Keywords

1 Introduction: Small Children—Big Questions

Small children ask big questions. Today, very young children pose questions about, for instance, the environment and the current climate-crisis, about robots and artificial intelligence, but also about how we are to live, and live well, together. Children, including the very youngest, ask questions and have ideas of some of the most fundamental features of our common existence, such as what it means to share, care and cooperate; what it means to include and be included and into what anyone is supposed to be included. However, one big question for adults is how we listen and respond to these questions. Listening to the youngest children’s big questions does not seem to be the forte of adults. We, in fact, rarely hear what children say and we underestimate both the seriousness and the size of their questions [41].

In this chapter, we would like to share some stories from a Swedish case-study within the SMOOTH project in which we attempted to really take children’s questions seriously through investigating a big and common research question, shared by children and adults alike, concerning human beings’ place in nature and culture. Considering the current “state of affairs” with an accelerating environmental crisis and rapid development of artificial intelligence, paired with hardening divisions along identity and geographical lines, this question should certainly have been posed and treated by adults in a more sophisticated way a long time ago. But due to an overestimation of human beings (and particularly the human intellect) in relation to other forms of life and more-than-human matter, we have persisted in overexploitation of the Earth’s material resources. It is only very late that we pose questions about the consequences, including social and value-based ones, of such neglect, as well as of the consequences of handing over our lives to artificial machines [1, 3, 34]. At the same time, despite these prevailing challenges to both our and the Earth’s existence, there is always the possibility for children and adults to engage in a common questioning of our current situation.

We believe that one of the central features of educational commons [45]—that the youngest children are considered capable of engaging with such big questions together with adults—requires greater emphasis if the commons is to become a genuine resource for education. We are not suggesting that children should be taking on the responsibility of solving current and future global problems, for that is our responsibility. Rather, we want to highlight the fact that very young children today pose questions about common concerns in contemporary society and that these need to be recognized and taken seriously by adults. As we will argue in this chapter, one condition for educational commons to become a resource for education in general, and for a more equal and inclusive education in particular, is for it to emphasize children as fully part of and contributing to the generational search for meaning in the study and renewal of societies’ commons. Such an ontologically informed image of the child, however, is not the only relevant condition for educational commons to become a resource for more equal and inclusive education. We will also argue that certain epistemologically informed ideas play a decisive role in whether and how educational commons may function as a catalyst for more equal and inclusive educationFootnote 1: These include the task of education, the role of teachers, educational methods, and researchers’ ways of relating to educational practices.

2 A World Full of Commons: Accessing and Activating Existing Educational Commons

“The world is full of commons!” This idea, expressed in an early phase of the case-study, has guided us, the Swedish team, throughout the SMOOTH project. It has led to the insight that it is of utmost importance for any research- and innovation action, such as SMOOTH, to begin by realizing that it is not a ready-made programme of the commons implemented in educational practices that will do the trick. Quite contrary, our results show that researchers must begin by listening to the commons that children and teachers already are engaged in. The question then becomes, how do we, as researchers, access and activate those commons in ways that may enhance what is already going on and that may function as catalysts for more equal and inclusive education?

Our case-study has been conducted in a network of preschools located in a suburb south of Stockholm marked by a great variation in terms of children’s socio-economic and cultural background. Children here grow up under unequal conditions related to structural factors such as childhood poverty, migration, family-situation and functional variation [59]. Teachers and headteachers in the network of preschools are acutely aware of these inequalities. Yet, in line with some of the core concepts and methodologies in the SMOOTH project—e.g., a pedagogy of listening, pedagogical documentation and project-work [7, 48, 56] they have chosen to focus on the scholastic gesture of creating time and space for children to study and transform culture, knowledge and values [35]. Prior to joining the SMOOTH project, the network of preschools was already largely functioning as a kind of educational commons [45]. For instance, the children are taken seriously as meaning-searching beings who make meaning of and contribute to the creation of culture, knowledge and values, i.e., the children are understood as commoners. There are existing commoning practices such as a mentorship system amongst children, an accessible, aesthetic and inclusive pedagogical environment, as well as meetings with children for collective decision-making. The preschools also harbour rich common goods expressed in a shared and living knowledge, values and pedagogical culture. These are continuously and collaboratively renewed by the children, caregivers, teachers and headteachers.

How, then, to enter such an already commons-based practice, taking care to not implement a pre-conceived idea of educational commons, but rather enhancing these existing commons to promote more equal and inclusive education?

