The Future is Now: Ecoversities Alliance Book of Radical Pedagogies
“The global crises we are in indicate that we are brushing up against the limits of human rationality. It is time we re-activate our diverse perceptions, senses, intuitions and entanglement with the non-human world.”
We are co-creating a catalogue-style book of entries for radical pedagogies being used by members of the Ecoversities Alliance. Here are some examples. Write to us at Manish@swaraj.org if you have some ideas for us.
- SWARAJ UNIVERSITY — CYCLE YATRA
Who: Swaraj University (self-rule or harmony of the self) / Manish Jain
When it began: 2010
Located: Udaipur, India
Program Offering: A 2 Year Self Designed Course
Favorite Quote: “We are not here to compete against one another, but rather to complete each other.”
Website: www.swarajuniversity.org
What is the radical pedagogy? Cycle Yatra (pilgrimage) is a learning and life rite of passage aimed at rediscovering connections while traveling on bicycles or by walking; with oneself, co-cyclists, and the surrounding communities and land. A yatra is an ancient pilgrimage tradition in India, one that involves an inner and outer journey, involving spiritual reflection, physical strength and empathy.
How does it work? A group of Khojis, or seekers, travels together on cycles without money, phones, gadgets, cars, medicines, packaged food or plans across communities (usually villages) in India in a group of between 5–20 co-pilgrims. They travel light, carrying whatever they need on their cycles, with messages of their intentions or questions that they with to explore on the yatra mounted on their cycles. They stop whenever they feel inspired to do so to interact and learn with individuals, the land or animals. The co-pilgrims can offer their kindness, their labor, their sewa (service), their music, their theatre, etc. along the way to whoever they meet in the spirit of gift culture. Each evening they request community members to take care of them in terms of food, stay and safety along the way. This is not a transaction or a race but rather an experiment of expanding trust and abundance. Yatras can be for two days, one week, or more. The cycle yatras start with a ritual send-off and end with a ritual celebration.
Why is it important for the world today? The cycle yatra process challenges deeply conditioned fears around money. To imagine living in a world without money is almost impossible for many young people. The yatra invites the pilgrim to surrender to the unknown, let go of institutionalized ideas, relationships, power and tools, and interact with Life in more simple and profound ways. The pilgrims agree to slow down, to take care of each other and to be fully present to whatever is happening now. Over the course the yatra, the pilgrims also start to meet the joy of the gift culture, hospitality, care and solidarity economy. They can begin to see the power of local communities beyond labels of ‘poor’, ‘illiterate’, ‘undeveloped’ as they interact and learn with people in ways not dictated by money. Many questions usually emerge along the way for the pilgrims around the various fears that we are conditioned with, around how we see notions of security, privilege and wealth, and how we see our own capacities and gifts?
2. KNOWMADS — NATURE QUEST
Who: Knowmads / Martin Cadée, Tsila Piran
When it began: 2010 (continuation of KaosPilots.NL that started in 2007)
Located: Amsterdam, Nederlands
Program Offering: A 6 months collectively designed program (used to be 1 year)
Favorite Quote: “Welcome Home”
Website: http://www.knowmads.nl/
What is the radical pedagogy? The aim of the nature quest is enabling the participants to dive deep inside and create a healthier connection to themselves and to nature, to form a more solid foundation for their life and work.
How does it work? Nature quest is inspired by the age old tradition of people retreating alone into nature for inspiration, transformation and renewal. The core of the program is solo time in nature, without food, shelter, connection to humans, books, music or other societal input, taking only what is absolutely needed. We’ve run 9 day programs with 3 days and nights solotime and shorter 3.5 day programs with 24 hours solotime. The ‘tribe’ (a knowmads cohort, usually between 8 and 15 students) gathers in a remote place in wild nature.The program has two experienced guides — always male and female to be able to hold well the often slightly different processes of women and men during the quest.
Participants go into the solo time with a clear and strong intention, after having worked on it during 1–3 months leading up to the quest and more specifically during the preparation time on location. During solo time they are completely in charge of creating their own meaningful way of being with themselves and nature, after they’ve been offered many different inspirations during the preparation time. Always very creatively and authentically they create their own, self designed ceremony to work with the intention they went out with. Upon returning a space is created for each to share their story. Each story is welcomed and listened to by the tribe.he guides and sometimes tribe members offering a mirroring, helping the participant mine the gifts in their experience. This is a time of celebrating their return and gifts. After that, space is created for all participants to find ways to bring what has changed and/or what they’ve learned about themselves into life back home.
