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Article

Becoming Child and Sustainability—The Kindergarten Teacher as Agency Mobiliser for Sustainability Through Keeping the Concept of the Child in Play

1
KINDknow—Kindergarten Knowledge Centre for Systemic Research on Diversity and Sustainable Futures, Faculty of Teacher Education, Arts and Sports, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, 5063 Bergen, Norway
2
Department of Teacher Education, Østfold University College, P.O. Box 700, 1757 Halden, Norway
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2021, 13(10), 5588; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105588
Submission received: 1 March 2021 / Revised: 3 May 2021 / Accepted: 7 May 2021 / Published: 17 May 2021

Abstract

:
In this article, we seek to theorize the role of the kindergarten teacher as an agency mobiliser for sustainability through keeping the concept of the child in play, ultimately envisioning the child as a knowledgeable and connectable collective. This implies a non-dialectical politics of multiplicity ready to support and join a creative pluralism of educational organization and teacher roles for sustainability. Comprising friction zones between actual and virtual multiplicities that replace discursive productions of educational policies with enfoldedness, relations between bodies and becomings. This changes the power, position and function of language in and for agency and change. Not through making the child a constructivist change-agent through language but through opening up the possibilities for teachers to explore relations between language and matter, nature and culture and what might be produced collectively and individually. We go via the concepts of agencement expanding on the concept of agency, and conceptual personae directing the becoming of the kindergarten teacher. Both concepts informed by the transformational pragmatics of Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and Félix Guattari (1930–1992). The overarching contribution of this article is therefore political and pragmatic and concerns the constitution of subjectivity and transformative citizenships for sustainability in inter- and intra-generational perspectives.

1. Introduction

The overarching idea of this article is to theorize the role of the kindergarten teacher as an agency mobiliser for sustainability through keeping the concept of the child in play, ultimately envisioning the child as a knowledgeable and connectable collective. The teacher’s role through this, conceptualized as a constant grapple with—and mobilization of—agencies as relationally generated, hybrid, multi-layered, often internally contradictory, interconnected and web-like, and that attend to what this makes possible in attempts to extend figurations of sustainability and the child. Sustainability conceptualized as a dynamic, negotiated, ongoing process of transformation and the child as a stakeholder and contributor, learning as transindividual and plugged into the environment.
This implies a non-dialectical politics of multiplicity ready to support and join the creative pluralism of educational organization and teacher roles for sustainability. Comprising friction zones between actual and virtual multiplicities that replace discursive productions of educational policies with enfoldedness, relations between bodies and becomings [1] (p. 29). This changes the power, position and function of language in and for agency and change. Not through making the child a constructivist change-agent through language but through opening up the possibilities for kindergarten teachers to explore relations between language and matter, nature and culture and what might be produced and/or work transformationally, both collectively and individually.
To help us with this, we go via the concepts of agencement expanding on the concept of agency [2] (p. 6) (an untranslatable concept often translated into the English concept “assemblage” [3,4]), and conceptual personae directing the becoming of the teacher [5] (p. 64). Both concepts informed by the transformational pragmatics of Deleuze and Guattari [2]. They offer a philosophy of education and a pedagogy of the concept [5] (p. 12) building on the premises of a/the logic of intensities [1] (p. 29), where the driving force of the logic, is the movement and the intensity of evolutive rhizomatic processes, not dependent on a subject or an individual thinker. The overarching contribution of this article is therefore political and pragmatic and concerns the constitution of subjectivity and transformative citizenships for sustainability in inter- and intra-generational perspectives. Further, to create distinct cultures in the field of early childhood education and care for exploration and sharing, and position children as stakeholders and contributors. Becoming-child paradoxically being about the becoming of the teacher.
The article is our response to the special-issue-call Reimagining early childhood education for social sustainability in a future we want. Building on a neo-materialist ethics of affirmation [6] (p. 53), we explore the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child [7], articles 13 and 31, and the right of the child to have a childhood of senses. A right to freedom of expression, including a freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, and in all forms and shapes, depending on the (un)conscious choice of the child. Through this approach, we argue for a tuning in a/this child force [8] (pp. 2–7), as a way of supporting and disturbing habitual ways of thinking and doing sustainable kindergarten practices [9,10]. Ongoing processes of creating a future we want, preferable as a way of composing and/or bringing in the potential of the missing people [6]. Just to add before we continue, Deleuze and Guattari [5] (p. 2) are masters in concept-creations, not necessarily easily accessible as they do not define their concept in a straightforward way, but instead create them as invitations to think differently [11] (p. 1081–1082), and/or as active ongoing invitations to difference, thinking beyond categories of differences [12] (p. 38). An invitation loaded with potentialities for social sustainability within early childhood education and care.
Starting with the call from Deleuze and Guattari [2] (pp. 26–27) to make rhizomes, grow offshoots and be multiplicities, always already in the middle, we depart the article from past Norwegian kindergarten practice-memories, and/but created in the present through non-ending layers upon layers of collective autoethnographic writings [13] (p. 739). As a way of elaborating on the context of this example, we start with an introduction of how the example is connected to sustainable development and early childhood education and care.