In our case-study we found support in philosophical perspectives [11, 22] that pay attention to the importance of joining practice rather than criticizing or instructing it. Research often approaches practice through a transcendent logic and delivers theoretical critique of it for it to practically change; through transcendent critique research takes the position as subject, while the practice and the people in it function as objects: they are objects for the scientific thinking about them. There are, however, other ways of conceiving of this relation between theory and practice. In a conversation about intellectuals and power, French philosophers Michel Foucault (1926–1984) and Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) state that the relation between intellectuals and so called “practitioners”, or between theory and practice, need to be rethought to include an understanding of research and theory as practices themselves. Foucault suggests that the intellectual should not position her/himself “slightly ahead of” practice, nor “speak the silent truth of each and all,” but rather recognize and struggle against those powers of which the intellectual is “both instrument and object” ([22]: 207). Deleuze’s response is that theory is precisely nothing more than a “toolbox”, and that Foucault has taught us a fundamental lesson about “the indignity of speaking for others” ([11]: 208). Research can, then, be about something other than “giving voice” or making people aware of their own ignorance. Rather, researchers and teachers can engage in a commoning research-practice that encompasses both practical and theoretical experiences where they together can critique and create both practice and theory.

Our collaborative, participatory research orientation is also grounded in the principles of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT; [8, 13]. A core methodological strategy adopted by CHAT scholars is that of co-creating with others the activities that produce the phenomena of interest [8]. These activities represent a kind of third space [23] where the knowledge, values and practices of the collaborating parties intersect and must be negotiated as part of the activity creation process. This is as intended: A researcher arranges to become an integral part of the activity so that she can experience what it is like to become a functional aspect of the system through the active and reflexive co-construction of the activity of interest with others [14]. In other words, it is a process not of participant observation, but rather of observant participation [49].

Supported by these theoretical perspectives, in the Spring 2021 we began to meet regularly with all participants in the Swedish team: three teachers and two headteachers from three preschools as well as two artists from an art/performance group. During these meetings we collectively studied the empirical and theoretical material on the commons made accessible as part of the design of the SMOOTH project (SMOOTH [45,46,58], see also Fielding and Moss [21], Kioupkiolis [24], Korsgaard [26], Pechtelidis and Kiuopkiolis [45]). We paid careful attention to the richness of the existing diversity of theoretical and methodological perspectives. Yet, we added to these our own and others’ perspectives in order to contribute to the generation of method and theory within this “emergent paradigm” and “alternative action and value system” (Grant Agreement 101004491—SMOOTH—H2020-SC6-TRANSFORMATIONS 2020, p. 3 Annex A). An important part of this work involved philosophically informed analyses of Swedish law and policy-documents related to equal and inclusive education in the early years [27]. In these documents equality is defined as a question of all children, regardless of background, having equal access to the same quality of preschool that nevertheless should have a compensatory function in relation to the varying conditions under which children grow up (see for instance, SFS [50] and Skolverket [61]). Yet, research shows that both equal access and quality are decreasing [63, 64] and it has recently been noted that less than 50% of Sweden's municipalities use a resource allocation model that corresponds to the compensatory function in terms of distributing resources according to the diverse contexts within which children grow up ([60]:67). Moreover, there is an ambiguity in these documents as despite the intentions to define equality in relation to the particularity of unique individuals and contexts (and not in terms of the same thing for all) there still seems to be a logic of universality at stake (all individuals and contexts should through the compensatory function end up resembling each other). This is visible not least in the idea of inclusion as a question about a given and universal set of culture, knowledge and values into which individuals are supposed to be included. Here, our analysis revealed an ontologically informed image of children as lacking (not contributing to culture, knowledge and values), a reproductive epistemology (children should only imitate and reproduce already existing culture, knowledge and values), and a proposed solution to the problem of inclusion through early acquisition of the Swedish language (children can be included only when they have adapted to nationally-linguistically coded definitions of culture, knowledge and values). In fact, these policies neglect state-of-the-art research on inclusive education [31, 38, 39],Footnote 2 especially research on important questions concerning who is supposed to be included by whom and into what, as well as research on the risk of stigmatization that inevitably arises when individuals are defined in terms of one or another category and “need”. The question of equality and inclusion could, then, on a deeper philosophical and metaphysical level be defined as being about the relation between particularity and universality [10], and in education this plays out in the relation between the unique and particular individual or the local context and the common and universal features of the group or of larger global contexts [46]. In educational practice, this often implies the difficult task to create an equilibrium between individual children with all their varying backgrounds and desires and the common educational practices, processes and products [44] while paying careful attention to the transformative aspects of both human subjects and the culture, knowledge and values at stake. Current policies, however, fail miserably in identifying what is at stake in the question of equal and inclusive education in the early years, as the question of the relation between particularity and universality is not even addressed within these documents. These policies also sharply contrast with the pedagogical culture of the commons in the preschool community in the Swedish case-study, a culture that conceived of children as contributing to and renewing existing culture, knowledge and values, not least through extra-linguistic and multimodal means.

Our team carefully considered these constraints and potentials for an educational commons approach to promote a more equal and inclusive education. Collectively, we made the choice to resist current policies, persist with the existing pedagogical culture of the commons, and begin our case-study by exploring the commons that children already were engaged in.

3 The Image of the Child and the Role of the Teacher: Contributing Commoners

During the first round of the case-study,Footnote 3 we performed analyses of teachers’ pedagogical documentations of 34 children aged five. We focused on the children’s current interests in three projects (one per preschool) on (1) Robots; (2) Plants, Leaves and Trees; and (3) The Sprouting of Root-vegetables. Before describing these projects, we must consider the important role that the teachers and headteachers played in the Swedish case-study. On a general level, the role of teachers has been of utmost importance for activating educational commons as a resource in education [52]. Observations concerning the role of teachers showed that those who adopted more collaborative, supportive roles, acting as facilitators or companions, were more successful in promoting a commons-based approach to the question of equal and inclusive education (ibid). This often involved engaging in what ostensibly defines the logic of a pedagogy of listening and pedagogical documentation: creating opportunities for children to make their own decisions, express themselves freely, and build relationships based on trust (both with their peers and with the adults). In our case-study, teachers and headteachers were already very experienced in this approach, something which has been of utmost importance for the results concerning the potential of educational commons to promote more equal and inclusive education. Together with the headteachers and the children, these teachers had developed methodological, theoretical and organisational principles that created and sustained a pedagogical culture of the commons without being explicitly defined as such. This was something that they had been doing for years prior to their participation in the SMOOTH project. One might reason that this made the Swedish case-study a “piece of cake” to perform. However, teachers also had to move outside their comfort-zone and to cooperate with researchers and artists in ways that were new to them. At times the teachers resisted and intervened to transform some of the tasks in the project: they sensed that these were at odds with their pedagogical culture, and in a sense they were here “taking over” the role of the researchers. However, we believe that this is yet another important aspect for how educational commons can become a resource for more equal and inclusive education. Conflict, tension and negotiation as well as the welcoming of new suggestions from the ones who know what they are doing every day, is absolutely necessary and part of avoiding implementing educational commons as a “programme” in educational practices.

Here we echo the project’s theoretical underpinnings which we discussed earlier. As noted above, the methodological rationale and motives of our research are rooted in an observant participant orientation that is committed to engaging in research involving collaborative and co-creative relations between researchers and professionals, while at the same time troubling the distinction between the two roles [2]. The process of negotiation described above—with the teachers, artists, children and researchers involved to varying degrees and at varying time scales in the design and performance of the case study activities—is illustrative of the ethos of mutual appropriation that underpins CHAT research both as a research logic and ethic [12, 37]. Mutual appropriation, seen first through the lens of its Vygotskian roots, involves participants in an activity or setting not only adapting and appropriating tools, practices, and meanings for their purposes but doing so in a way that reflects the contributions and influences of others. This iterative process of mutual shaping and adjustment highlights the deeply collaborative nature of many human activities. This is one reason why some CHAT scholars have argued for the application of the concept in theorizing not just interpersonal relations, but intergroup and interinstitutional relations, particularly as a way of developing a logic and ethic or research involving collaborations between institutions of higher education and local community stakeholders [12]. In essence, mutual appropriation reflects a participatory and evolving process where stakeholders (in the community, in the university) share and engage with one another’s ideas and interests while also actively shaping, transforming, and redefining them based on their perspectives and needs. The process, while unpredictable, results in richer, more diverse, and potentially more impactful practices and theories.

