The Present Moment

Few days ago I observed fingers of a young girl: they were tirelessly moving, touching, puling, rotating or squeezing everything they came in contact with. Accompanying the fingers, her eyes and ears were attuned to the same sources of interest, and even though some of the 34 people around her could have interrupted her, she remained engaged in the same small details that had captured her attention. Her attention, activities, thoughts and senses seemed to be merging in the moments of experiencing, as Dewey (2005 [1934]) suggests experiences always are: compact “packages”of merging feelings, thoughts and senses. The girl was truly present in her own experiencing – totally engaged in the present moments as if nothing else existed.

Stern (2004) says that life is always lived in the present moment. It cannot be different. Unable to release ourselves from the constant flow of time (except in dreams and some other extraordinary events) we are unable to get back to exactly the same place in time; contexts are always new. Each moment is unique and unrepeatable. Each experience is unique, but only when we dare to live it… in the unique, present moment.

The images (still and in motion) are captured from exactly the same place, on days with no wind - amazing how the leaves were falling all by themselves. The fourth time I intended to take a photo, the trees were gone…



References:
Dewey, J. (2005 [1934]). Art as experience. New York: Berkley Publishing Group.
Stern, D. N. (2004). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.

For my Colleagues (only?)

On December 1st I had honour to present my PhD-study to my closest colleagues who teach diverse disciplines at early childhood education programs at my university college (Vestfold University College). The presentation was based on the trial lecture (held on November 1st) where I was asked to comment on the on-going national revision of the early childhood teacher education.

The preparation for the trial lecture led to an understanding that the process of the revision is influenced by two parallel processes: making the early childhood education better adjusted to the early childhood practice, and the process of internationalizing Norwegian higher education. But this was not all: the important insight was that these two processes build on quite opposite ideologies. The largest problem though, the way I see it, is not that the two ideologies are impossible to unite, but that the people responsible for the revision do not seem to be aware of the ideologies! This ignorance has already led to number of conflicts, misunderstandings and tensions… and I cannot see any hope for “better” (whatever “better” or “higher quality” might mean) early childhood teacher education if the ideologies are not discussed!

Many of colleagues who listened to the presentation on December 1st seem to share my opinion that the insight about the opposing ideologies is important and should be discussed more. I am thankful for their support and I truly hope that teacher educators and leaders at Vestfold University College will find time for discussions before the new, national education program is to be implemented in our institution.

This is how I have illustrated the ideologies:

	Ideology behind Norwegian early childhood education	Ideology behind the international educational trends
	Embodied, pre-verbal competences	Knowledge as verbal-language-based
	Holistic, unity, embodied metaphor	Traditional, divided disciplines
	Complexity and contextualized understanding	Structure, generalizing and dis-contextualized testing
	Prolonged engagement, explorative play	Efficiency and economizing
	Self-motivation for learning	Knowledge externally defined
	Building identity on respect and will to contribute to others	Exclusion and focus on incompetence
	Imaginative cognition	Memorizing
	Quality of life – here and now	Quality related to international competition