Pedagogies of place-spaces: walking-with the post-professional

ABSTRACT

There has been a re-politicisation of the professional identity of English Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) teachers following revisions to the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. This move from play-based to more adult-directed teaching has been challenged by the sector. In an attempt to bring back the embodied nature of teaching this article turns to posthumanist and feminist materialist scholarship to articulate how place and space influence ECEC teachers’ perceptions of practice. It explores a field trip with ECEC student teachers to a nature reserve on the South Coast of England. We ‘walked-with’ each other to reimagine philosophical and policy expectations for teachers and children. During this trip we attended to the materialisation of place-space considering how social, cultural, and historical narratives entangle with, and impact on, perceptions of childhoods. These left ‘impressions’ on teachers’ bodies helping them reconsider their pedagogy with young children. The walkers developed their own understanding of the impact of place-space which, although materialised in the moment of the trip, resonated and connected to contemporary perspectives of young children. These moments provide sites to challenge existing policy and professional knowledge allowing for a more expansive view of posthuman post-professional ethical response-able practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Posthuman post-professional
• early childhood teachers
• place-space
• walking-with
• feminist materialism
• affect

Introduction

Education policy is constantly changing as successive governments deliver on their manifesto promises. These changes reflect and promote conceptualisations of education, teaching and learning that fit with prevailing government ideologies, which in England are currently based on a knowledge rich curriculum with a more directive style of teaching and behaviour management (Roberts-Holmes and Moss 2021). English Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) teachers have been subject to a range of historical and contemporary policy changes that have reframed the role and purpose of ECEC teaching. ECEC teachers are predominantly female and historically have been linked to deficit narratives as their role has been perceived as low-skilled ‘natural’ and akin to mothering focussed primarily on the care of young children (Ailwood 2008, Fairchild and Mikuska 2021). An increase in maternal employment saw the need for young children to attend preschool/nursery to support mothers’ return to the workforce. This produced an opportunity for a more educative focus in the early years, based on notions of Human Capital Theory, where the young child was conceptualised as future worker (Moss 2014). These changing views of ECEC, and an influx of public money to subsidise child care fees, resulted in greater interest from policy makers for a return on their investment (Moss 2014). The resultant policy and ‘professionalisation agenda’ (HMSO 2006) has seen ECEC teachers access qualifications and gain a sense of agency over their roles (Osgood 2010), albeit under the regulatory gaze and compliance requirements form the UK government regulator (Ofsted). The need for professionalisation was linked to the development of an ECEC curriculum framework, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which was, and still is, influenced by cognitive and developmental psychology (DCSF, 2008). With the implementation of a revision to the EYFS (DfE 2021a) there has been a strengthening and extension of the expected goals a child should achieve before they enter compulsory schooling. This has resulted in concerns about how the child is framed and how the new non-statutory Development Matters guidance (DfE 2021b) might reflect a different pedagogical approach than in previous iterations of the documents (Kay and Fairchild 2020). These changes have seen a response from the ECEC sector with the creation of the sector-led non-statutory document Birth to 5 Matters (Early Education 2021) as a response to the perceived shortcomings of the revisions to policy.

This article builds on existing scholarship that theorises the post-professional teacher as under assault from policy and education reform (Hargreaves 2000), subject to deprofessionalisation (Buchanan 2015), more flexible, democratic and inclusive (Martin et al. 2007), with professional identities driven by, and subject to, the ways in which life has been impacted by globalisation and neoliberalism (Burns 2019). To extend these conceptions I explore some of the broader practice and philosophical conceptualisations of ECEC practice and teaching to develop and reconceptualise the ECEC teacher as a post-professional. I do this by drawing on posthumanist and feminist materialist theory as a means to bring to the fore the embodied nature of teaching by paying attention to the bodies, objects and materiality that surrounds teachers in training. Initially I highlight the historical development of the English ECEC teacher. Then I conceptualise the methodological underpinnings for the article and discuss the background of a field trip where I walked-with ECEC student teachers in a nature reserve on the south coast of England. The theoretical framing for this article draws on posthumanist and feminist materialist understandings of affect theory through which I develop a line of argument that provides an opportunity to explore how place-spaces impact teachers understandings of pedagogy and young children in outdoor environments. I finish with a discussion on what these theorisations might offer our thinking on posthuman post-professionalism.

