A Teacher’s Perspective Transformation of Children’s Body and its Implementation of Curriculum as Improvisation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to look back on the myself, who was trapped in the dominant discourse on the children's body, looked at the body from various angles and changed eyes, and to explore the changing process and curriculum of the teacher(I) as improvisation. This study is a self-study that records various events, feelings, experiences, and emotions encountered while looking at the children's body in everyday moments while living with children for a year from 2021, and experiences and emotions experienced while implementing the curriculum as an improvisation in photos, videos, and texts, frequently sharing opinions with fellow teachers and members of the learning community, analyzing the contents, and interpreting and describing their meaning. Through this study, teachers' old stereotypes and habits crack, fall into dilemmas, try to dismantle dichotomous structures, and see children communicate with the world through their bodies and acquire and express various experiences with their bodies, and teacher(I) try to de-power, trust children, recognize and watch their various attempts, listen to children, and practice pedagogy of listening. In addition, it creates a curriculum in which improvisation and planning are intertwined, and it contains various experiences and efforts to implement the curriculum as improvisation experienced by trying to escape. This suggests that teachers in the field see the children's body again, breaking away from the way they have seen it before, and provides the possibility to implement the curriculum as an improvisation based on the teacher’s changed gaze.