The ownership of wisdom: provocations on early years as a context for ‘thinking together’

Aksoy Kumru F. B.

11th Biennial International Froebel Society Conference, Erfurt, Almanya, 31 Temmuz - 02 Ağustos 2025, ss.35, (Özet Bildiri)

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Erfurt
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Almanya
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.35
  • İstanbul Üniversitesi-Cerrahpaşa Adresli: Evet

Özet

This proposal invites imagining Froebel in conversation with Lipman and Sharp (1978),

constructers of contemporary dialogic pedagogy based on doing philosophy for/with/by

children, abbreviated as P4C. Froebel’s ideas on early childhood education and care have

led to ever-expanding studies highlighting the need for a transformative change in its

current state, often highlighting the fragility and uncertainty of our lives. This proposal

thus adapts the necessity of re-turning dialogue stemming from the Froebelian past,

which is weaved into the present by reading Froebel diffractively through Lipman and

Sharp’s perspectives. This endeavour aims to question the ownership of wisdom by

examining the viability of such ownership and considering whose knowledge counts in

early childhood contexts. Accordingly, Froebelian thinking and Lipman and Sharp’s

propositions are broken apart “in different directions” (Barad, 2014: 168). Reading

diffractively exposes (at least to some extent) shared ontological underpinnings between

the two across childhood and adulthood within the concept of pedagogy. Elaborations on

Froebel and Lipman and Sharp’s notions connect, as they ‘threaded through one another’

(Murris and Bozalek, 2019), for reconceptualising pedagogy that extends beyond mere

teaching and involves a thoughtful engagement where both child and adult think

together. As diffraction troubles dichotomies (Murris and Bozalek, 2019), the implication

of reading Froebel in conversation with Lipman and Sharp also allows unpacking

epistemological possibilities for dismantling dichotomies between children and adults to

achieve learning environments where knowledge is co-constructed rather than

transmitted (Sellers, 2013). Finding the resonances between Froebelian approaches and

P4C practices accentuates some provocations to be discussed on integrating philosophy

on children’s experiences in early childhood and care to promote (a) agentic spaces for

children’s worldviews, (b) diverse and equitable early childhood practice and (c) relational

pedagogies centred around the process of learning rather than the outcome per se.