Why is it important for the world today? The nature quest offers a space far away from the bombardment of outer stimulus of media and daily social life, to listen to the voice inside. A space where there is no necessity and stress to compare with others. In this space the participants can connect again to nature and to the authenticity they carry, beyond expectations and predefined roles and answers of society. Something that we regard as very important, given that the stories and expectations in society have proven so dysfunctional. Also, participants experience nature is not another commodity for us to consume in our vacations, but rather a powerful source of wisdom and meaningfulness, realizing that we are part of the great existence, creating a more sustainable relationship towards the world.
The nature quest requires a special kind of courage that is not asked for in everyday life. Being alone in nature, day and night helps build inner strength and character. From our experience, the nature quest, with the right guidance, has the potential of being a real life changing event, an awakening and unifying moment. It offers the possibility of creating a pivotal moment in the participants life, something that most participants sense and consciously and unconsciously work towards the moment that they hear of the nature quest. The way we hold the quest, it offers a sacred space, not pre-defined by any tradition or religion, where participants can cross a threshold both into a different perception of life and nature, full of love and wonder, and into a next phase of their own life story. In this way there is a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, both for the individual participants and for the tribe.
3. TAMERA — FORUM
Who: Tamera Peace Research & Education Center
When it began: 1995
Located: Odemira municipality, Portugal
Quote: “Self-revelation and transparency are pre-requisites for developing an emancipatory community, for people can only trust one another when they meet without masks.” — Dieter Duhm, psychoanalyst, futurist & co-founder of Tamera
Website: www.tamera.org
What is the radical pedagogy? Forum is a social technology for practicing honesty in community and relationships and transforming the collective trauma we hold. It enables us to become conscious of what happens within and among us, and creates solidarity through mutual empathy.
How does it work specifically? One participant at a time steps into the center of the circle, supported by a facilitator who is trusted by the group, to dare to reveal themselves. Beyond the purely therapeutic level of establishing truthful communication, the person in the center is an artist who goes into “creative distance” to their problem by performing it. This de-identification enables meaningful self-reflection. De-identification and full transparency allows healing to take place — as to be seen is to be loved. With this new consciousness, we’re able to take responsibility for behaviors that are acted out unconsciously, and understand the global issues they’re part of.
The Forum is about learning solidarity on a deeper level. When people recognize each other in their shared difficulties they feel less need to disguise themselves and develop the desire to support each other. Whenever people dare to lift their masks and reveal themselves, they change and the circle is able to “see” them. “To be seen is to be loved,” is a basic experience, fundamental to building lasting solidarity among people. Forum also includes learning to give feedback to each other, to say what we perceive in each other, and what we like and dislike in a way that is mutually supportive. After the performance, the people from the circle who bore witness get up to give “mirrors” to the person who just spoke. Every living being needs feedback and resonance to be able to know its specific place in the whole and to develop themselves.
Why is it important for the world today? We all share the same original drama of devastated love, solidarity and trust — a collective trauma — as a result of an era of violence and destroyed community. These are not just personal but global issues.We can only create peace in our external environment if we learn to create peace within ourselves. This is why the healing of trauma is such a high political priority. New societal vessels are needed for healing to take place, in which insight about our own unconscious automatisms (thoughts and intentions) and true compassion for each other and the world can arise. While therapy only addresses individuals and cannot but send them back to the society that has made them sick in the first place, Forum contributes to building a new society in which trauma will no longer have an effect on us.
“From a mythic perspective, seeing is often a form of identifying, but hearing is the locating of a much more personal message. Hearing creates growing, uncomfortable discernment. Things get accountable. I worry I have been looking but not hearing…We remember that the greatest seers, the great storytellers, the greatest visionaries are so often blind. Listening is the thing.” — Martin Shaw
4. CILAS — DISCUSSION-BASED LEARNING
Who: Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences (in Cairo and Alexandria)
When it began: August 24th, 2013
Located: (Fatimid or Islamic) Cairo and (Downtown) Alexandria, Egypt
Program Offering: Year-long study program in the spirit of the liberal arts — and thematic courses
Favorite Quote: “Cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.”
Website:http://www.ci-las.org/
What is the radical pedagogy? Discussion-based learning (DBL) is used at street cafes where circles are formed and extended in both space and time.
How does it work specifically? DBL was inspired by the conversations unfolding at Cairo’s street cafes, especially after the January 25th Revolution (2011). DBL happens in a round setup, either sitting around a table or on the floor, and is guided by a facilitator (previously teaching fellow). DBL builds on the existing culture of lively debate in Egypt while reminding learners of the importance of following up on the themes touched upon during informal encounters. DBL proposes to bring street cafe kind of conversations to the Pigeon Tower (CILAS-like alternatives to the Ivory Tower) and to divide in-class discussions into pre- and post-discussions. Pre-discussions resemble street café conversations. They introduce a new topic through a prompt, which can be textual, visual, a podcast or film. Based on the prompt the group responds, shares what they noticed, how they relate to it, and what it is they wonder about. The responses and wonderments are then slowly and collectively crafted into research questions which form the basis for self-study and the post-discussion the week after. Self-study is supported by suggested readings, podcasts, videos, and an invitation to a tea hour during the week. Post-discussions are framed by the research questions the learners formulated together during the pre-discussion and seek to give preliminary answers to them with the help of the assigned study material.
