Tangles
Our Entanglements
The Odd Project attended to the ways in which school is an entanglement of many threads, influences and 'hidden forces', human and non-human. The project was part of this entanglement too, intertwined with people and events. Within the project there were shared themes and experiences, some of which come together in this thread to help us with ways to think about school.
What if we understood school as an assemblage? A moving collection of bodies, of matter, of relationships and of time. In this thread we introduce some ideas about thinking about school as an assemblage or entanglement, through approaches that helped us to sense, and articulate the importance of this understanding.
This is one of four Threads - Tangles, Bodies, Measures and Together - which are navigable by clicking here or using the navigation menu above.
“What is a school?”
“The child’s experiences are knitted into school, and the school site is a place where all normalising tendencies as well as the oddities of school live side by side”
Van de Pol, 2010
See references here.
“Trying to focus...on that point at which us and the material world are joining”
Becky Shaw’s research Sensing the School involved an exploration of school using unusual and multi-sensory apparatus. She described this as “trying to focus ‘odd’ on that point at which us and the material world are joining”, offering the possibility of making more tangible the inter-relationship between people and their environment.
“Making something new together”
In their research, What Happens at the Edges Steve Pool and Kate Pahl observed that 'the stuff that matters in research with young people is an entangled assemblage of rhythms, flows and movements that can come to light in the making of something new together connecting to the flow of research with the charged immediacy of everyday life, forcing further questions and further movement. '
See references here
“the snaggle”
Amanda Ravetz who carried out research in Position of Child in nursery and reception classes, found herself caught up in the movement and flows of school. Amanda experienced herself as no longer individual but always part of a 'snaggle' of more than one child, or with companionable materials such as sand - caught up in feeling together with others.
Amanda and project lead Rachel Holmes have reflected on the subtle ways the structure and systems of school are resisted by the collective, connected way that children are with each other and their context. They thought about children never being 'one' but always more-than-one; not quite separate but together in a kind of 'soup' of being.
“Being together / apart”
During the first national lockdown in response to the COVID-9 pandemic (March – July 2020), Rachel Holmes worked with Gabby Birelo, class teacher at Alma Park, to visually document the school during this period.
The windows, looking into homes and out of school, became a way of capturing experience and destabilising the boundaries between inside and outside school. Being together/apart.
Follow this Thread into our Provocations section to try out our activities: