Sara Sintonen
Professor of Early Childhood Education
Hello! This is Sara Sintonen, an education scientist and teacher educator from Finland with a passion for the arts, cultures and education. My viewpoint for early childhood education and care (ECEC), research and pedagogy, is deeply connected to my two areas of expertise: arts education and media education. I am particularly pertaining to arts, aesthetics, modalities, materiality, literacy, creativity, play and digital cultures. I am keen on inviting researchers, teachers and educators to re-think and re-imagine education, cultures, environment, and futures. I have written or edited a number of books, countless articles, book chapters, and pedagogical materials.
The majority of my work is freely accessible online and is published in both Finnish and/or English. At the moment, I work as a professor of early childhood education at the University of Turku’s Faculty of Education, Department of Teacher Education in Rauma campus. At the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Educational Sciences, where I have spent the majority of my academic career working, I hold a position of a Senior University Lecturer.
Quotes from my latests publications
“Education is an expression.”
“Learning about myths in early childhood education means having a glimpse from the past. This connection might lead to a stronger interest in environments and other living things and multispecies. Interest opens the way to change and hope.”
“Imagination and creativity are conceptual tools with which children adapt to change and handle the unknown and unpredictable.”
“How we interact with materials in education will depend on the affective, physical and social
relationships we have with the tools and technologies involved.”
“When a person touches a piece of paper or a screen, they are also touched by it. Future education needs to be materialised in sensory, embodied, experimental and playful intra-actions.”
“Being creative, playful and imaginative in early education is not always a pleasant experience for teachers but occasionally demanding, difficult and confrontational. At the same time, it can be very rewarding. It raises – and should raise – questions about the fundamental structures of power, authority and resistance in our society.”
Pedagogical materials online
My freely available pedagogical materials have a playful educational aim of encouraging children
to listen, to observe, to collaborate, to participate, to reflect, to imagine, and to experiment in
various ways with various materials. Let’s learn together!