2. Early Childhood Education and Care and Solidarity with Children of the World

The terms sustainable development and sustainability have a wide range of definitions but the 1987 publication of “Our Common Future” by the World Commission on Environment and Development [14] is one of the most cited. Sustainable development is here defined as a “development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations”. The United Nations and its member countries have agreed upon and published several strategies for how to achieve the goals of sustainable development, where the report of Agenda 2030 [15] taking over from the Millennium Development Goals, being the last sustainability strategy developed. This report is an important cooperation agreement organized as a forward-looking call for all member countries—poor, rich and middle-income—to promote prosperity while protecting the planet as a way of improving the lives of people everywhere. Ending poverty and strategies that build economic growth are considered as interconnected and address a range of social needs, including education, health, social protection and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. Qualitative education for all is within the strategy both as a goal (goal number 4) and at the same time defined as an important contributor in achieving all the other sustainability goals. In the field of Norwegian early childhood education and care, this responsibility is located as one of the core values for the kindergartens content and tasks [16] (pp. 7–10) where care, play, learning and formative development shall be worked upon in a holistic approach.
A common way of implementing the sustainability goals within the Norwegian kindergartens is to celebrate the United Nations Day [17] on October 24th. The day marks the anniversary for the charter of the United Nations [18], and the Norwegian kindergartens celebrate this day as the birthday of the United Nations. Being and becoming a good friend, appreciating our diversity and differences and helping and caring for each other are the sustainability values that most often are highlighted as part of this tradition. Preparing and organizing an art gallery exhibition is a common way of showing solidarity with children of the world where Norwegian children are supported in the role of helping children in need, most often outside of the Norwegian borders. This is in line with the United Nations [15] work on global solidarity (point 39) and solidarity particularly with the poorest and with the people in vulnerable situations where also children are encouraged to explore their infinite activism capacities for a better world and hence become critical agents of change (point 51). In the next paragraph, we will present an example from Crisostomo’s Norwegian kindergarten practices where a professional experience while celebrating the United Nations Day together with the parents of the children led to sustainability changes in the kindergarten. Following critical posthuman theories [6] (p. 33), where knowledge productions is always multiple and collective, and hence always re-created between us and multiple human and non-human others, we will not distinguish between Crisostomo and Reinertsen in our writing, but instead write the whole example from a we-position.
Solidarity with children of the world has been on our agenda through the last month and our art gallery exhibition was organized as the highlight of this work where the parents were invited to celebrate the United Nations Day [17] together with us. The children had made many art pieces for the exhibition and the parents were invited to buy these art pieces. The money we gathered on this day would thereafter be sent to an aid organization helping children in need. During the exhibition, something happened, something that changed us and still does. While standing in the middle of the room, listening to the sounds of movement and different tones, a mother came towards us, pointing at one of the art pieces on the