Return

Head, body, legs

Investigating the ways we come to know through picture books

Next

Gender And Sexuality Education Philosophy with Children Reflections on Pedagogy

RHEA KUTHOORE

Sept 05, 2023 · 6 min read

Overview

When it comes to the question of knowledge, we emphasise the importance of evidence and the scientific process of knowing. The ways of knowing that do not conform to this particular methodology are often neglected. Folktales and mythologies about the creation and understanding of the world are often ignored as being unreasonable accounts of knowledge. However, I believe it is important to explore these forms of knowledge as they give us room to imagine possibilities and realities beyond what is visible or testable. Further, these stories tell us about how people thought and reasoned in the past, giving us newer considerations to speculate about. Finally, these stories uphold the epistemologies of tribal communities, who are otherwise marginalised in today’s world. Hence, for this week, I selected a Nigerian folktale, ‘head, body, legs’, to explore the question of human evolution. Rather than simply looking into how archaeology traces humans evolution, we began with a story in which head, body and legs lived separate lives. Through this story, we wondered: why do you think our bodies became more complex over time? Do you think desire/dissatisfaction could be a reason for evolution of species?

Goal

An exploration of how to come to know about the past. Why do you think this story speculated about human evolution in the way that it did? What do you know about your past and how do you know it?

Pre-stimulus

1. We notice how our body changes during our life, what are some parts of our body that stays the same?
2. What do you think our bodies were like many years ago? What kind of lives were we living, what work were we doing? Do we resemble any other animal?
3. Have you heard of body parts that we once had and that is now missing?

‍
For 1, the responses were — “eyes” and “moles”
For 2, one child said, “I saw in the newspaper that we were Gorillas many years ago” and other responses were, “we all had darker skin”, “we were living in caves” and “we hunted for food”
For 3, I told the children about our tail bones!
‍

Stimulus

We played a fun game in which we had to imagine how we would connect to one another if we were all — one leg, one hand, one ear, one mouth and one nose.
‍
One child suggested that to be one ear we should play Chinese whispers and try to carefully hear the same thing. It was a lot of fun to play this round.
‍
To be one mouth, we sang a song in sync. One child stepped out and tried to guess whether it sounded like one voice or many. This round was funny too because she guessed that we were not one voice because one person’s rough pitch stood out amongst our voices.
‍
To be one nose, we breathed in and out at the same time.
‍
To be one leg and arm, we connected to each other like a train.
‍
The stimuli in this lesson plan was set up to make us wonder about how parts of a whole can be designed such that they cooperate well with one another. However, it was not designed to get children to share their perspectives on how we come to know about the past.

Resource

‘Head, body, leg’ is interesting for the fact that it takes a reality that is considered absurd, i.e the existence of body parts alone, and lets us question whether we have always been the body that we see today! It allows us to further extrapolate and think about ‘what is the criteria for perfect?’ (since it is mentioned in the story) and to wonder about what caused changes to the world as we experience today. Finally, we get a chance to see why certain reasons are considered absurd while others are thought of as being reasonable.

During Reading

1. Do you think the head can exist alone? Have you seen any animal with only a head?
2. Head got tired of just grass and mushrooms. Do you ever get tired of eating the same thing? Why or why not?
3. Arms were living without eyes. Do you know any animals without eyes?
4. What do you think about their idea of attaching themselves to one another? Could they have attached themselves in any other way?
5. If our body could have been constructed in any other way, what way would you do it?
6. How come they only became satisfied after all the 4 parts came together? Do you think they were in fact satisfied? They had said, ‘this is perfect!’ At every stage, but kept finding a more perfect option.
7. Do you think our bodies are this way because we want more and more?

In Class Learning/After Reading

I introduced the idea of archeology to the children and showed them images from, https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species. We discussed the similarities and differences between the species at different points of the evolutionary process. Questions that came up included:
‍
1. At different points in time, were we animal or human? What is the difference and why?
2. Is there a point when we became ‘human being’ and what does it mean to say that?
3. Why were these changes happening? Why did we lose hair?

At the end of class, one child mentioned — “I think the gorillas in the zoo will one day become human”

Further Suggestions

1. Focussing more on how exactly we learn about the past
2. Going into the reasons for evolution
3. Forming an understanding of the different kinds of reasons, epistemologies of folktales and myths

RHEA KUTHOORE is an educator who is passionate about facilitating philosophical and feminist thinking amongst young people.

Thinking Rhizomatically

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

This is an h2 heading inside rich text

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.