I have been spending the afternoon thinking about play and about childhood... and thinking about myself as a child.
When it struck me, that I have never thought of myself as a child when I was a child...
I have always just been me... a person.
In a way I feel pretty much the same as I did, as I always have... although I am aware of how I have evolved as a person, what I have learned - but the essence of me still feels the same. I still have a very clear memory of my grandmother telling me that she never got used to her reflection as an old person, because that is not how she felt. She still felt like a young person - the exterior had changed... her inner self had not been worn by time in the same way.
This brings me back to my posts about time, and my dialogue with Greg Bottril
This concept of aeon being the time of children and chronos the time of adults... but what happens if aeon is the time of our inner being and chronos affects our outer selves?
There is also Kairos... the right, the critical or opportune moment... how many moments of kairos do we let slip through our fingers?
Using a weaving terminology (which I think is appropriate as it connects with my idea of Original Learning as a woom weaving play and learning together) - kairos is the opportune moment when the shuttle can be passed through the threads.
As a child we might be aware of ourselves as being defined as a child, or be aware when compared to adults. But at the same time I am simply me first... not child first. I have been me all the time. I cannot tell you the moment when I stopped being a child and became an adult - although I am fully aware of that time in chronos... turning 18 might be one of them, leaving home another, becoming a mother...
I am parent and child at the same time - I am still my mother's daughter, her child - her adult child.
So this makes me wonder, if we are all "still me" despite now being inside a chronos controlled body that is now taking the shape of an adult - how come so many adults seem to have forgotten how it feels to be a child and are all to focussed on creating education systems devoid of play and meaningful learning?
me as a preschooler
me at 16 - it was a school fashion through the ages show... I was wearing and 1970's maxi dress!
me these days!!