A “xexelenta” mountain: dialogues between childhood Geography and aesthetic-artistic production in early childhood education

Abstract

An activity in an early childhood education school sought to reproduce mountains using toilet paper and glue, to be colored once the glue had dried. This activity, relatively routine and simple in equally common institutions, serves as our starting point. This event allows us to discuss the aesthetic-artistic relations of children in Early Childhood Education, as well as the specificities that comprise this process. The general objective is to discuss how children’s aesthetic-artistic production relates to the legal frameworks of Early Childhood Education, understood not as a stage of formal schooling, but of human development, in a theoretical-methodological dialogue with the Geography of Childhood (GC). The methodology used was bibliographic research in discussion with the experience of participant-observation research carried out in this class/institution. From this scenario, we discuss how children's production enters into dialogue with the adult-centric logic of being and existing in the world. Our theoretical-discursive results indicate that oriented and reflective pedagogical action potentially directs us to rethink children's relationship with themselves and with others, as well as our relationship with them. In conclusion, and as a statement of intent for future works, we hope that the discussion brought by the Geography of Childhood can deepen the discussion on the concept of Aesthetics, especially based on Russian theorists, as well as highlight the relationship with the Body, whether as a scale of action, production, or spatial analysis.