wall and asked: “Is it possible to bring the rest of the money later … in, for example, two weeks?” She was pointing at one of the art pieces her child had made. In her hand she had some Norwegian coins but the sum she had brought did not match the price we had set for the piece. She paid the full price within the two weeks, but this experience made us change how we organized the forthcoming art gallery exhibitions and the celebration of the United Nations Day [17]. In the continuing year, we let the parents decide for themselves how much they wanted to give, regardless of how many art pieces their children had made, and how many of them they decided to buy. In the year after, we decided to celebrate the United Nations Day without a fundraising campaign as part of our celebration. Solidarity with children of the world were still an important part of our practice the month before the United Nations Day [17] but we changed the focus to how we all are equally important citizens of planet earth and how we could take (better) care of ourselves, our friends and our friends to come. Even though this happened many years ago and resulted in changed practices, there is still something here affecting us, calling up on us, forcing us to think. Following Braidotti [6] (p. 53) and critical posthuman theories, this may be elaborated as an neo-materialist ethics of affirmation where actualization of the missing people’s knowledge is the breeding ground for possible futures. The ethical entrance here is a forward-looking call to “staying with the trouble” as Haraway [19] (p. 1) elaborates, where affirmative ethics is located within affective webs of ongoing connecting points that bind us together and open up new possibilities for a sustainable future. Not to distinguish between mistakes done in the past and potential sustainability solutions for the future, but as processes of subjectivation while learning to be “truly present” intertwined in a myriad of unfinished configurations of places, times, matters and meanings [19] (p. 1). The “junk” material (as MacLure [20] (p. 180) has elaborated), as these undefined forces that are (still) calling up on us may be described as, may hence contain a hidden potential, perhaps like a treasure chest. Creating intensities but leaving it up to us to take the next step forward.
When in our example we worked on sustainability and solidarity with children of the world, the children in our kindergarten operated as agents of change by planning, preparing and taking part in our fundraising campaign organized as an art gallery exhibition. The mother supported her child in the role of the change agent by participating at the art gallery exhibition and buying one of the art pieces her child had contributed with. We as a kindergarten implemented sustainability into our kindergarten practices, taught children about solidarity and how to help each other, as well as take care of oneself. The children participated with a high level of enthusiasm, the support from the parents was good and we did not get the impression that the mother felt forced to spend money on our fundraising campaign for global solidarity. Even though we implemented sustainability into our kindergarten practices and changed our practices according to our professional judgement, the feeling of something missing remains strong. However, following Braidotti [6] (p. 53) and critical posthuman theories, it is within these feelings of something missing that new possibilities may emerge. Safeguarding a sustainable future by clearing away trouble that looms in the future sounds tempting and urgent, and these feelings of something missing may not help us to solve the huge changing-direction-tasks we have in front of us. However, perhaps it is precisely here that (temporary) solutions still may be found? If we still hesitate, considering the time spent since 1987 and the sustainability report “Our Common Future” [14], can we still afford not to explore potential possibilities this space may offer us?

