ABSTRACT
This chapter bridges research in affective neuroscience with relational studies of early childhood development to intricately detail a trajectory of early development. Drawing on the work of Daniel Stern and those who follow, we consider how inborn human proclivities find meaning in the affective contours of early human interaction. In this chapter we begin to understand embodied cognition as the inevitable consequence of the human development of nonconscious, unconscious, and conscious being. This chapter and the one that follows lay the foundation for critiquing problematic separations in schooling literature, most notably: cognition, motivation, emotions, sociality, and behaviour. Instead, the model affords a way to think these literatures together when we think about schooling practices. With fundamental principles in place, I trace the model of learning as a model of recursive, responsive self-change applicable from birth forward.