Tracing ECEC professionalism

This shift in the nature of the professional needs to be read in context with the composition of the ECEC sector. In England provision is diverse and predominantly part of a neoliberal market model (Roberts-Holmes and Moss 2021). ECEC schools and settings are micromanaged by the statutory curricular framework (Department for Education (DfE) 2021a) and the official Government regulator of education (Ofsted) who inspects and grades provision. ECEC settings are non-compulsory and can be private businesses, nursery schools and nurseries within schools. They are open to children from birth to the September before their fifth birthday. After this children enter compulsory schooling for the Reception year, which is part EYFS, then they transition to more formal schooling the September before their sixth birthday (Department for Education (DfE) 2021a). The required qualification to work in ECEC is a vocational accreditation, which is equivalent to exit-level high school certificates, although academic qualifications have developed to postgraduate level (Bonetti 2018, Department for Education (DfE) 2021a). The composition of workforce qualifications have generally been linked to different levels of funding between compulsory and non-compulsory provision with compulsory provision employing more graduates (Cameron and Moss 2020). In this article I have used the term teacher to encompass the range of titles attached to a practitioner’s role in their working environment; these include early years teacher, manager, assistant, trainee teacher, nursery nurse, nursery practitioner and volunteer. This is not to homogenise the breadth of experience present in the sector but to provide a term which acknowledges the importance of the role and the diversity in the sector.

The debates around professionalism in ECEC have been linked to the nature of the work and the diversity of the workforce. With a highly gendered workforce the historical view was that professionalisation was not necessary and the job was seen as ‘naturally’ women’s work that was aligned with the role of a mother (Ailwood 2008, Fairchild and Mikuska 2021). However, perceptions changed when, in 2008, the Labour government consolidated two curriculum frameworks into one, the EYFS, which covered children aged between birth to five years (DCSF 2008) and provided more structured levels of state funding which would cover part of the costs to parents. State funding was particularly important for private settings where fees charged to parents were partially met by the state (Fairchild 2017). There was a consolidation of workforce qualifications that included vocational and degree courses and underpinning legislation which enabled this (Her Majesty’s Stationary Office (HMSO) 2006). The EYFS, which has subsequently been revised three times since its inception, has traced ideological and political will for teaching and pedagogy in ECEC. This has seen a shift in the professional identity of the ECEC teacher from the notion of the professional as a social pedagogue with a more holistic vision of working with children and their families (Dahlberg et al. 2007), towards a more outcomes based teacher, with pedagogy aligned to meeting proscribed curricular outcomes (Roberts-Holmes and Moss 2021).

Over time and with changes in policy there remain tensions about the professional identity of the ECEC teacher who needs to blend care, emotionality, emotional labour, professional knowledge and skills as part of their role (Osgood 2010, Page 2018, Fairchild and Mikuska 2021). All these have contributed to the perception that ECEC work is gendered, low-skilled and low paid. Even with the development of a professionalisation agenda government policy from 1997 reinforced a divided system of vocational and academic routes (Vincent and Braun 2013). These routes did not provide parity of pay, status, and terms and conditions with teachers who work with children in older age phases (Hevey 2013). This leads to ECEC teachers being in a contradictory position of professionalisation with limited recognition and remuneration which could be attributed to the external view of ECEC as ‘naturally’ gendered (Fairchild 2017).