Seen then through this lens of mutual shaping among all the participants involved, not only children, but also teachers must be considered as contributing commoners. This deep involvement in the research project by the teachers has also been expressed through the teachers’ active collection and analysis of the empirical material in collaboration with us. First, our collective analysis revealed a multitude of strategies that children use to express some important commons-related values, such as sharing, caring and cooperating, in innovative and subtle ways: extra-linguistically, for instance, through “humming”, using body-language and even invented language (e.g., “pretend-English” when encountering someone that speaks a language other than Swedish), but also through drawings, paintings, constructions, and other aesthetic means of expression. Furthermore, we observed that children had an interesting way of dealing with inclusion. They did this by adapting to “the newly arrived” children and not the other way around (i.e. expecting the children to adapt to the local environment). Finally, children seemed to carry a “holistic” and “ecological” approach to some of the values of the commons. This was expressed, for instance, in their answers to the question of who, outside the preschool classroom, is important for what is done there. The children here answered, for instance, by referring to the kitchen-chef and to bees and insects “because without them we cannot live!” This holistic and ecological thinking was also visible in children’s questions and activities in the projects on robots and plants. From analyses performed through a theory of meaning (Deleuze 1998), [65] children’s search for and creation of meaning in the projects displayed their non-dualistic, ecological, holistic and processual thinking in relation to both nature and culture, to both plants and robots. This was expressed, for instance, by one group of children who worked on the project on Plants, Leaves and Trees when they theorized and made drawings of how plants, leaves and trees get food, oxygen and water. These drawings and theories were identical to the more rational and scientific description of photosynthesis, but in this project, children simultaneously displayed less conventional and more creative strategies such as trying to make a seed grow into a plant through, for instance, dancing and singing for it. These children, as well as the children in the project on Making Root-vegetables Sprout also emphasized the processual character and collaboration of different elements in the life of trees and plants, and they seemed to have a very close relation to nature, expressed not the least when one of the children stated: “You have to love your plants!”.

Another example of this logic was visible in the activities of the children working within the project on Robots. These children were focused on the question of how to render the robot “alive” and expressed their theories using different aesthetic means. These children too were occupied with considering the robot as a holistic and processual system, a circuit where different parts such as cords, batteries and cogs inside the robot needed to collaborate for it to come alive. These children, like the children mentioned above who displayed a close and non-dualist relation between humans and nature, seemed to establish a very close and non-dualist relation, but here between human beings and technology, comparing, for instance, the cords inside the robot to human veins, and posing the question “Does the robot have a human heart?”. We also observed how children in all groups were fascinated with the “heart” both as a symbol of love and friendship and as an important biological and life-sustaining organ. The children drew and wrote extensively about hearts. They reasoned about the heart’s biological functions and symbolic power of love and friendship in relation to both plants and robots.

Further analysis of these expressions of children’s commons was done with support from French philosopher Henri Bergson’s (1859–1941) major work The Creative Evolution [3]. Bergson’s main thesis is that the evolution of Life on the planet is what generates and transgresses the human intellect and understanding [66]. This is a short empirical fact that has far-reaching metaphysical consequences. Throughout this great book Bergson both contested and creatively contributed to the theories of evolution, existing at that time, gathered under two main directions: “mechanism” (Darwinism) and “finalism” (Lamarckism).Footnote 4 What appears as an alternative here is a view of evolution as creatively and unpredictably evolving over time where the distinction between the human intellect, other forms of life, and even more-than-human matter, becomes much more complex and somewhat blurred. In contemporary times, such a nondualist widening of the human intellect has been confirmed by, for instance, researchers within plant neurobiology who convincingly show how plants too, have a form of intelligence [33].Footnote 5 Taken together these perspectives resemble the hypotheses and questions that the children posed within all three projects as well as to their thoughts about how to live, and live well, together. Often, when children “give life” to inanimate and more-than-human things, this is interpreted as children’s “immature animistic” thinking, but from the perspectives here presented, we could argue that had we all adapted to and adopted such a close relationship with nature, we might not have found ourselves in the profound climate-crisis that we do today. And had we all adopted the children’s capacity to pose relevant questions about human beings’ relation to culture, technical innovations included, we might not have been so late with posing important questions about artificial intelligence. Further, the close and loving relationship children display both to humans and more-than humans would certainly be of value for all in our contemporary times. All in all, it seems not only that children are contributing to these cultural, knowledge- and value-based common features of our contemporary societies, but also that adults may have something to learn from children concerning the question of human beings’ place in nature and culture.

4 The Complimentary Task of Education and Aesthetic Methods and Theories: A Playworld/Interactive Performance

Through the above-mentioned analyses, we concluded that we had arrived at a common research question for pursuing our case study, the question of human beings’ place in nature and culture. Against the background of our policy analyses, we further understood that the second round of the case study required the inclusion of extraverbal and aesthetic opportunities for children to both engage in this common research question and continue questioning some of the core values of the commons: sharing caring and cooperating. This led us into a long period of collectively preparing what we came to call a “Playworld/Interactive performance” (PWIP). We created this activity in an atelier shared by the three preschools in the network. Children were to be invited to engage in the PWIP in six smaller groups of five to six children aged five during early Spring 2023.