3. From Agent of Change to Becoming-Child

In line with the United Nations’ [15] encouragement to empower children (point 23) and provide them with a nurturing learning environment, acquiring knowledge and skills and hence realizing their rights, capabilities and opportunities to fully participate in the society (point 25), we can find two common ways of defining the field of early childhood education for sustainability. The first one defines education as being about the environment (emphasizing scientific knowledge dissemination and/or explorations), education in the environment (emphasizing direct experiences in nature) and education for the environment (emphasizing active participation, problem solving and/or taking social just and sustainable choices). The second common way to define early childhood education for sustainability is to define education while including and/or overlapping the three sustainability dimensions: the environmental dimension (involving protection of ecosystems and their biological diversity), the social dimension (involving justice, equality and democratic approaches) and the economic dimension (involving financial approach to resources where economic development affects human and/or the environment in a positive way) [21] (p. 979). The ecological dimension has had the greatest prevalence, the economic dimension has been least explored [22] (p. 3), while the social dimension has not yet received the attention needed [23] (p.1).
The notion of the child as a change agent for a sustainable future, explained as education for the environment, including one or more of the sustainability dimensions, preferably seeking to make sense of conflicts as opportunities rather than consensus [24] (p. 388), has been strongly emphasized within the field. A debate that has been both defined as urgent as children are competent and capable of engaging with complex environmental and social issues [25,26]; and criticized as being too anthropocentric in its approach, marginalizing the environment as a passive background for human agency to work on and/or repair [9,27,28].
In this article, we seek to take part in this discussion by departing from Deleuze and Guattarian [2] (pp. 340–342) notion of becoming-child, theorized as the kindergarten teacher as an agency mobiliser for sustainability. Becoming-child hence not as in the becoming of the child (from childhood to adulthood), but paradoxically being the becoming of the teacher. Placing our article within critical posthuman theories [6] (pp. 33–34), we explore a posthuman subject-position within a natureculture continuum where a fractured I [29] (p. 255) is not restricted to bound individuals and/or a transcendental consciousness, but more as processes of transversality that crosses and displays binaries, producing processes of subjectivity. Every expression is still autonomous [2] (p. 369) situated in time and space [30] (p. 590), passing between past and future, human and non-human others while producing blocks of childhood [2] (p. 340).
The Deleuze and Guattarian [2] (p. 15) figure of the child is a figure of resistance to dominant structures and value systems. Not because they take the role of an opponent but because they are not yet fully striated by the rules of grammar that order and subjugate the world. A position open for multiple semiotic connections and possibilities that do not obey the laws of conventional language, and the bifurcating conditions representational thinking brings along (bifurcating the world into signifiers and signified, nature and culture, words and worlds) [20] (p. 173). Even though the child grows up and becomes more adept and embroiled in the “order words” of conventional language, the resistance does not disappear but persists instead as affective blocks of becoming: “becoming-child”. A virtual field of possibilities that may befall and/or carry us off to new places, not restricted by age, the child we once were and/or the child that we remember [2] (pp. 242–243).
When we urge to depart from the concept of becoming-child [2] (pp. 340–342) in the field of early childhood education for sustainability, it is the possibilities that the concept of the child [2] (p. 15) may bring forward towards new thoughts and new sustainable kindergarten practices we are interested in (as also elaborated previously in [9,10]). The COVID-19 pandemic has showed us that major upheavals may occur quickly and in unforeseen ways, where a virus not perceivable by the naked eye has changed the world as we know it. We have been forced to take part in changes the pandemic has brought along where some of the changes may have surprised us positively, while others have created wounds, not necessarily repairable. Kindergarten teachers have had to turn their plans upside down with short notice, preparing themselves for the unknown, caring for the children while at the same time feeling the insidious, uncertain presence of the virus, ready for attack when least expected. It is obviously not just the kindergarten teachers and the children who have been affected by the pandemic. The pandemic has affected us all, both locally and globally, however still not evenly, and in some cases even in horrifying ways, difficult and/or impossible to fully take in. “We were not prepared …. not prepared, not…”. The words from the leader of the Norwegian COVID-19 evaluation commission (given the task to evaluate the Norwegian government’s national handling of the corona pandemic) [31], are repeating themselves while producing incorporeal transformations in our body [2] (p. 125–126), discomfort and something indescribable. “…we need new plans for better taking care of the vulnerable children and young people in future crises to come” [32] (pp. 27–28).