Why is it important for the world today? In Egypt, and elsewhere, however, most university lectures continue to be highly scripted, the content presented far outdated, lecturers or convenors not in it with their hearts while grossly underpaid, and lecture halls in precarious conditions. Universities in Egypt are far from stimulating, let alone enlivening. DBL might not seem very subversive or radical at first. Within the context of an Egyptian or Arab university classroom, DBL has strengthened self-reliance as opposed to reliance on instructions from an authority figure, be it a parent, teacher or government official — something that is very pervasive in a highly segregated and hierarchical Egypt. Crafting and honouring research questions together during pre-discussions has reminded us at CILAS that there is often no agreement on questions we want to raise but that there is a lot to be learned in the process of figuring that out.
5. ABHIVYAKTI — PHOTO STORIES
Who: Madhyamdoot Course (Abhivyakti Media for Development)
When it began: 2015
Located: Nashik, India
Program Offering: One year diploma in media and development in collaboration with TISS, Mumbai
Favorite Quote: “Creativity is a combination of discipline and a child-like spirit.”
Website:http://www.abhivyakti.org.in/
What is the radical pedagogy? Using Photo Stories to provide a powerful process for reflection and inquiry that is useful to learners to locate themselves in the socio-economic context and broaden their understanding of self.
How does it work? Photo images in particular have projective techniques which elicits rich verbal communication and memories from the learners about their lives, events, relationships, etc. that have shaped them. A set of photographs (20 cms X 30 cms) are selected and laid on the ground with light music in the background. The learners are invited to introspect their lives by closing their eyes and then asked to look at the photographs and choose one that best comes close to their own life. Later, the learners share their personal stories to the group through the selected photograph.
The method is an innovative process that uses photographs as a means of communication to encourage and facilitate personal expression in small groups. The key is to use aesthetically chosen photographs to stimulate the imagination, the memory and the emotions, and their ability to challenge the viewer to thoughtful reflection.
Each participant is encouraged to recognise the associations that spring up when they look at the picture, and to understand himself or herself better by trying to put this inner sentiment into words and to communicate it to the group. Participants are invited to look at the photographs, not so as to analyze them, but to react to them. The point here is not to unpack the pictures but be moved inwardly by them.
Why is it important for the world today? The media world is dominated by members of belonging to certain class and caste, living in urban areas. They create the content based on commercial and standardized notions of art, power, relationships and reality, excluding diverse expressions that co-exist together. Madhyamdoot course raises the profile of those excluded, members from diverse marginalized communities. It puts the tools of creation of diverse media forms in the hands of such members and invites them to become producers. Members collaborate with each other to express their identities, concerns and aspirations. The focus on learning-by-doing ways of media production by the learners will challenge the hegemony of certain ways of story-telling as practiced by global media industry by creating content and form that is unique and different based on the lived-realities of the vast excluded communities. The diverse expressions that emerge have the potential and the power to change the world of media.
6. UMA — ACTION RESEARCH REGENERATIVE PERSONAL PROJECT
Who: Universidad del Medio Ambiente
When it began: 2009
Located: Mexico
Program Offering: 8 masters level degrees, each two year’s duration
Favorite Quote: “Life is a question, not an answer.”
Website:https://umamexico.com/
What is the radical pedagogy? Action Research Regenerative Personal Project supports learners to be the change they want to see in the world.
How does it work specifically? UMA’s proposal is that effective and happy co-change agents have the ability of developing both personal and professional projects simultaneously in their everyday life. We have seen that the personal project that students are invited to develop on second semester is especially transformative. It consists two parallel action research processes:
A) Strengthening a virtuous cycle: Find a personal activity that you have been doing for a relatively long time and that is a source of deep enthusiasm for you. Identify the way it feedbacks on itself through a virtuous cycle of growing enthusiasm that has maintained this activity in your life. Design conditions to strengthen this virtuous cycle, for example, by doing the activity more consciously, frequently, longer, or in a better space, time or company. The purpose is to increase the enthusiasm it creates. Find an adequate way to identify the changes in your enthusiasm and adapt your design on the way as you learn what works better.