Playworlds is an approach that is unique for its focus on arrangements that motivate adult–child joint engagement in socio-dramatic play. Although there are versions of the approach that are adapted for work with children in middle childhood, adolescents, and adults, Playworlds tend to be situated in early childhood settings. The approach, which can be traced back to work developed in Sweden by Gunilla Lindqvist [30, 29] can be enacted through a set of general principles, allowing for adaptations to address local needs. Broadly speaking, Playworlds involve the joint creation by adults and children of a shared imaginary world loosely based on a narrative. Selection of the narrative is driven partly by interests related to topics important in the children’s lives. The topics can be wide ranging, from emotions and abstract concepts (e.g. fear, friendship), to more immediate, practical concerns (e.g. addressing sustainability related issues), to curricular issues that may be more aligned with subject area learning. Development of a Playworld is an often long-term process in which the children and adults collaborate in the creation of and enactment/use of characters, props, and plots and the basis of a chosen, open narrative. It is the aesthetic and dramatic qualities of these activities that are understood as underpinning the emotional pull that draws children and adults into the play and makes them invested in it (Nilsson, 2009). On this point it is important to delve briefly into the theoretical foundations of the Playworld approach as these highlight important ways in which the PWIP became, or better put, enhanced the existing educational commons of the preschool network.

In developing the playworld approach Lindqvist drew heavily on Vygotsky’s theories of play, culture, aesthetics and development. Lindqvist [29] highlights Vygotsky’s focus on the productive aspect of play, that is, the imaginative and creative activity involved in the process of play itself. She looked particularly at Vygotsky’s work on the interdependence of emotion, cognition, and meaning making. Vygotsky showed that for children, thought and emotion are integrated in knowledge construction, that the process of making meaning was infused with emotions and involved the interpretation and performance of experience. For Lindqvist [30], it was important to highlight the centrality of culture in this integrative process. She reminds us that Vygotsky’s theory of play “is an all-embracing cultural theory, which combines emotion and thought, aesthetics and rationality” (p. 16). Lindqvist sought to understand how aesthetic activities influence children’s play, with particular focus on social activities like dance, music, narrative, and drama. Footnote 6

This pedagogy was in our case study hybridized with another aesthetic method: The interactive performance. The concept of “Interactive performance” refers to the work done by the art/performance group that formed part of our collaboration in the case study. This work involves performances together with children and youth of diverse abilities. Of great importance here is the staging of extra-verbal, aesthetic and performative materials and processes offered to children and youth and considered as one of the most important means to promote more equal and inclusive practices. This in part because it creates a sensous universe where every body, regardless of its’ abilities, can participate in common explorations of the world. This is further enhanced by the scenography, objects, materials and characters of the performance being designed to respond to participants current interests and questions as well as by the dramaturgical structure that carries an openness towards proposals and solutions beyond right or wrong (see further, Kollaborativet [25] and https://www.kollaborativet.se).

We sought further theoretical and methodological support for the PWIP in philosophical-aesthetical theories on cognition and the importance of giving children opportunities to explore the world both through sensous perception and through individual and collective memories [4, 5, 42, 43, 62]. Such theories identify two different kinds of memories. On the one hand, an embodied habit-memory that leads to automatic movements, such as when we learn to drive a car or ride a bike. On the other hand, a more personal memory that represents unique events in an individual's past. These two memories are often confused for one another, not least in education. For example, the more personal memory is often treated as habit-memory, which consequently leads to an approach to teaching and learning that is encyclopaedic in orientation, focused on simple repetition and transfer of given knowledge, which, however, rarely lasts. Inspired by these perspectives, we not only offered children rich opportunities to explore the common research question through sensous-perceptive experiences in the PWIP, but we also sought to enhance more personal individual and collective memories through the use of activities like a “letter-correspondence” between researchers, teachers and children before, during and after the events in the PWIP. This gesture was part of the performance, but it also belongs to the logic of pedagogical documentation [7]. It also links to an important feature of the SMOOTH project: asking children about their experiences of the commons. This letter-correspondence also served as an alternative to “child-interviews”, that turned out to not function with this group of children as they explicitly resisted all our attempts to “interview” them. The letter-correspondence, however, was a much more successful research method, better adapted to children, and it was one essential part of throwing into relief the perspectives of the children. As the children had time to sit down, read our letters with their teachers, and think through how they wanted to respond, the letters became trustworthy sources of information about children’s experiences and views of the commons. When we analysed the letter responses from the children, we were stunned by their advanced ideas of some of the core values of the commons and how attentive children were to each other and to us, including and welcoming us as “new coming” researchers. What’s more, the letters also revealed the depth and detail of how much the children remembered of the events in the PWIP (for a developed account of these letters, see SMOOTH 2022 Reports D5.1, D6.1, D6.2 and D6.3). This further strengthens the idea that one’s memory of things is improved when one has an experience at the intersection of sensous-perceptive explorations and more personal individual and collective memories, than the encyclopaedic knowledge you are often forced to remember, but that is so easily forgotten [4]. To further enhance the encounter between sensous perception and individual and collective memories we gave back to children documentation of their artefacts in their ongoing projects on plants and robots as well as of the processes they were part of in the PWIP. Each time the children visited the PWIP they were shown filmed sequences from their previous visits and their artefacts were animated into short films that also invited the children to the tasks in the PWIP. Both the letter-correspondence and the pedagogical documentation functioned in our case-study as “memory-enhancing materials” that fostered “re-cognition” ([48]:69) where perception and memory “collaborate” in the production of concepts and ideas [5, 43].

