Moments of Mul-a-il-che (物我一體, The Unity of Self and Things) in Programming a Robot

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Cultural Perspectives in Child Development (Table 3)

Abstract

This study investigates how a 6-year-old white boy, Tim (pseudonym), was immersed in identifying all directional command cards necessary to program a robotic manipulative, despite his parents’ concerns about his difficulty staying focused on a task. Drawing on the East Asian concept of “Mulailche” (物我一體, 물아일체, the unity of self and things), inspired by the writing of the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (369-286 BCE), we identify the moments when Tim and instructional materials emerged as a unified entity in our robotics class. We discuss the implications of this study for early childhood robotics education for neurodivergent children and the use of non-western theories and concepts for decolonizing research and practice.

Authors

• Shinho Kim, Framingham State University

• Kyung Hwa Lee, University of Georgia