Methodological underpinnings

Setting the context

This article is based on a field trip to a nature reserve on the south coast of England in 2019. It consisted of six BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies third year student teachers and their lecturer (the author), and formed part of a module that explored outdoor pedagogies for young children. The module was designed to focus on a range of outdoor environments, from the more challenging (this field trip) to the nursery garden, where student teachers were asked to consider how the places and spaces visited might impact on pedagogy and their understandings of young children. The student teachers and I discussed the field trip in a previous classroom session and I explained that I wanted to document and record aspects of the session as I was interested in their experiences of the location. During these discussions I focussed on Rosi Braidotti’s notion of affirmative ethics (2019) which highlights the ‘capacities of both human and non-human matter can contribute to creating empowering (life-affirming) relations through which reality can be enacted differently’ (Mulcahy 2021). These ethics extended to the student teachers’ decisions to take part in the documentation of the session and also in my role as recounting the happenings of the field trip. I had been teaching these students for the previous two years and we were able to have open discussions prior to the session on the purpose of the recordings and documentation of the field trip. During these discussions it was made clear that there would be no ramifications for them if they chose not to consent, and that the trip would proceed as planned. They were asked to send me an email individually to consent to this, all did so and signed voluntary consent forms before the trip indicating their agreement to publication of the trip in conference presentations and journal articles where pseudonyms have been used.

Walking-with ECEC student teachers

Research-creation as a methodology was developed by Erin Manning and Brian Massumi (2014). They defined it as a process that includes both creative and academic practices which develop knowledge and innovation via investigation and experimentation. This is of particular interest to scholars working with posthumanist and feminist materialist theories where outcomes of research cannot be ‘captured’ by traditional research methodologies (Lambert 2019, Benozzo 2021). These creative processes can acknowledge the entanglement of bodies that could be human, non-human or other-than-human (see Baugh 2010 for more discussion on the concept of ‘body’), not in an anthropomorphic way but in a way which notes that there are other influences on human subjectivity.

During this trip we engaged with walking-with, a critical methodological praxis that allows us to question who, how and where walking happens (Springgay and Truman 2018). It allows the walkers to consider the politics of intersectionality to engage with structural issues such as social class, gender, race, sexuality and disability. This moves the walk from convivial practice to one that ‘accounts for the ways that walking … functions to police and regulate bodies’ (WalkingLab 2021, n.p.). We walked-with place-spaces noting the complexities that surround ECEC teaching. During the trip we walked together and talked about children, teachers, pedagogy, historical and contemporary research. Most importantly we used our senses to tune into the surroundings. The smells, sounds, sights and how these materialised sensations that helped us consider alternative narratives to progress discourses and how the professional might be/become whilst walking. We walked with a sense of wonder at the natural landscape, questioning why this trip was important, thinking about pedagogy and our practice (Chung 2020, Lemieux and White 2021). Walking-with provided an opportunity for us to become response-able to dominant discourses in ECEC and to interrogate and re-consider these accounting for the landscape in which we were entangled.

At the end of the field trip we stopped and discussed a number of critical questions which included ‘How might this trip include or exclude young children and their families?’, ‘How did the landscape and the sensations you felt impact you?’, ‘What might this mean for pedagogy?’ These discussions were recorded, and photographs were taken during the trip. These data formed the basis for this article, the poem was generated from the walking post trip discussions, there are some of the excerpts from our discussions, and images selected help to provide the reader an understanding of the nature reserve. The poem and images were shared with the student teachers at a later teaching session and they were happy for these to be used as part of subsequent conference presentations and articles. In this way we were able to develop an understanding of the critical theory-praxis that allowed us to evaluate how the walk affected our understandings of outdoor pedagogy with young children.

Posthumanist and feminist materialist understandings of affect

Posthumanist and feminist materialist theory

Posthumanist and feminist materialist thinking has become popular in ECEC and education more broadly (Jones and Holmes 2014, Murris 2016, Fairchild 2019, Osgood and Robinson 2019, Albin-Clark 2020, Yuen 2020). These theories are a range of transdisciplinary positions that provide a fundamental shift in conceptions of the inter-relatedness of ontology, epistemology and ethics (Barad 2007, Ferrando 2019). They posit a move away from anthropocentrism and the power of Eurocentric Enlightenment logics of the white Western Man as the pinnacle of existence, to a rethinking of the human subject (Taylor and Fairchild 2020). This becomes important as the heritage of Enlightenment thinking is reflected in the language and materiality of the world which influences both historical and contemporary conceptions of humans and human exceptionalism (Yusoff 2018). Here the human subject is de-centred revealing a connected view of the human within social and material worlds (Lara et al. 2017), acknowledging that other bodies, objects and materialities have an influence on subjectivity (Snaza and Weaver 2015). This decentring shifts the focus from solely the human, highlighting the relationality present between humans, non-humans (object and matter) and other-than-humans (animals and living organisms). Here agency becomes an enactment and structures of power can be interrogated via an exploration of what is happening between humans, non-humans and other-than-humans. An example of this is how gender becomes enacted in institutions (higher education and ECEC) that can highlight how women experience inequality and marginalisation (Taylor and Fairchild 2020).