In autumn 2022, the artists presented a first draft of the PWIP, connected to children’s interests in robots and plants and actualizing the common research question human beings’ place in nature and culture as well as some of the commons’ underlying values: sharing, caring and cooperating. Their focus was on rooting the activity on the children’s non-dualistic, ecological, holistic and processual thinking, as well as their interest in robots, plants and the heart as vital organ and a symbol for love and friendship. The main idea underpinning the PWIP was to create an environment and a performance in which the children would encounter two characters that needed their help. A robot-like figure called “HeartRob” and a plant-like figure called “HeartRoot”(!) (with actors inside the costumes that would interact with the children) had run out of energy due to a malfunctioning “nerve-central”. The children’s task was to get the nerve-central functioning again and to help HeartRoot and HeartRob to regain energy and revive.

It was decided that the PWIP should unfold in three phases:

PWIP 1: Children in small groups visit the PWIP installation and interact with the characters.

PWIP 2: Children return to the PWIP installation in the same groups and engage with the props, absent the characters (i.e. no actors or theatre technicians present).

PWIP 3: Two groups of children from two different preschools return to the PWIP installation and meet to discuss their experiences during PWIP 1 and 2, and to create a collective piece of art about these experiences.

This staging of the PWIP revealed yet another issue of importance for educational commons to become a resource for more equal and inclusive education, namely epistemologically informed ideas of the task of education. It seems that educational practices that adhere to the common-related values are also practices that define the task of education more broadly, closer to its’ original and scholastic definition of giving free time and space to the new generations to study and transform culture, knowledge and values [52]. These are also practices where the epistemological foundation embraces children and youths’ search for meaning and creative inventions of new culture, knowledge and values. Relatedly, yet another distinction of importance is the one defining the task of education as being of a compensatory and/or complementary character. Here, and in relation to the PWIP, we make the case that it is when the task of education is defined in the latter way—without the focus on “lack” entailed in the compensatory logic—that children can become commoners, engage in commoning practices and contribute to the production of new common goods.

However, there is a need for some caution and precision: it is vain to create a dualist option of two different kinds of epistemologies, one essentialist and reproductive, the other transformative and productive. Education, and also educational commons, need to be able to embrace both [36]. At the same time, it is impossible to do away with the compensatory function of education or make of it the opposite to its complementary function. For some children, the compensatory aspect of education plays a vital role, even in terms of base needs. We dare to propose, however, that educational initiatives, such as the ones realized in this preschool community and in the PWIP can promote more equal and inclusive education. They do this in part because they define the task of education as complementary and because they create spaces for children to search for meaning where a wide range of extra-verbal and aesthetic tools and expressions are available. Below we further argue for this in relation to the results of the events in the PWIP.

