Position of Child
Understanding the experience of a child and 'feeling different'.
Odd Project - Position of child - body content
During 2018 and 2019, Professor Amanda Ravetz went to an early years school to become a part-time member of the class.
Positioning herself alongside the children, first in Nursery and later in Reception, Amanda noticed the times, spaces, processes and movements of the school day, its ebbs and flows.
By immersing herself in what she called ‘position of child’ - without having the full responsibility of an ‘adult’ role - it allowed her to take part in children’s communications with each other and the things they were surrounded by. Amanda experienced many moments of ‘feeling different’ and witnessed this experience for children.
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Being in ‘position of child’ within the Odd project was not quite behaving like a child, but it did mean leaving ‘ways of the head’ at the nursery door. I felt and sensed things far more intensely than I’m usually aware of in my adult role.
Further information on Position of Child
Amanda has written about Position of Child in collaboration with Dr Christina McRae, who is an early years practitioner and researcher.
Christina uses slow motion video in her role of participant observer and has been researcher-in-residence on a weekly basis in two early years settings in the UK for the past two years.
Their thinking-together takes the form of a conversation between the Position of Child and Position of Researcher, and draws out particular encounters and themes from their inter-connected but distinct perspectives.
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The value I see in the (slow) work of ‘position of child’ comes from the detail and texture of what I am able to experience and register in correspondence with the children, even though these instances seem minor as ‘evidence’, tiny even.
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Research paper: Odd Companions: a snaggle of voices
In Amanda and Christina’s paper, Odd Companions: a snaggle of voices (delivered at AERA 2019), both explore sensory intelligence and seek to develop a ‘felt understanding of children’s social relationships in early childhood.
Experiences of (not) fitting-in, the proximity of bodies in motion, solace and odd companionship are encountered through the prism of “corporeal-kinetic transfers of sense” (Sheets-Johnstone, 2003:418).
Companionship produced in the nursery extends beyond human sociality. The standardized routines and rituals of school (Holmes 2012), as well as the play materials, are enmeshed in odd attachments. Children learn through, around and under formal education practice, always in excess of its domesticating tendencies.
While the methodological and ethical implications of taking up the “position of the child” might suggest rolling it out as a training method for teachers, we resist too literal an interpretation, situating it as a provocative thought experiment, both in terms of pedagogic and ethnographic practice.
Ravetz and MacRae, 2019
Quote from Amanda
Being in school has given detail to, and nuanced the idea, that odd is intriguing and exciting, until it sticks to people, or to a place or a thing, at which point it can feel aggressive, frightening and/or isolating.
Related project streams
The project will also inform a chapter written with Professor Rachel Holmes in Knowing From The Inside: Design For A Curriculum, edited by Tim Ingold.
The Position of Child research led to a second phase of research in which Amanda explored methods for translating her experiences in school. This is detailed in the section ‘Diffracting Position of Child’.
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If you have any questions about Position of Child, please contact Professor Rachel Holmes.
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