Language is primary a tool of power, Deleuze and Guattari state [2] (pp. 88–89), “made not to be believed but to be obeyed and compel obedience”. Hence, not as in communicating neutral information but to enforce social order by categorizing, organizing, structuring and coding the world. Always going from saying to saying, transmitting what one has heard. In our example where we worked on sustainability and solidarity with children of the world, we as kindergarten teachers (still writing from a we-position), were in this way transmitting “what we had heard” to the children, with expectations that they would repeat what we had said to them.
…. It is difficult to accept such a result. However, there is still something here, whispering, calling up on us…. Going back and forward and back, listening to our voices: “there are children in the world that are not as lucky as we are. Children that no not have enough food to eat and clean water to drink. Children that lack opportunities to attend school and receive (and/or work for getting) an education. Some of them do not even have a bed to sleep in during the night. We can help those children. By arranging an art gallery exhibition, we can collect money and send the money to them.
The children in our example were receiving orders, with expectations of obedience in the form of learning and repeating our orders. When they presented our orders back to us as if it were their own voice, we could proudly document good results. It is harsh to read this. We know that this is an important part of the role of the kindergarten teacher, a responsibility. However, what is at risk while continuing in this line, not stopping? When the parents either told us what their children had learned through our kindergarten practices and/or repeated our order-words as their own (adult) voice, we felt that we had done a great job.
… we are looking at the hand, right in front of us, approximately an arm’s length from our tummy. The hand is partly open, partly closed, folded like a small basket, protecting while offering the precious content to(wards) us. Our head is moving, as a sound invokes our attention. Listening to the words while following the hand and the finger, following the movement of the sound and the finger, pointing at an art piece on the wall behind us… “Is it possible to bring the rest of the money later … in for example two weeks?”. The hand of a mom, holding, offering while covering, some Norwegian coins as partly payment for one of the art pieces on the wall, an art piece made by her child. She gives us the coins from her hand, thanking us for the opportunity, smile while at the same time, with her hand softly holding the hand of her child, moves like in a dance, dancing steps, towards the art piece on the wall, the art piece she just (partly) paid for. Solidarity with children of the world, solidarity with our children; our children of the world, we have no one to lose, not one to forget. We are looking at the hand of the mom, holding while covering the precious content, the dancing steps, and the softness in the grip, holding the hand of her child…. thinking quietly and/but loudly, forcing us to encounter poverty in Norway, where 11.7% of children in Norway (2019) are living under conditions of child poverty [33] and where the pandemic may have exacerbated the situation in years to come. We are thinking about solidarity with children of the world, the wicked problem of sustainability [34], and how we may keep the concept of the child in play…
We were not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, and we need to prepare a plan for how to take care of the vulnerable children and young people before the next crisis, more or less surprisingly, emerges [32] (pp. 27–28). Plans that may help us to organize ourselves and our society. However, even with “good plans”, there is always something missing, always something escaping our urge to do good. “The multiple must be made” Deleuze and Guattari [2] (p. 5) state, however they continue with, “not by always adding a higher dimension, but rather in the simplest of ways, by dint of sobriety, with the number of dimensions one already has available”. In the next part of our article, we will continue with the wicked problem of sustainability and education as a way of staying with the trouble [19] (p.1) and opening up a/the complexity of sustainability issues.

