Improvisation: Postmodern Play for Early Childhood Teachers

Abstract

This chapter briefly discusses the postmodern critique of developmental psychology and then presents a Vygotskian-influenced alternative understanding of development as a non-linear, relational, improvised activity engaged in by groupings of people. This reconstruction of development was the basis of a professional development project in which early childhood teachers participated in a 6-week improv workshop. The goal of the project was to reconnect the teachers with their ability to improvise or to participate in process-oriented, meaning-making activity. The project was based on the hypothesis that developing teachers’ ability to improvise would give them an alternative to relating to children as being on, or off, a developmental trajectory.

Citation

Lobman, C. (2005), "Improvisation: Postmodern Play for Early Childhood Teachers", Ryan, S. and Grieshaber, S. (Ed.) Practical Transformations and Transformational Practices: Globalization, Postmodernism, and Early Childhood Education (Advances in Early Education and Day Care, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 243-272. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0270-4021(05)14011-7