There have been critiques that, under the premise of dissolving the subject, posthumanism does not effectively address marginalised individuals and communities (Braidotti 2020). The concern is that structural issues and struggles facing individuals and communities are negated and erased when a move beyond humanism is proposed (Jackson 2015). This critique has also extended to debates around the novel-ness of posthuman and feminist materialist theories with Indigenous scholars raising concerns that the lineage of posthuman thought have either not considered, or erased, Indigenous critical scholarship (Todd 2016). However, a critical posthuman and feminist materialist perspective needs to be aware of the lineages and inheritances it owes to scholars and communities that have gone before (King 2017). This becomes materialised in the politics of location (Braidotti 2013) and politics of citation (Ahmed 2012) to ensure that research and researchers ‘are not simply a gesture to move beyond the human and recognise agency in matter; rather, they charge qualitative research with particular ethical, aesthetic, and political tasks’ (Truman 2019, p. 9). As a scholar working with feminist materialist theory I acknowledge my own positionality as a white academic that used to work in the ECEC sector. This has been enacted in the article in the development of my theoretical understandings of the intersectional nature of ECEC, my choice of literature and the affirmative ethics present in both my teaching and scholarship.

Affect

Defining affect can be problematic as there are multiple theoretical perspectives and positions. Massumi (2002, 2015) conceptualises affect as capacities, potentialities and possibilities that traverse bodies of all kinds. These are intersubjective transmissions of intensity that move beyond subject/object dualisms and focus on what affect does to bodies (Van Viegen 2020). Affect is the way in which the forces produced by objects, spaces, material and discursive entities and bodies leave an impression on human bodies. For example, how policy, inspection, perceptions on the value of qualifications, the objects/toys found in nursery settings and the type of setting can influence ECEC teachers’ emotional responses (Fairchild and Mikuska 2021). Although affect works as intensities, affective bodily capacities can reveal emotions (Massumi 2002). Affects circulate, flow across and infuse bodies of all kinds, rendering individuality redundant, they can be both affirmative and provocative in the same instance (Dernikos et al. 2020). This results in affective encounters in the world where both micro and macro structures can be materialised, for example this can include how documentation of children’s learning impacts teachers (Albin-Clark 2020), or how the neoliberal nature of conference spaces can influence researchers and knowledge (Fairchild et al. 2021). Honing in on the intersubjective posthuman dimension of affect helps develop insights into the minutiae of unfolding bodily transformations and changes in capacity that result in the ways ECEC teachers might respond to situations (Massumi 2002). Here bodies become defined by what is produced when they are affected, and bodies-as-affective-processes are more that the physical form on view. Affect has influenced me in a number of ways: it was part of my considerations during the walk as I reacted to the way the environment affected my body (and the student teacher bodies); how the methodological underpinnings developed; and how the ‘data’ was presented in this article.

Introducing place-space

Jobb (2019) proposed that space is linked to physical structure and/or locality. Space is never neutral, it is produced in relations with other bodies in landscapes, imbued with power, always already in process, multiple, relational and constantly being (re)produced (Massey 2005). Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor call for an unsettling of dominant epistemologies and question how it might become possible to ‘create a space for a new kind of ethical response’ (Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor 2015, p. 5). Place is related to space where things are located in space but act in place (Jobb 2019). The legacies of those who live, act and experience places are inscribed by discursive and material forces that shape responses to place (Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor 2015). There has been an increase in place-based inquiry in ECEC which has reconceptualised children’s wider experiences of pedagogy and curriculum (Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor 2015, Malone 2018). The work of these scholars have considered how place is shaped by culture, identity, history and colonialism (Tuck and McKenzie 2015) and the impacts this has on ECEC pedagogy, practice and young children.