B) Transforming a vicious cycle: Identify a simple vicious cycle you have with a family member and that has been going on for a relatively long time. For example, a recurrent communication problem or a pattern of mutual reclaims. Identify the chain of events and emotions as well as the feedback loop that has maintained this small yet irritating situation in your life. Design a way of intervening this vicious cycle in order to convert it into a virtuous one. Take into account that you can only directly intervene your own emotions. The purpose is to change the negative emotions and actions into positive ones. Find an adequate way to identify this change and adapt your design on the way as you learn what works better.
Why is it important for the world today? The first process invites students to discover their notion of enthusiasm and to incorporate it more consciously in their lives. The second one invites them to discover how they can transform their emotions and relationships. Both processes foster systems thinking and, together, are extremely powerful for students to experience their agency in changing their world.
7. OPEN MASTER’S — SEASONS OF LEARNING MAP
Who: Open Master’s
When it began: 2012
Located: Founded in Washington, D.C., the Netherlands (Utrecht and Amsterdam), and San Francisco. The community is now located all around the world, wherever small groups of learners gather.
Program Offering: A laboratory of different experiments! Originally, three place-based learning communities; then, adding weekend retreat programs and online programs such as Beginnings, a 12-week, small group starter program; most recently Alt*Div, our one-year alternative to divinity school for soulful community builders with seasonal in-person gatherings.
Favorite Quote: ““Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.” — Henry David Thoreau
Website: www.openmasters.org
What is the radical pedagogy? The Seasons of Learning Map helps identify and name the natural cycles and rhythms we experience on a self-directed learning journey, literally and energetically.
How does it work specifically? A community creates a map of the four seasons in physical space, on the earth, by dividing up a large space into four areas with sticks or string. First, the community walks the circle together and discusses the characteristics they feel in different seasons as they move through each: first literally, and then as a part of a learning journey. What does “summer” mean to you, in life? What does that look like as part of a cycle of your own learning process? Next, each learner moves around and explores where they feel most and least comfortable in the map, and can join small groups where they feel least ready to go, or where they feel most called to go right now, to discuss these more deeply. Finally, they explore the map at their own pace, taking a particular learning goal of their own, or another person’s, and using it to design different phases of a learning journey around that goal.
They may start in any season they like at first, moving slowly clockwise through each of the seasons, imagining in each specific practices or actions that might be part of their learning journey “in that season.” Just like that, they’ve created a rough sketch of a real, possible “learning plan,” but one that makes space for all of the natural rhythms of nature and human life: including time for planting, blooming, speeding up, slowing down, reflecting, pausing, and harvesting.
Why is it important for the world today? The most difficult reflection this practice invites is about what the season of Winter represents, which reminds us of the importance of radical pause — dormancy, rest, and deep reflection — and how it shows up in a learning journey. As learners that feel called to respond to urgent challenges of our time, how could we we possible rest in the face of all of this? Isn’t that irresponsible? We came here to take action, didn’t we? But actually, how can we not? A deeper reflection takes us into awareness that without rest and pause, we are like cancer, unfettered capitalism, or colonialism. All things in nature rest, let go, and die in the course of life. By letting the fields of our minds rest, we may actually learn what nutrients they need, and what surprising seeds are deep in the soil. As such, the time we bring the group to dwell in and reflect together, maybe uncomfortable at first, about winter also sets the stage for practices of contemplation, contentment, grace, and ease to find their way into our community from the start.
8. ALT — MINDFULNESS
Who: Awakening Leadership Training Programme (ALT)
When it began: 2016
Located: Bangkok, Thailand
Program Offering: A six-month learning journey across five integrated dimensions and emerging MA program
Favourite Quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi
Website: http://www.awakeningleadership.net/
What is the radical pedagogical process? The weeklong module on Mindfulness and Intuition Cultivation was designed specifically to help participants master the basic skills they can apply in their life after finishing the program.
How does it work specifically? At the mundane level, 30 minutes of meditation before class helps put the participants’ brainwaves into the optimal state of learning, helping them to move between the brainwaves (alpha, beta, delta, theta), where rationality, intuition and instinct can work together.
During the course of the programme, participants get acquainted with a variety of different meditation techniques, among them:
- Loving Kindness Meditation: in order to develop and practice
compassion, participants are picture themselves sitting in front of four
different people: themselves, a person they care about, a person they are
indifferent about and a person they dislike, and send loving kindness
“may you be happy” to each one. - Death Meditation: facing and accepting the fact that one is sure to die,
the students are guided through a visualization of their journey through
life up to their time of death, to help them giving up the search for what is
unworthy.
This daily self-cultivation practice brings a deeper felt sense of inter-
connectedness and lessening of sense of self-centeredness. As a result of seeing self as an intrinsic part of everyone and everything else, empathy and compassion naturally arise, understanding that our own suffering is the suffering of others also. The arising of compassion combined with deep comprehension of social and ecological issues becomes a deep motivation for taking action by using ones’ own strengths and various skillful means for social change encountered through the programme.
