What will change in education?
As educators we should embrace every learning situation we encounter but similar to our students our attention span is low, we tend to be afraid of unknown territories, and we drop-out of valuable learning opportunities.
In February 2018 I participated in the 3-day workshop RECONSTRUCCIÓN EDUCATIVA in Mexico City, designed by Alejandra Costa (psychologist) and Dorothy Zablah (researcher). They gathered a diverse group of educators from different areas, from teachers (including kindergarten, primary and secondary school) to academic directors, university staff and other professionals in the field.
That day, a variety of activities and games were presented to us. We began by exploring the meaning of paradigms; naming concepts we grew up with, identifying problematics, and defining their impact on our lives. In the end, we were introduced to the story of a baby elephant who was taught by his tamer not to move beyond an indicated territory until he lost interest in exploring the rest of the world; a metaphor for socially-imposed personal barriers and limitations.
The next day we were asked to envision (in)visible paradigms in education and how they become established educational practices (standardization, testing, quantification, etc). Each participant had to write down two changes that she/he will implement either to avoid the repetition of dominant habits or to enable alternative ways of learning. The workshop leaders introduced the idea of “chaordic” (chaos and order) spaces, an approach that refers to connected nods in a network of relationships.
There is a void in traditional schooling: a focus on cognitive intelligence and ignorance towards emotional and corporal learning. We spent the last part of the day searching for those underdeveloped skills. Mari Sierra, introduced a variety of breathing techniques and meditation exercises as a warm-up, later on — using the technique of Chi Kung — she invited us to move through space and time to learn from the emotions our body confronts is with.
The last day was dedicated to our imagination of educational environments in the year 2050; ones that bypass traditional concepts and focus on a more personalized and communal approach. In four groups we designed scenarios and a vision for different actors in the field.
It was a pleasure meeting some bright minds and potential allies. Unfortunately, we lost some participants during the last workshop day: They arrived late and didn’t want to join the morning yoga class. Once we finished, they were gone without leaving a message. Ale and Dorothy did a good job “ignoring” this silent but obvious act of discontent in order to sustain the positive process the rest of the group was going through. Without further detail, I do want to mention that the four male participants left us at this point.
However, I keep on thinking about those dropouts (almost a third of our initial group):
- Was the workshop — conceptualized as a self-exploring journey — too experimental for them?
- How can we integrate alternative ways of learning without alienating educators that are less accustomed to such practices?
- How can my work have a positive influence on different types of educators?
For a start, I will keep the two promises I made during the above-mentioned exercise: First, without further excuses, I will fight my devil and regularly feed this blog with my views on education, share information and tools I find useful, as well as promising existing projects. Second, I will continue on my path without fear nor regret in order to fulfill the goals I have laid out in front of me with the foundation of the Culture and Language Intervention Club and our education programs.