Taking up Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor’s (2015) call for new ethical response-ability to both place and spatiality, I argue it is impossible to separate place and space and employ the term place-spaces to highlight this. Drawing on affect theory I propose place-spaces are always under construction and are a product of a multiplicity of connections. Place-spaces affect encounters and encounters shape place-spaces. Place-space is fluid, immanent, partial and situated (Haraway 1988). Methodologically this offers the potential to consider the impact of discourse, history and materiality on bodies. In this case of this example of research-creation, walking-with student teachers allowed us to be open to the embodied and sensory experiences of being in the nature reserve and how this made us feel about these types of spaces for young children. These experiences are revealed in the remainder of this article which notes our engagement with place-spaces and how place-spaces might make us feel and sense differently.

Entanglements with walking and place-spaces

Pioneers from Froebel to Forest Schools have proposed the ECEC child uses nature as a learning tool, a way to understand and collaboratively gain important knowledge from the natural world (Knight 2013). Outdoor experiences are mandated in the EYFS curriculum framework where spaces must be enabling, fit for purpose and suitable for the age of the child (Department for Education (DfE) 2021a). The view of an educative natural experience dovetails with the predominance of human mastery across nature: culture divides and limits other possibilities to explore human and more-than-human entanglements (Wallin 2015). However, there is a growing body of critical scholarship which seeks to challenge dominant and deficit notions of pedagogy, practice, teachers and relations with nature. Much of this comes from the work of scholars whose aim is to decolonise and unsettle Enlightenment perspectives about space and place (see Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor 2015).

Place matters;

The kind of place matters;

The matter of place matters;

Place is pedagogical.

(adapted from Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor 2015, p. 13)

The nature reserve visited was located on chalk ‘Downs’ in the South of England (Figure 1). This particular place-space was in a rural location and as we arrived we walked towards it along a footpath which was flanked by woodlands on one side and arable crops on the other. The nature reserve itself had a number of trails, and livestock were grazed here separated from the walkers by orange wire electric fences. The reserve was home to a grove of 2,000 year old yew trees, a quiet place where less light penetrated. As we walked we became more aware of our surroundings, the steep hills, the mud, the chalk and flints that peppered the ground making the uphill walking more challenging (Figure 2):

Figure 1. Place Matters

Figure 2. Walking-with chalk and flints

We had to be aware because sometimes it was squishy and your immediate next step was on the chalk so it was really hard … you couldn’t just not look where you were going (Emma)

At the top of the chalk Downs there were a number of small hillocks – four Bronze Age barrows (burial mounds):

… but the burial chambers I don’t think you would know that … you would think they were a mounds … (Joanne)

These were surrounded by gorse bushes with yellow flowers and the view stretched out in front of us with the sea shimmering in the distance.

As we walked we became affected by our environment by the sights, sounds, smells, the damp, the crunching underfoot, the squelching mud (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Walking-with yews

Yes and the sensations as well you could feel it underfoot, you could feel the mud and the squishiness underfoot … (Anne)

Walk-with place-spaces

We walked …

we talked …

we climbed trees and hills …

the mud squelched under our feet …

we stopped and admired the view …

we ate chocolate and had a drink …

one of us fell over in the mud …

we wondered what the mounds were on the top of the hill …

we saw sheep and cattle behind electric fences …

we heard the birds of prey screaming at us as we stood on top of the ‘Downs’ …

we became entangled with the material world …

at the end we talked …

As mentioned previously the image of the ECEC child in England is couched in a range of cognitive, developmental and constructivist perspectives (Department for Education (DfE) 2021a). These theoretical underpinnings have done important work to bring child development into contact with education theory and practice (Murris et al. 2020). However, it has been argued that this type of thinking espouses more linear, novice to expert models of development where young children are prepared for compulsory education and future employment. The neoliberal model of education has been critiqued as it can reify a more formal teacher-led approach to ECEC teaching with education’s primary purpose as a precursor to future employment potential (Cameron and Moss 2020). Murris et al. (2020, p. 4) note that these types of approaches see ‘adults claim they know about children, with the notion of “development” structuring theoretical claims about child and childhood and their enactment in educational practices and policies’. As a counterpoint there have been more expansive and relationship perspectives of young children and early childhood and these have been reflected in the theorisations of the ‘posthuman child’ which shifts the focus from developmental logic where teachers assess the individual children’s capabilities, to the tracing of material and discursive entanglements that children have with their environment(s) which renders them capable and confident learners (Murris 2016).