5 Results of the PWIP: More and Multimodal Ways of Engaging in Educational Experiences and Events May Promote More Equal and Inclusive Education

The events in the PWIP clearly made a great impact on the children. Even though several children were initially hesitant and even scared as they encountered the PWIP for the first time, all the children became completely absorbed by the events, and no group wanted to leave by the end of each session. They asked to stay longer and inquired about the possibility of coming back. And anytime someone chose to stay a bit outside the events, often because of being a little bit scared, the other children would try to engage their friend in the common activity: “We think you need to be here as well so that we get enough energy”; “Don’t be scared, just do like this!”; “Hold my hand and come here!”. Another strategy adopted by the children who in the beginning chose to stay a bit outside the event (often in the lap of a teacher or a researcher) was to start directing their friends: “Try to tickle HeartRoot to make him move!” Eventually, these children also entered and became fully part of the events in the PWIP. And like the other children, these children would not want to leave the room, asking to come back soon. It was also striking how children in all the groups shared their previous experiences with friends that were not present the first time in the PWIP (something which happened in all groups). Children took care of their “new coming” peers. They showed and explained what they had done the first time, taught their peers the plant and robot “enlivening” strategies they had used previously, and comforted them when something was a little bit scary. At the same time, it also happened that the “new coming” children invented new strategies and tools and took care of the children that had already been there for the first time. During the events in the PWIP children seemed to enter a very intense search for meaning, trying to make sense of everything in the PWIP, and there was so much laughter, and so many expressions of joy: “This is the most fun thing I have ever experienced!”; “This is crazy interesting!”; “I love being here!”; “I don’t want to leave!”. Children also thanked us when they were leaving: “Thank you so much for letting us be here!”, and their ways of sharing, caring and cooperating were extremely sophisticated. Children formulated hypothesizes and questions that they shared with each other; they collectively tried out different solutions to give the figures energy and love; they asked each other for help; and they called for their peers to create a common exploration: “Hey guys! What if we try to connect this cord with this one to make HeartRob move?”; “Hey guys! What if we try to give HeartRoot energy by putting potatoes by his roots?”; “Hey guys! What if we hug Heartroot/HeartRob to give it love?”. This last strategy of hugging HeartRob and HeartRoot, giving them love, was used by all groups of children. All groups of children showed great care and concern about helping the figures and giving them energy and love. It was also apparent that it was the interaction with the figures that was the most important for the children. All groups of children sooner or later started communicating directly with the figures, asking them about their condition and how they could help: “How do you feel in your heart HeartRoot?”; “How can we help you?”; What do you want us to do?”.

When analyzing these events, we turned to Bergson’s philosophical perspectives on the freedom to formulate problems and questions rather than repeating ready-made answers and solutions [4] as well as ideas from CHAT concerning the importance, in the creation of joint activity, of shared objects through which participants negotiate and sustain such activity [9]. In our analysis we postulated that all these strategies for sharing, caring and cooperating in the mission to get the nerve-central going and to give back energy and life to HeartRob and HeartRoot, occurred when there was no longer “a right answer” to the questions at stake and when children and adults share a common object and goal. Children’s many tools and strategies for giving back energy and love to HeartRob and HeartRoot were also analysed as being close to some sort of “analogue programming”—children try to give instructions to the figures, and they try to “run” them through “programming” them. The strategies could be considered in terms of yet another important feature of educational commons: open convivial tools and infrastructures [51]. Here, though, these are more of an analogue character and they range from more “rational” solutions, such as putting missing batteries and connecting cords in HeartRob’s circuit board (placed behind a hatch in the stomach of the figure), to more “fantasy-like” and emotionally charged solutions, such as decorating both HeartRob and HeartRoot with beautiful UV yarn; dancing and singing for HeartRoot; hugging both figures, even expressing their love directly to the figures: “I love you HeartRob!”. This expresses what, from a Vygotskian and Playworlds perspective, above was described as an intimate relation between emotion and thought and aesthetics and rationality. It is striking that all groups of children deployed these strategies, balancing on the border between the intellectual and the sensous-perceptive and emotional. There appeared to be no preference or separation between these different ways of navigating the world, and the children again displayed a holistic and non-dualistic thinking.

The third and last time the children visited to the PWIP, they did so in mixed groups of approximately 10 children (4–5 children from two different preschools). This occasion began with the children introducing themselves to one another, with some children discovering that they already knew each other, for instance, from playing in the same football team. Even though there was excitement and a little bit of shyness for some, discussions about what they had experienced in the PWIP quickly developed already during this initial meeting. The children were then asked to go around the room where PWIP had taken place. The room had been prepared so that documentation of all the groups visits to the PWIP were on display. The children were asked to explore the documentation.

