Stones, situated writing and education

Abstract

<p>Recent research in the field of education studies has raised concerns about anthropocentric discourses and methods regarding materiality. Creating new pedagogical approaches and practices to advance cultural and material understanding is the key objective for scholars and educators. This article demonstrates how the collection of self-taken digital photographs of stones activated a researcher for educational thinking process, and it does this methodologically by using situated writing and digital photographs as co-thinkers. The main task is to explore the meaning of blurred relationships of material worlds by asking especially what stones, and especially children’s interest towards stones, can teach us, what they can remind us of, and how they may help us reflect on education and growth as a celebration of open approaches and critical reconsiderations in order to deflect the focus away from anthropocentric subjectivity. The aim is to produce a novel contribution and a situated writing sample of not representing world and education but encountering them anew and being part of its process, connecting things that are not typically connected.<br></p>