Critically walking-with affective place-spaces allow us to disrupt neoliberal narratives of the curriculum. We discussed whether these outdoor explorations were suitable for young children, we also considered whether this type of landscape could be exclusionary (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Walking-with place-spaces

It is quite a way out and so unless you live in the local area you might not be able to get here (Joanne)

The landscape itself was challenging with steep hills and slippery pathways that, at first, could seem beyond the ‘age and stage’ of development for young children (Murris et al. 2020). Research has highlighted the holistic benefits of outdoor play for young children, particularly where there is an element of managed risk (Knight 2013). However, there are barriers to allowing access to ‘risky’ types of outdoor play which has seen a decline in this type of activity (Sandseter et al. 2020). Some of our discussions reflected these barriers: Perhaps this was sparked by the nature of the climb, the sensations felt as teachers slipped and fell over, the mud being cleaned from hands, the way that the landscape affected our human bodies sparking us to consider this landscape too challenging, or not:

That would be really good for babies to put their feet in the mud to feel it, but you couldn’t just traipse six babies up the top (Anne).

There was some mud as we were just going into the yew areas … you could have two babies one on your front and one on your back!! (Claire)

It has been proposed that spaces for children are different to spaces for adults. Satta (2015) argued that this is related to the power relationships between children and adults and what is seen as an appropriate space for young children. The link to appropriateness was behind some of the barriers to outdoor play in Sandseter et al.’s (2020) research.

Initial teacher reflections were that the landscape might exclude both young children and ECEC teachers, the wildness of the place-spaces moved beyond the comfort zone of the nursery garden or forest school experiences which are set up for learning (Knight 2013). We debated how the intersections of gender, social class, race and special educational needs and disability might shape our understanding of outside place-spaces. Literature has identified that children with special education needs and disabilities can find challenges with access to outdoor spaces despite the benefits (Horton 2017). These discussions were played out in the comments and reflections of the student teachers:

I am always mindful of people with disabilities or special education needs, that what we did was quite physically challenging and how maybe this idea of nature isn’t nature for everybody, it is nature for some people who can access it (Fran).

Affect played its part when we thought and talked about how it felt as an adult in this place-space. It was a sunny but blustery day, when we initially arrived the air felt cool but as we climbed the steep hill to the top our bodies warmed from the exertions. We drew on our senses as shortness of breath made speech more difficult, the sounds, smells, touch, temperature, pressure, texture of the environment became embodied in our discussion. These types of environments can bring sharply into focus the power dynamics children feel in adult spaces (Satta 2015). The challenges felt by the ECEC teachers put them in a position where there was the potential for loss of control. Control was shifted from humans to place-spaces and enabled consideration of how children might feel when they experience a loss of control. Affect manifested itself in the micro-moments when the climb seemed insurmountable and this was relayed by momentary glances and raised eyebrows, in the moment of falling in the mud with the sensation of hands being buried. These intersubjective traces affected bodies and made us more aware of the environment. Being ‘of the world’ (Barad 2007, p. 185) becomes heightened by attuning to the sensory dimensions of the trip and the relinquishing of control experienced by the walkers.

Perhaps being in this place-space with a shared experience of nature: culture made it easier to talk as we were no longer experiencing the confines of the classroom and the associated lecturer: student power dynamic. This was highlighted when we entered the yew grove towards the end of the walk. The atmosphere in the yew grove felt heavy, silent, steeped in the history of place-space.

