I started using the term “mwe” back in 2014 when I started presenting on my work with philosophy with children, as it became so clear that “my” work as an educator was to see each child and the group - and that I am part of the group too - me and we - mwe.
Neither is more important than the other. Both need to be given attention with the knowledge that it enhances both parts...
Often the "we" part gets ignored in society that is filled to bursting with dichotomies and othering. The "unique" child, Individual Development Plans... its not that I am against any of these per se, but where is the group development plan, where is the community thinking?
The in-between is where I find myself... not me or them but mwe... Not me or that but mwe.. As in the more-than-human.
Not group or individual... but the in-between.
This thinking also applies to how I see theory and practice. It should not be about one or the other... but about the in-between... where theory informs practice and practice informs theory. Entangled, not separate threads.
When using the forest to think of this it makes me think of the poem I wrote with the line... "The Roots. The Canopy. The In-between." I see roots as theory, digging deep, interconnected with the rest of the forest. And practice is the canopy - branches, leaves, seeds, fruits and flowers, of ideas coming to fruition. The canopy is not connected in the same way as the roots... sometimes brushing up with neighbours, especially with the help of the wind.
The trunks, and the understory is the in-between. Connecting the canopy with the roots.
The canopy cannot survive without healthy roots, and the roots do not thrive without a functioning, photosynthesising canopy.
The in-between is the most important space. It is the connection. The interaction. The intra-action. It is belonging and identity/integrity.
Community and autonomy.
It is not the loss of self at the expense of community, but the discovery of self through togetherness. It is the opposite of Maslow pyramid of needs (excluding physiological and safety) Instead of belonging/love needs, esteem needs topped by self actualisation - it is self actualisation, esteem topped by belonging/community. If you think of infants, they are kind of an extension of their mother, first they need to realise that they are an individual, who are separate from their mother, before they can then start working on esteem and then belonging to a community - which involves reciprocity, giving and receiving, not just receiving as children need when they are infants, which slowly shifts to a need for less and less scaffolding.
Humans move from we, to me to mwe.
Yet the education system, and Western Society seems to focus on we, to me, to "I" that should function in a group. The forest is not just the trees. It is everything within the forest. It is mwe.
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