This was appreciated by the children. They were highly focused not only on the photos of themselves, but of photos of other children and what they had collectively done in the PWIP. Quickly, though, they ran towards the figures HeartRob and HeartRoot and started interacting with them as they had done the second time in the PWIP (getting inside the costumes and interacting with each other). We saw many examples of children who had not previously known each other, but that immediately started to play together and tell each other about the different strategies they had used to get the figures moving, speaking, dancing and emitting light. This was analyzed as an expression of how strong and intense experiences and emotions, especially aesthetic ones that activate both body and mind, can create bonds and relations between people [6, 30]. This is very much the effect that art can have on us all and it may be to such experiences we have to turn to overcome divisions between people and cultures and to further promote the commons-based values of sharing, caring and cooperating. These aspects were further enhanced in what followed by the end of this last event in the PWIP when children were asked to negotiate how to place the drawings and writings that they had prepared and brought with them and that would constitute a final and common art piece, a collage. Here, some truly interesting events took place. There was, for instance, a moment where two groups had placed all their respective drawings and figures on two distinct sides of the paper. We pointed this out to the children, being careful to also tell them that this final decision needed to be made by them, and we asked them if they thought it should be like this, or if there were other options. The children discussed this, and it turned out that all children, but one, thought this design was good. The child that disagreed had “borrowed” some drawings of batteries from the other group and stated that he needed them, explaining that if not, his drawing of HeartRob would not have enough energy. One child said: “I know, let’s vote about it”, and proceeded to explain the two different options. All hands but the one from the child with a different opinion were raised. Educators and researchers asked the children what to do now, and the children concluded that it was quite fine to mix the two options, so that the child who was alone in his option could keep the drawings of the batteries from the other group on his group’s side of the collage and together with his drawing. This was analyzed as a fine moment of more sophisticated democratic decision-making where everybody comes out content [6], and as both expressing and further exemplifying how these very young children really do have some extraordinary competencies in commons-related values and practices.

To summarize, in contrast to the ambiguous definitions of equality and inclusion articulated in national policies, what we see in the PWIP events is that both equality and inclusion seem to increase not just when each child is allowed to be a contributing commoner in her/his unique ways, but also when there is a shared object of knowledge and interest amongst children and children, and children and adults. This delicate equilibrium between the particularity of each individual and the universality of the group and the common practices and products is further facilitated when extra-verbal and aesthetic means of expression are available—when there are more and multimodal ways of engaging in educational experiences and events, which in turn afford the possibility for more children to be included in a more equal way.

6 Discussion on the Potential of Educational Commons to Promote More Equal and Inclusive Education: “Yes, But…”

When synthesizing our analyses of the PWIP with an eye towards understanding its potential to be a means through which educational commons may promote more equal and inclusive education, what stands out is that we saw no evidence of children being excluded by anyone in the activity. Furthermore, in both the observed events in the PWIP and in the letter-correspondence, what stands out is the fact that the children were eager to join the adults in common explorations. They also showed a strong and sustained capacity for meta-reflection and for understanding what the adults were interested in. This kind of engagement seemed to depend at least in part on the children feeling and recognizing that the adults were genuinely interested in their perspectives on the common research question and that they had the liberty to express themselves and contribute to it in ways that were consequential also for the overarching SMOOTH project. Perhaps the most striking example of this were the diverse and refined ways that the children worked with the central objective of the SMOOTH project, active social inclusion. This was true not just when the children engaged with one another, but also in how they welcomed and included the researchers with a lot of humour, candour, interest and warmth. The children were also very proud of themselves and what they had done in the PWIP. This is currently evident, as they are now talking about themselves as “researchers” and that they are “doing research” in their daily activities. This is further confirmed by a text-message sent from the children to us researchers after we had presented the case study at a conference on the SMOOTH project in Greece: “We now think that we are famous when you have told the whole of Europe of our project! Are you going to Japan next?”. Children really seem to feel that they contributed with something very important to the SMOOTH project.

To conclude, our answer to the SMOOTH project’s main research question on whether and how educational commons may function as a catalyst in the promotion of more equal and inclusive education is right now: “Yes, but…”. The but refers to what seem to be necessary conditions for this potential to be activated. It can be formulated as follows: Educational commons may function as a catalyst in promoting more equal and inclusive education if,

  • the image of children and teachers is embedded within a shared, intergenerational search for meaning where both children and teachers are conceived as contributing commoners,

  • education defines its task not only as compensatory but also as complementary and as a place for children’s search for meaning, where imagination, play and the creative co-construction of narratives must be allowed to co-exist with more conventional and “rational” modes of learning and teaching,

  • methods and theoretical tools in educational practice and research carry an aesthetic variety that incorporates both sensous-perceptive experiences and an enhancement of individual and collective memories as well as opportunities for children and adults to formulate and gather around a common object of knowledge and interest.