I said to Fran how quiet it is … (Claire)

It was really quiet and I remember when we walked up that big hill, the trees were creaking but it was really quiet … it was dead quiet down there … (Fran)

Which is actually probably quite nice for some children to make them think you don’t have to loud all the time … (Sally)

We mirrored the weight and influence of this silence as we walked through the ancient trees until one of the teachers wanted to climb into the yew branches (Figure 5) and this broke the affective spell. The silence dissipated as we laughed and talked about what it meant to be ECEC teachers. Perspectives of what it means to be a good professional and the tensions ECEC teachers might find in training and in practice have been discussed at length (Osgood 2010, Page 2018, Fairchild 2019, Keary et al. 2020). It has been argued that part of teacher training should include seeing the child differently (Kromidas 2019) moving beyond the child as future worker to the child in relations with the world and in dialogue with ECEC teachers and curriculum (Murris 2016). This trip materialised some of the discourses that surround the appropriateness of place-spaces for young children:

Figure 5. Climbing-with yew trees

I think the bits down here would be really good for toddlers … to experience a bit more of the outdoors with a lot less structure … so they can go and do what they want … because there is not a lot here to make them do things in certain ways. There is nothing here so they can interpret it how they want to … (Jane).

It also called for ECEC teachers to consider how their responses to the affective nature of place-spaces might impact their own professional practice. Walking-with place-spaces put the teacher in the place of the child where the landscape saw the teachers outside of their comfort zones. Walking, talking and attuning to the senses, thinking about practice and pedagogy, being outside of the University classroom offered different possibilities for thinking about the ECEC teacher and child.

Space and place are shaped by practices that have defined human relationships with the natural world towards one of dominance and ownership (Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor 2015). The place-space inquiry in this article aligns to reconceptualist scholarship into spaces and places to consider how historical and contemporary views of ECEC have been constructed. The recounting of the place-space trip is not an attempt to define the ways place-spaces impact all ECEC teachers. It is a partial, situated, speculative consideration of what affective place-spaces afforded the bodies that were part of this trip. It allowed for a pedagogy that was fluid, affective and immanent linked to walking-with certain ideas of ECEC professionalism and curriculum practice. It considered the affective nature of the landscape and how this influenced the discussions of pedagogy and practice. The result was an entanglement that allowed for discussions and debate that were embodied by participation in the trip. Perhaps this would have happened in the University classroom … perhaps not.

Place-space matters …

the kind of place-space matters …

the matter of place-space matters …

place-space is pedagogical …

Place-space posthuman post-professionalism

This article made connections between ECEC policy and practice, place-spaces and how bodies became affected by the landscape. With the change to the ECEC curriculum framework have come concerns about the appropriateness of the goals children need to attain (Kay and Fairchild 2020). There has also been a re-politicisation of the ECEC professional from a role more closely linked to a social pedagogue to one of a teacher (Cameron and Moss 2020). A walking-with methodology provided an opportunity to critically engage with place-spaces. The walkers and the landscape were affective – teacher bodies entangled with the walk and they sensed and embodied the experience. The influence of place-spaces animated discussions on young children’s experiences with the outdoor environment. During these discussions, the teachers explored how the trip might influence their own pedagogy.

Developing the notion of the post-professional I argue that the ‘post’ prefix does not signify an end of the professional, in this case it signifies the end of a certain sort of view of the professional. The posthuman post-professional becomes a professional-in-relations with non-humans and other-than-humans, critically open to the tensions and contested place-spaces of expected practice and professional knowledge. This became materialised in how we became affected by the experience. At the end of the walk we talked about how bodies came to matter, and which bodies came to matter more. We experienced these affective moments of being outside and explored how these might challenge the view of outdoor experiences for young children. We activated political questions about ECEC policy and practice as part of the relational interconnections between the walkers, the nature reserve, curricular policy, and constructions of early childhood. This saw us push against the boundaries we take for granted – the connection of nature and culture and what this means for educators and young children. This walk allowed us to challenge the dominant Western discourses about ECEC practice and natural places, it was an opportunity to unsettle and unpick how certain views of place and space privileged a particular worldview and to become more open to other affirmative potentials.