Chapter Listening to Children, Listening to Trees

Overview & Synopsis

Listening Pedagogies features an international collection of authors exploring listening as a core element of innovative pedagogical approaches. Serving as a collective manifesto, it advocates for pedagogies that foster generous listening in educational settings and invites readers to reflect on listening as a transdisciplinary practice. The collection spans a wide range of fields, including early childhood, sound studies, arts-based and artist-led initiatives, Indigenous perspectives, policymaking, teacher education, language teaching, and multi-generational viewpoints. The three parts of the book highlight the diversity of the contributors’ expertise and perspectives: (1) Reciprocal Listening examines how listening attentively deepens relationships not only among educators and students but also among more-than-human entities and the environment; (2) Embodied Listening explores listening as a sensing and moving practice with and within bodies; and (3) The Right to Be Heard acts as a call to advocacy for promoting local languages and expanded literacies. Championing international and interdisciplinary collaboration, this book is recommended reading for researchers and educators with interests in early childhood education, arts education, arts-based research methods, and more-than-human relations.