we suggest acknowledging the complexity of such situations. In situations such as the one discussed in this article, children may harm animals in processes of exploring the world. In other situations, we have seen children harm animals out of fear. Children’s relations to animals are often emotionally complex and ambivalent, involving care and fascination as well as fear, and sometimes disgust (Jørgensen, Reference Jørgensen, Husted, Jørgensen and Madsen2023; Tipper, Reference Tipper2011).
The dilemma between children’s lust for (potentially harmful) explorations and their care for nature is a real educational dilemma, which was not resolved by the experiments. However, time stood out as an important part of the solution to such dilemmas. Children need time to pose difficult questions, and adults need time to stay and reflect on these together with children. Pedagogical employees need time to discuss dilemmas with each other. At the end of the project, the pedagogical employees noted that dilemmas of working pedagogically with children and nature had become more visible, important, and present to them during the project period, and they called for more extensive discussions with colleagues. This call points to the significance of dedicating time when trying to go elsewhere (Husted & Tofteng, Reference Husted and Tofteng2021).
Conclusion
Our analysis, framed by concepts from the spiral model of change, suggests that the introduction of wild pedagogies into a Danish early childhood context is facilitated by roots constituted by a historical attention to nature experience and child centred pedagogies, but also re-actualising historical tensions related to these themes. Furthermore, the invitation of wild pedagogies to let go of the desire to control and contain children and nature constitutes a more radical demand than existing practices, and hence, entails a call for socio-cultural change. We have identified two shoots of change with a potential to push the status quo. Centreing on stronger attention to and respect for more-than-human nature in early childhood education, and carving out time for more open approaches to being in nature, these shoots are in close dialogue with touchstones 1 and 4 of wild pedagogies (as outlined in Jørgensen-Vittersø et al., Reference Jørgensen-Vittersø, Blenkinsop, Heggen and Neegaard2022). As the shoots start to grow, dilemmas emerge, and discussions arise between the pedagogical employees involved in the experiments. While the dilemmas relate to existing discussions on early childhood pedagogies in the Danish setting, the inspiration from wild pedagogies shapes them in new ways, underlining the potential radical implications and questions of letting go of the control of nature, children and time in educational settings.
The experiments with wild pedagogies in Danish early childhood institutions suggest that ideas of wild pedagogies have a potential to generate socio-cultural change. The introduction of these ideas takes place in dialogue with existing traditions and dilemmas, but also generates discussion about new kinds of dilemmas, ignited by the invitation to let go of the desire to control and contain. Creating space and time for pedagogical employees to attend to and explore such dilemmas, we propose, are crucial aspects of keeping socio-cultural change processes in motion.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions to the research that is presented in this article. We would like to thank all ten daycare facilities that have participated in the project, both children, pedagogical employees, managers and all the more-than-human beings involved. The entire research team of NAVADA being; Katrine Dahl Madsen, Birgitte Virenfeldt Damgaard, Signe Eva Fabricius-Bjerre, Karen Bollingberg, Michael Wahl Andersen, Nina Madsen Sjö, Pernille Dehn, Anja Larsen Vilsholm, Kirstine Frobenius, Janne Hedegaard Hansen and Thorleif Frøkjær who have been part of the project. The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors. We would like to thank the reviewers of this article. We also would like the thank the Novo Nordisk Foundation for making this research possible.
Financial support
This research has been made possible by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Ethical standards
All data were anonymised and stored securely. The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Copenhagen University of Applied Sciences (UCC) has assessed that the research is carried out in an ethically sound manner, in accordance with current national and international regulations and generally recognised standards for research ethics.
Author Biographies
Tejs Møller is Associate Professor at University College Copenhagen. With a background in Nordic Friluftsliv his research interests revolve around ecocentric approaches to early childhood education and early childhood teacher education. Through action research both his research and his teaching explore openings, challenges and dilemmas of direct sensuous experiences in nature as an entry point to environmental and sustainability education in a Nordic context. Adress: Munksøgård 45, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
Nanna J. Jørgensen is Associate Professor, PhD, at University College Copenhagen. Her research interests revolve around the agency and experiences of children, young people and their families in relation to education, sustainability, immigration, and uncertain futures. Through ethnographic studies, action research and design based research in the context of early childhood education, she seeks to contribute to the development of early childhood education for sustainability in the Danish context, as well as to the field of environmental and sustainability education research.
Mia Husted is Reader, PhD, at University College Copenhagen. She is project leader for the NAVADA project, and her research interests are guided by participatory methodology as entrance to knowledge building on how to address and move unsustainable organizations and cultures of modern living. Through action research, transdisciplinary engagement and early childhood education for sustainability as point of departure, she seeks to contribute to sustainable change processes, as well as to the field of participatory research methodology.
Søren K. Hansen is currently a Ph.D. student at University of Southern Denmark SDU and working as an associate professor at University College Copenhagen teaching nature- and outdoor to students of pedagogic since 2014. His PhD project explores how mathematical engagements is mediated spatially in relations between human and non-human actors in a perspective of nature-pedagogic in Danish kindergarten. In his fieldwork he is using ethnographical walking methodologies in a sensory relational approach.
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