4. The Wicked Problem of Sustainability and Education

Sustainability has been on the agenda for decades and the definition on sustainability defined in “Our Common Future” [14] has provided a framework for thinking and discussing sustainability issues in a wide range of fields. However, efforts at national, regional, and organizational levels have demonstrated that implementation is hardly facile. As sustainability is addressing environmental, economic and social issues simultaneously, how to achieve the issues in practice is even more complicated [34] (p. 110). The United Nations [15] are, for example, reporting that billions of citizens in their member-countries are continuing to live in poverty, that the inequalities within and among countries are rising, that gender inequality is still a key challenge, and that global health threats, more frequent and intense natural disasters and humanitarian crises are threatening to reverse much of the development made in recent decades. They are further reporting that natural resource depletion and adverse impacts of environmental degradation (such as desertification, freshwater scarcity and loss of biodiversity), climate change and the increasing of the global temperature exacerbate the sustainability challenges we are facing. While electric cars, for example, are considered as key in the change from fossil fuels driven cars and towards greener alternatives, Amnesty International [35] is at the same time warning us about human rights violations (including child labor) linked to both the production of the batteries used in the electric cars (mineral extraction (however improved since their 2016-report [36]) and the use of coal and other polluting sources of power) and the negative environmental impact as part of the recycling/disposing of the battery waste from the departed electrical cars. Another example may also be found in digital technologies as a key in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals outlined in the United Nations report, Agenda 2030 [15], where artificial intelligence (AI) may be used to track and diagnose issues in agriculture, health and the environment, as well as to help in creating virtual learning environments and distance learning for children and students who otherwise would be excluded [37]. However, while artificial intelligence (AI) may have a large potential as a key in achieving the United Nations [15] sustainability goals, new and other challenges follow with consequences such as, for example, an increased gender inequality (based on who defines the issues, as well as historical biases in the data base behind the development of the AI-robots) (see, for example [38]). While countries such as Norway have a population with a very high level of digital skills, followed by the highest level of e-waste per person in any of the OECD countries [39], 1.1 billion people today are still lacking access to electricity, and a million more have only sporadic access to electricity and hence are relying on dangerous and unhealthy energy sources such as kerosene lamps and candles that also kill many women and children prematurely and/or unnecessarily [40].
Sustainability and sustainable development have a long history, involving concepts such as resource scarcity, conservationism, environmentalism, or as a business model. A concept containing different levels of complexity and extensive network of stakeholders, characterized by a lack of clarity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, where sustainability solutions within one area not necessarily will be beneficial in another area. A wicked problem where alternative sustainability solutions will emerge continuously as sustainability issues are being explored, but where it is impossible to optimize sustainability solutions as different stakeholders have different goals and challenges, and where there are no definitive endpoints to when sustainability challenges may be declared achieved [34] (pp. 122–123). Qualitative education for all, as already mentioned, is both recognized as an important issue in itself, as well as an important contributor in achieving the United Nations goals for a sustainable future [15]. When kindergarten teachers, as for example in the Norwegian Framework plan for kindergartens contents and tasks [16] (pp. 7–10), are expected to fulfil the task of permeate sustainability into every aspect of the kindergarten‘s pedagogical practices through the promotion of sustainability values, -attitudes, and -practices, they are at the same time also expected to deal with the above-mentioned contradictions within the concept of sustainability. Sustainability contradictions where hence single “right” answers do not exist, and where the kindergarten teachers are challenged to find appropriate ways to deal with knowledge, (un)certainty, values and norms, ethical dilemmas, political controversies, concerns for the planet and its inhabitants, etc. [41] (p. 2). When this task is channeled into how the kindergarten teachers responsibly can support the child as a critical agent of change, the task is complicated even more. How may we keep the concept of the child in play while staying in the middle of the complexity and contradictions the wicked problem of sustainability brings along? If language is primary a tool of power, made to transmit obedience [2] (pp. 88–89), we will need a tool to challenge our habitual ways of thinking sustainable kindergarten practices. In the next and last part of our article, we will elaborate on a/the pedagogy of the concept [5] (p. 12) as such a tool, helping us to break up and/or disturb dominant structures and value systems created in and through language, while opening up possibilities for agency-mobilizing through thinking on/as a plane of immanence [1] (p. 29).