Why is it important for the world today? These activities are radical in that they help us in slowing down which is needed given the speed at which the global system forces people to move at. Mindfulness is not only a personal practice but also political. When you are in action, mindfulness can help you realize the right idea in the right time and place and with the right people, including making the right decision.
9. NAVGURUKUL — GBU FORMAT
Who: NavGurukul
When it began: 2016
Located: Two residential campuses in Bangalore and Dharamsala
Program Offering: One-year-long residential program in Software Engineering and life skills for youth from underrepresented communities.
Favorite Quote: “By the standards of the rest of the world, we over-trust. So far it has worked well for us” — Charlie Munger
Website: www.navgurukul.org
What is the radical pedagogy? The GBU (Good, Bad, Ugly) format is used to support weekly introspections.
How does it work specifically? In addition to circles on sharing, gratitude, learners do weekly introspections in a format that we call GBU (Good Bad Ugly). We look back at what happened in the past week and try to connect the dots about what we have been feeling and how it was expressed in our lives. We segregate it in three parts, the good, the bad and the ugly.
- The Good: This includes all the positive things that happened. What we liked, what we achieved, what made me happy. This is important since we often have a tendency of complaining more and looking at the negatives.
- The Bad: This includes any mistakes that were made, things/events that made us feel bad and can we changed by putting in some effort.
- The Ugly: This includes any major things that went wrong or some negative pattern that we identified within ourselves. These are the things that should be resolved on a priority.
Another segment that we have added to the GBU exercise is ’N’ or ‘Next’. This includes the actions you have identified to complete in the next week based on the GBU reflection.
The weekly and monthly GBU-N process enables learners and facilitators to both look within and define their own agendas for the coming week.
Why is it important for the world today? Rather than only rely on external exams for feedback and reflection, we can build our own capacities for self-reflection, peer feedback and self-evaluation. This is essential for building our own learning systems and our own leadership models.
“In the mind of the expert there are few possibilities. In the mind of the beginner there are many.” -Suzuki Roshi
10. KUFUNDA — ART OF HOSTING
Who: Kufunda Learning Village
When it began: 2002
Located: Zimbabwe
Program Offering: Communiversity Leadership Programs
Favorite Quote: “Real education is a process for self-discovery, where we value everyone’s gifts, where we are learning that we have what we need, where we learn from our experience and the future today.”
Website: http://www.kufunda.org/
What is the radical pedagogy? The Art of Hosting is used to support communities in discovering their talents and resources, engaging in deep listening and nurturing participatory forms of leadership to build vibrant sustainable communities
How does it work specifically? The Art of Hosting uses several different methodologies such Circle, World Cafe, Appreciative Inquiry, storytelling and Open Space Technology, but the common goal is to host a conversation that matters. For example, one of the tools is to form a Listening Circle to share openly, and listen deeply to the wisdom of the group, particularly the usually silent people. Meeting in circle can be especially helpful when getting to know each other and the issue at hand, or as a means for deep reflection or consensus making.
We start by introducing a powerful shared question to the group. Then we pass around a talking stick to each person one-by-one in the circle and invite them to check in to start the session (or check-out to end it) with their insights and experiences. Everyone gets a chance to have their voice heard by all without interruption.. One person from the group can volunteer to play the role of host who shares an open-ended question and centers the group, and another person can act as a guardian who protects the energy of the circle (including time-keeping, inviting moments of pausing for silence, preventing external interruptions).
Why is it important for the world today? The current system was designed by someone else to fuel their own agendas. We are trying not to follow an external expert-driven framework that has been imposed on us by others. As a learning village we are supporting each other and trying to develop our own ways forward with our own model of leadership. For this to happen, we need to better identify and harness our own diverse strengths and resources, and tap into/build our collective wisdom.
Conversation, more than any other form of human interaction, is the place where we learn, exchange ideas, offer/ask for support and create innovation. Not every conversation works like this, though. Many people experience meetings that waste time, conversations that feel more like debates, and invitations to input which turn out to be something altogether different. People want to contribute, but they can’t see how. Leaders want contribution, but they don’t know how to get it. We all need to become more skillful at helping ourselves and others work well together, especially in these times of increasing complexity.
11. ELOS INSTITUTE — OASIS GAME
Who: Elos Institute — Warriors Without Weapons
When it began: 1999
Located: Santos, Brazil
Program Offering: The Oasis Game, 1 month
Favorite Quote: “We need to learn to see abundance where many see scarcity.”
