When Drawing Proliferates: Toward an Onto-Epistemological Pedagogy of Children's Drawing

Children's drawing is an important part of early childhood learning experiences. While young children seem to have little need for drawing instruction, classrooms where drawing features as a central component to curriculum provide material conditions that can sustain its practice. In this paper, I employ a new material heuristic to explore how drawing and the drawings children produce are implicated in the production of pedagogical matter. To do so, I invite readers to visit with a Reggio-inspired preschool classroom where, for the past 3 years, I have participated together with children and teachers in a research relationship focusing on young children's learning and early childhood pedagogy.