5. A/the Pedagogy of the Concept

Language is primarily a tool of power where there is “no significance independent of dominant significations, nor is there subjectification independent of an established order of subjection. Both depend on the nature and transmission of order-words in a given social field” [2] (pp. 88–92). However, even though language has the power to code over other semiotic systems, it is still only one sign system among other sign systems. Through the concept of the rhizome, Deleuze and Guattari [2] (pp. 5–7) elaborate on how any point of a rhizome ceaselessly can and must be connected to any other point. There are hence no points or positions in a rhizome (such as those found in for example structures or trees), there are only lines open for multiple connections. In this increasing dimension of multiplicities, necessarily changing in nature while it expands its connections, the concept of agencement emerges and conceptualizes. A rhizomatic cable network of bodies, actions, passions, acts and statements, intermingling and reaction to one another while producing incorporeal transformations. Content and expressions are hence impossible to separate but are instead elaborated as variations in and of a/the agencement.
The conceptual personae are the rhizomatic thinker, letting something in the world forcing processes of thinking “… not of recognition but of a fundamental encounter … grasped in a range of affective tones” [29] (p. 183). A connectable collective, a nodal point, where the “thought’s aptitude for finding itself and spreading across a plane” passing through the body at several places [5] (p. 64).
We are looking at the (few) remaining art pieces on the walls, not bought by parents or grandparents during our (non-mandatory) art gallery exhibition as/while celebrating the United Nations Day [17]. We are looking at the hand of the mom, holding while covering the precious content, the dancing steps, and the softness in the grip, holding the hand of her child. Listening to the movements of different languages, the delicious smells from dishes originating from different parts of the world, brought by the parents for sharing. We are looking at the remaining art pieces on the walls, telling stories of a life. Looking at the children among us, wondering about the parents not there, celebrating together with us as/while showing solidarity with children of the world. Children know when something is too expensive for their parents to attend at. Not necessarily knowing about economy and the value of a coin, but absorbing intensities, affecting, affected….
Philosophical concepts are fragmentary wholes, resonating with one another and overlapping through zones of neighborhoods. It is this overlapping that creates an internal consistency of the concept while becoming a center of intensity [5] (pp. 19–20). Every concept is hence an intensive feature, a center of vibrations, critical, simultaneously performative and methodological [42] (p. 146).
The philosophy that creates the concepts are, on the other hand, “an unlimited One-All” that includes all the concepts on one and the same plane; the plane of immanence. While concepts are events, the plane of immanence is the absolute horizon of the event, independent of any observer. While concepts pave, occupy, or populate the plane bit by bit, the plane itself is the “indivisible milieu” in which concepts are distributed without breaking up its continuity or integrity. The plane secures conceptual linkages with ever increasing connections, and the concepts secure the populating on the plane on an always renewed and variable curve. The plane of immanence is the image of thought, “the image thought gives itself of what it means to think, to make use of thought, to find one’s bearings in thought” [5] (pp. 35–37).
A/the pedagogy of the concept is to “analyze the conditions of creation as factors of always singular moments” [5] (p. 12) where thinking as process beyond recognition forces us to pose a problem. This involves processes of “fixing-into-being” [1] (p. 29) “that which does not yet exist” as a way to “engender “thinking” in thought” [29] (pp. 193).
The child knowns what adults may have forgotten [20] (p. 179).
Becoming-child paradoxical being the becoming of the teacher.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: A.T.C. and A.B.R.; methodology: A.T.C and A.B.R.; software: A.T.C.; validation: A.T.C. and A.B.R.; formal analysis: A.T.C. and A.B.R.; investigation: A.T.C. and A.B.R.; resources: A.T.C. and A.B.R.; data curation: A.T.C.; writing—original draft preparation: A.T.C. and A.B.R.; writing—review and editing: A.T.C.; visualization: A.T.C.; supervision: A.B.R.; project administration: A.T.C.; funding acquisition: A.T.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and Norges Forskningsråd, grant number 6000207.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the ethical guidelines of the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD).

Informed Consent Statement

There has not been collected, processed, or stored personal information in this study.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our peer reviewers and editors for constructive feedbacks during the processes of finalizing our article.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Crisostomo, A.T.; Reinertsen, A.B. Becoming Child and Sustainability—The Kindergarten Teacher as Agency Mobiliser for Sustainability Through Keeping the Concept of the Child in Play. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5588. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105588

AMA Style

Crisostomo AT, Reinertsen AB. Becoming Child and Sustainability—The Kindergarten Teacher as Agency Mobiliser for Sustainability Through Keeping the Concept of the Child in Play. Sustainability. 2021; 13(10):5588. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105588

Chicago/Turabian Style

Crisostomo, Anita Tvedt, and Anne B. Reinertsen. 2021. "Becoming Child and Sustainability—The Kindergarten Teacher as Agency Mobiliser for Sustainability Through Keeping the Concept of the Child in Play" Sustainability 13, no. 10: 5588. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105588

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