Website:https://institutoelos.org/?lang=en
What is the radical pedagogy? The Oasis Game connects people through the dreams they have in common and transforms public space by unleashing the resources and talents already present in the community itself.
How does it work specifically? To run an Oasis Game you need three elements: a local community (neighbourhood, village, school, building), a group of “players” to kick-start the process, and facilitator/guides. It’s a collective game in seven steps, injecting energy and empowerment in a community: Appreciative Gaze, Affection, Dream, Care, Miracle (Action), Celebration, Re-evolution.
The Oasis Game begins by looking for beauty, with an appreciative gaze. This means grounding a process not in powerlessness and complaints, but by actively seeking out and taking note of what is already in place and working for the community. Beauty is wherever people bring care and energy, and it is everywhere. Everyone has talents to express, and seeking them is a great way to begin a meaningful conversation.
It then moves through the rest of the steps:
Affection: looking for stories and people behind the beauty, create relations, celebrating and testifying to the community’s talents; Dream: we collect people’s dreams through interviews and one-to-one conversations as well as in public events, and identify a collective dream; Care: the collective dream begins to take form in co-design events. Materials and resources needed for action are collected within the community. Miracle (Action): a collective challenge, to be accomplished in very little time, by using only tools, materials, resources and talents already present within the community; Celebration: an essential phase in which to celebrate successful actions, acknowledge the work done and learn from the experience; Re-evolution: the local community dreams and designs the next steps. New projects emerge, new ideas are shared, and ways are found to take care of what has been created up to here.
Why is it important for the world today? We are invoking the basic human need to create: by choosing to be part of something, together, despite our conflicts and differences, community is born. These are keys that open doors in unimaginable places, places which would be hard to reach by other means. Whenever we find ourselves thinking “People just don’t care”, we can try changing the frame and wondering: “What do people who live here care about? What are their passions? What are they good at? What beauty have they created and tended to?” By acknowledging the value of beauty and talents, people’s energies are stirred into liveliness, marvel, and curiosity. We do not know what will emerge but we do know that the process has given the community’s collective genius, passions and creativity space time to emerge.
12. GRAMYA MANTHAN — RURAL IMMERSION JOURNEY
Who: Gramya Manthan
When it started: 2012
Located: Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradhesh and Kutch, Gujarat
Program Offering: A 10-day immersion program
Quote: “Outside the comfort zone is where the magic happens!”
Website: https://www.youthallianceofindia.org/gramya-manthan
What is the radical pedagogy? The Rural Immersion Journey takes 30 youth from around the country for homestays in villages of India.
How does it work specifically? We go together to live in a village for 10 days and learn about the ecosystem while being there. These villages for us are the real mirror of the state of our country. The villages we visit usually don’t have electricity. All the participants and the team members find a host in the village, we each find one house to live in for 2 days and experience a normal day with the host. One does what the host family does and needs. The new context gives us a chance to learn about ourselves from others, with others and through one’s self. The ideas about development, rural India, villages and modernisation get challenged when we live there.
Living our rushed modern lives, we, the urban youth feel, it’s a big hassle to invite and let an unknown new person stay in your home. But when we go around walking through the villages, it’s heartwarming to see the big wide invitations people receive from the villagers to stay in their homes. Even with limited resources, they open their houses and hearts to welcome us. Through meaningful conversations and listening, many opportunities to serve arise such as youngsters having skills to work with children offer to set up a children’s camp. Folks wanting to serve through their manual labour, usually work with villagers either on their fields, or cleaning through the villages, sometimes reviving ponds through the land. The mindset of problem solving slowly transforms into “Selfless Serving” while we are there.
Why do you think it is important for the world today? In today’s world, where policies and the fate of our world is decided in enclosed offices, we feel it is important for young people to experience the real India on their own. Through our colonised education an idea that we have come to believe is a very skewed idea of ‘development’. By this we mean, taking away all the natural resources from rural India and converting them into the Modern Cities of our country. We want our youth to actually question this definition and relationship, We also want them to experience the wealth of knowledge and wisdom in our ancient settlements of villages. Through the immersion, we learn great lessons for today’s leadership — empathy, community building and self reflection.
13. SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS INSTITUTE — DRUMMING CIRCLE
Who: Sustainable Livelihood Institute (a joint venture between Govt. of Tamilnadu & Auroville Foundation)
When it began: 2015
Located: Auroville, India
Program Offering: 2 programmes for the government officials of the ‘rural development’ department
Favorite Quote:
Website:http://tnavsli.in/Institute/
What is the radical pedagogy? A combination of Drumming Circle and Soundbath Healing that are used across the world to break the learning-in-classroom barrier and emphasize collaboration and co-working.
