Beautiful Chaos and Cozy Disruption

The year that has been is sometimes how I talk and think about the 2020/2021 academic year. Much of the last year has contained elements of chaos, the unknown, anxiety, concern, and disrupted routines. For many of us, this has meant completely new routines. For some there is little that resembles the day to day comings and goings from one and a half years ago. Our campuses are mostly shuttered, students present as wee black boxes on a screen and the gift of relationship has been hard to open or remains untouched on the table. What then is beautiful in this chaos? What then is cozy about disruption?

Over the last year a group of four has become a growing community of practice as we consider outdoor pedagogy and building adult capacity, first with ourselves. We began with chaos- lots of questions toward a new terminology and foundation to work forward with. And the bundled chaos became scattered. We immersed ourselves in current research, challenged one another with reflections and asked a lot of questions. The chaos continued, but in it came beauty. More colleagues joined our meetings, collaborations began, relationships followed, laughter ensued. And we looked forward.

And then kaboom. Like the winter storms experienced in Alberta and Saskatchewan this winter, a new idea blew in “disequilibrium” and “disruption”. These are strong verbs that also double as an intervention, a provocation to move us into deeper thinking. Did I sign up for this? Our intentional assembled group became a Community of Practice bridging thousands and kilometres, a few time zones, and unexpected but welcome partners on the journey of discomfort. This partnership has offered a sense of belonging, mentorship, and engagement (Soto, Gupta, Dick & Applegate, 2019). Disruption provides opportunities for new thinking, for being curious, for consciously considering what I hold to be true about Outdoor Pedagogy and teaching and learning. During this new chaos, I became excitedly unsettled in the same sort of way I am with the changing seasons. In Saskatchewan we have distinct and intensely paradoxical seasons. I look forward to each of them in decidedly different ways. Fall is my favourite and I look forward to the disruption to the warm weather that is the onset of crisp mornings, rosy cheeks, and cozy sweaters. In this project we are in the spring, new growth after the chaos and challenges of winter storms. I am entangled in the seasons and am weathered along with all that is around me in nature (Rooney, 2018). There is comfort for me in this change.

What about change.

Yes, that six letter word. In my personal context, change has never been my favourite. I like stability, as much as there can be with a family of five, and delight in a rootedness. In my professional context however, I enjoy opportunities for continuous learning and growth, so change is much more welcome there. This year we have experienced much change because of external events. But what does it mean? How might I instead interpret or engage with change to consider my own internal transitions from an inquiry and curiosity stance instead.

In play children construct and deconstruct, over and again. They engage their curiosity and wonderment in that active exploration of ideas and items in their environments. As I played with the idea of my own disruption in reflection after a meeting, I was asked “Is deconstruction for children similar to disruption for adults?” I have been enjoying the process of change in my own thinking about disruption. I’ve been tinkering. From a teaching and learning perspective, I have often employed the questions “what do you imagine might happen if?” or “I wonder what you might find if” to disrupt student’s current thought processes. But I had not considered comparing this to the action children engage in their own cycle of inquiry and curiosity (Dietze, 2021) as they deconstruct in play. Children are consistently engaged in beautiful chaos.

The imagery of weather continues to be a metaphor for my learning and in noticing how it is that children are experiencing change around them. “For young children, curiosity is an important way of engaging with the micro-worlds in their immediate surrounds. When children are given the time and space to attend to the happenings in these worlds, possibilities for new and unexpected relations can emerge” (Rooney, 2018, p. 9). This project has gifted me time and space to learn, to enjoy the disruption and to build and reconstructing my knowledge and teaching practices.

Deidre Craig, BA, CCLS, Faculty - Saskatchewan Polytechnic

References

Dietze, B. (2021). Cycle of curiosity. Presentation  

Rooney, T. 2018. Weather worlding: learning with the elements in early childhood. Environmental Education Research 24 (1): 1-12.

Soto, M; Gupta, D; Dick, L; and Applegate, M. 2019. Bridging Distances: Professional Development for Higher Education Faculty Through Technology-Facilitated Lesson Study, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice 16 (3): 1-19.