{"id":92,"date":"2019-03-07T14:38:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T14:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trees.climateactionchildhood.net\/?p=92"},"modified":"2019-03-07T14:38:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T14:38:25","slug":"taking-it-to-the-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trees.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/2019\/03\/07\/taking-it-to-the-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking it to the Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Narda Nelson – January 29, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three centres<\/g> were scheduled for \u2018atrium time\u2019 this morning.  Children, educators, and pedagogists meet regularly here to review documentation, experiment, draw, and speculate together.  Closet doors become de facto display space for posting pedagogical narrations. Sticking pieces of paper to closet doors is part of an ongoing intention to make inquiry work visible to families, educators, students and children passing through: \u201cSomething is happening here!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a public space. Iris Berger (2010) tells us about the emphasis feminist philosopher, Hannah Arendt, places on public spaces wherein \u201c[s]he described the public realm as a \u2018place of appearances\u2019; a place for \u2018being seen and heard\u2019\u2026and, most importantly, a place where stories are told and relations between narratives occur\u201d (p. 59):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being seen and being heard by others derive their significance from the fact that everybody sees and hears from a different position.  This is the meaning of public life\u2026Each time we talk about things that can be experienced only in privacy or intimacy, we bring them out into a sphere where they will assume a kind of reality\u2026The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves.<\/p>Arendt (1998) in Berger (2010, p. 60)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Low-flow toilets are also part of the new reality in this public space.  They matter here in more ways than most people care to know.  Sewage pipes clog regularly since their installation, backing up onto floors as rubber-gloved educators deal with young bodies and bathroom mess, part of the unintended consequence of trying to do \u2018what\u2019s best\u2019 in uncertain times. I had planned to project video clips and photos from the previous week\u2019s forest inquiry time onto atrium walls this morning to hear what the children thought about the footage\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was happening in this video? What story were we trying to tell?  Did our experiment \u2018work\u2019?  Do these images tell us anything different about trees?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the grind of metal against porcelain and a plumbing snake sticking out from the bathroom greet me as I walk in the atrium.  Childhood centre<\/g> doors are closed to the room.  Two toddlers watch with fascination through an atrium-classroom window as the plumber starts the now weekly ritual of feeding the snake down into the pipes to clear whatever is clogging them.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

New toilets.  Less water. Old pipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Low-flow toilets satisfy new building codes aimed at bringing more sustainable structures into existence. Except.  We cannot seem to flush our excess away.  Excrement and wads of toilet paper, clay, dirt, and bits of food haunt the centres\u2019 pipes, in the same way increased street run-off haunts tree roots in Haro Woods, and hormones and chemical toxins haunt clam beds, fish, and orca bodies in the Salish Sea.  These haunting inheritances contribute to an increasing sense of urgency around local sewage politics.  Climate change lives here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also lives on the street where six Garry oak trees are slated to be cut down to make room for more bike lanes, buses, and sidewalks.  Some of us noticed yellow tree removal notifications tacked to trees along the road leading into the centre this morning.  \u201cI saw the yellow sign with my Dad when we got here!\u201d<\/em>  Rather than waiting around for the plumber to finish, the decision is made to walk outside and see what the signs on the trees say.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion ripples throughout the hallway and centres as children and educators react to the news and prepare to walk across the street to take a closer look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n