How does it work specifically? Initially, government managers are introduced to various musical instruments and drums that are kept in a large circle in an open outdoor space. Normally when they are asked to try out the drums, they all tend to first play the drum, with no idea as to how to play instruments and try to mimic drummers they have seen on television or movies. They soon realize that the noise from their drumming does not sound like the drummers in the movies, so, soon the initial enthusiasm gives way for rather cautious tapping.
A local village youth sits along with them in one of the drums, and asks them to follow him. He leads by tapping 1 beat and asks the person next to him to do it and then the next and slowly a way of learning is set. Eventually, they are all playing together and their timing and rhythm matches. Then they move to the sound bath which is relaxation music therapy designed by Svaram, a musical instrument production centre in Auroville. The third part of the exercise is the de-briefing when both the exercises above and their body and mind responses are discussed. The debriefing ask them to describe the feeling of learning to drum and how it felt to learn from a village youth — some of the members talk about the superior wisdom that one finds in the villages and this leads to how little they actually listen to the villagers in their current job.
Why is it important for the world today? It is important because in the government all learning happens through letters/words and here we break that convention through music. Music has always been recognized as a great healer and enabler of opening up of human minds and energies and this experiential tool is primarily utilized to open up the officials for newer possibilities. In addition, much of their work is done in a frenzied phase with no time for reflection and they don’t realize how quality time is a scarce commodity, particularly for themselves. So music helps to slow them down.
14. YES — APPRECIATION SHOWER
Who: YES! Jams
When it began: First World Youth Leadership Jam in 1999, First India Youth Jam in 2012
Located: India (and many other parts of the world)
Program Offering: A YES! Jam is a 3–7 day gathering where diverse social change-makers combine their talents, inspirations, and skills for transformational community-building, personal growth, collective healing, systemic visioning.
Favorite Quote: “If hurt people hurt people, and create systems that hurt people, then healing people can heal people and create systems that heal people. And free people can free people and create systems that free people.”
Website: https://yesworld.org
1) What is the radical pedagogy? Appreciation Showers are used in YES! Jams to open up the space of vulnerability and care for collective healing, deeper connection and courage.
2) How does it work? Authentic appreciation is a powerful way to transform a person’s narrative of themselves and a collective’s narrative of its present and future. To be seen and recognized for our contributions is an important part of building community, and appreciation can inspire our greatest potential.
Appreciative Inquiry is one tool the Jam uses in this regard. Going beyond generic questions like, “How are you?” or “What do you do?” toward questions like, “Can you share about an inspiring experience from your work?” or “Can you share about a time when you felt connected to and supported by others?” or “Can you share a story of courage from your life?” The answers invite the speaker to share deeply, the listener to remain present and engaged, and for a deeper connection for both people — — rather than a transactional conversation. Appreciative Inquiry allows both people to see each other’s wholeness.
At the end of a Jam, an Appreciation Shower takes place. Everyone engages in this ceremony, in which each person has the opportunity to give and receive appreciations, sharing the gifts, powers, offerings, genius, etc., that we see and have experienced in this time together. A set of 5–8 chairs is placed in a circle in the center of the room and each participant takes turns sitting in the chairs, usually blindfolded, while the remaining people form lines behind them and take turns whispering words of appreciations or blessings (no advice or business proposals) into the ear of the person who is sitting. Each recipient is invited to receive all the appreciations with their whole hearts. Each round lasts for 5–7 minutes depending on the number of chairs in center.
3) Why is it radical/disruptive/transformative? Why is it important for the world today? In these times, it is powerful to have time to connect with oneself and others from the heart. Authentic appreciation, which comes from the heart, serves as a mirror to help us see the goodness within ourselves and build upon what is working in ourselves and in our lives. It can help keep the strong inner critic, which is within many of us, in check. Appreciation can truly transform the way a person views themselves, and values their work in the world. It can help move us from competitive to collaborative beings and encourage many more of our gifts to flow. In the Jam, we get the opportunity to practice living and being the world we want to see — it’s a cellular and ‘soul-ular’ transformation.
15. SCHUMACHER COLLEGE — TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Who: Schumacher College
When it began: 1991
Located: Dartington, England
Program Offering: Holistic Science, Economics for Transition and Ecological Design Thinking postgrad programmes; short course programme
Favorite Quote: “The language of nature includes the sounds of animals, whales, birds, insects, wind, and water: a language more ancient and basic than human speech. To hear this language requires patient, disciplined study of the natural world.” — David Orr
Website: https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/
What is the radical pedagogy? The Tip of the Iceberg is an embodied exercise to expose the monetised economy as just the tip of the economic iceberg — the only bit that is visible to mainstream economics theorists and practitioners.
