Kids in Motion: Rethinking Inclusive Classrooms for Optimal Learning

• In Event: 63.087 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 11 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 63.087-6 - Cultivating Democratic Spaces in Education: Eliciting Children's Voices Using Multimodal Approaches

Abstract

Moving about freely is a prerequisite for children's physical, psychological and social well-being. Contemporary neuroscientific evidence indicates that unrestricted movement and gesture are also linked to children's cognitive development. Such movements enhance learning because they allow children to engage with the external properties of their environments. In-depth understanding of children’s interactions with physical features of schools and other indoor environments is limited. This knowledge gap is particularly problematic for physically disabled children because gross motor impairments, exclusionary attitudes, safety concerns and environmental barriers curtail their ability to explore and interact with their surroundings. Hence, all children’s physical health, social abilities and cognitive development may be jeopardized if these environments inhibit rather than enhance their movement capacities. In this paper I present an interdisciplinary study designed to capture children's interactions with/in an integrated kindergarten classroom. Children's bodies were conceptualized according to Deleuze's philosophical premise that the body's potential is unknown until it is able to demonstrate 'what it can do', and the classroom was conceptualized according to Gibson's theory of affordances, which posits that environments are inherently discoverable and that people and environments are inextricably interrelated. Children’s personal accounts of moving in the classroom identified important socio-physical features that enhanced their movement and interaction with others.

Building on these findings, I outline the next stage of this research - a CIHR funded grant that focuses on the relationship between children’s socio-physical interactions at school and their cognitive development. The aim of this research is to incorporate a set of body-space principles that describe how changes in rhythm, speed, flow, or patterning draw/assemble children with diverse abilities together, and how children use/respond to objects/features in the environment to move-together in ways that enhance their learning, inclusion, and psychosocial development. This study is the first of its kind to explore children’s synchronized movement interactions in a real world, integrated childhood setting. The framework of movement principles derived from the research will contribute to designing optimal environments that enhance children’s movement capacities that have implications for learning. New knowledge could be used to optimize i) children’s interactions in environments that are redolent with movement possibilities, ii) interventions to develop their social, cognitive and physical capacities, and iii) educational and rehabilitation strategies that encourage children to explore, navigate and shape their everyday environments. Threaded throughout this study are children’s first-hand accounts of moving together at school.

Author

• Coralee Mae McLaren, Ryerson University