How does it work specifically? Various studies have found that the total value of ‘ecosystem services’ plus unpaid human labour dwarf the value generated by the formal, monetary economy. The first part of the exercise is a presentation of the data generated by these studies.
We then divide the students into categories roughly equivalent to the relative size of these three segments: approx. 50% representing ecosystem services; 20% non-monetary, human labour; 30%, the monetary economy. Participants bunch tightly on the ground using their bodies to form the shape of an iceberg. Those representing the non-monetised economy sit down facing towards the top of the iceberg; those representing the monetary economy stand up facing (looking down at) those representing non-monetary wealth.
Participants are asked to ‘turn down the volume’ on their thinking minds and to tune into their bodily sensations. Such an unfamiliar invitation can take some time to land and for a more meditative and receptive space to open up within the students and the constellation they are forming. After a while, participants are invited, one-by-one, to give voice to what they are feeling (once again, being invited not to speak from the head about their known ideological positions on the issues raised). After some time, they are invited to move, once again as far as is possible in response not to their thinking minds but to enhanced sensitivity to their embodied wisdom. Once some sort of natural completion has arrived, we invite the participants to shake out their identification with the role played in the constellation and to return to their conventional, every-day identities.
Why do you think it is important for the world today? Part of the journey we need to take is to move beyond thinking about systems and potential transitional pathways and to become embedded within them, able to empathically identify with other stakeholders in the system and to draw upon our vast but largely untapped embodied intelligence.
16. SADHANA FOREST — DAILY COMPASSIONATE LIVING PRACTICES
Who: Sadhana Forest
When it began: Sadhana Forest: December, 2003,
Located: Sadhana Forest, Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India
Program Offering: Short-term and long-term volunteering at Sadhana Forest
Favorite Quote: “May there be many forests to grow people.”
Website: https://sadhanaforest.org/
What is the radical pedagogy? Immersion in Daily Compassionate Living Practices to awaken compassion.
How does it work specifically? Sadhana Forest is a community where compassion is embedded into the smallest detail of daily life. Veganism, non-violent communication, solar and human powered energy, biodegradable toiletries, riding bicycles, recycling, food composting, construction from local and natural materials, dry compost toilets, water-efficient handwashing — these are all components of an attempt to live harmoniously with our environment and everyone who we share it with on a daily basis.
Most of our learners come from a very different environment and adapting to this new lifestyle is an eye-opening and at times a challenging experience for them. They introspect a lot and ask a lot of “Why?” questions. Why don’t we play competitive games but collaborative ones? Why are we not sending our children to school? “Why is this place vegan? Why do we have cows if we don’t milk them or eat them? etc. Many of them make immediate changes in their thought processes and lifestyle and others take time to change. We just provide the space and have no expectations at all. Making changes is a totally personal process with its own direction and pace.
Why do you think it is important for the world today? In today’s world, compassion is hardly mentioned. When decisions are taken, the degree of compassion is usually not considered as a factor and the results are widely visible. Compassion cannot just be discussed, it must be practiced in order to come alive. Even more important, we can design our living and working spaces to foster more compassion. Sadhana Forest is physically and socially designed to support people in expressing their compassion in action.
17. URKUMAMANWASI — SACRED PLANT MEDICINES
Who: Urkumamanwasi Center (The Place of the Sacred Mountain)
When it started: 2017
Located: Peruvian Upper Amazon
Program Offering: Workshops and Retreats
Favorite Quote: In the forest, we human beings are the ‘ecology’. But it is equally the xapiri [spirits], the game, the trees, the rivers, the fish, the sky, the rain, the wind, and the sun! It is everything that isn’t surrounded by fences.” -Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami shaman
Website:www.urkumamanwasi.com
What is the radical pedagogy? Retreats in the Upper Peruvian Amazonian forest, ingesting traditional medicinal plants.
How does it work specifically? Those involve a retreat in small individual huts during a period of nine days while eating a severely restricted diet without salt, purging with a variety of Amazonian medicinal plants, plant baths and ayahuasca ceremonies in a traditional structure called a maloca situated on the highest hill facing the mountain sacred to the Kichwa-Lamistas. There are three days before and after the forest retreat to prepare our bodies. During this time, we will also learn how to identify, harvest and prepare the plants for purges and baths, with all the ritual respect that is their due. During the second half of this retreat we will be working with a Kichwa-Lamista family on transforming their practice of slash and burn agriculture into a permanent form of regenerative agriculture and agroforestry for food resilience, reforestation and addressing the climate crisis.
Why is it important for the world today? Western modernity, now a globalized phenomenon, has hardened the boundaries of the human self which has become more of a cage than a porous membrane. This hardening of the boundaries of the self entails a severe weakening of not only social bonds but bonds with nature, as well as generating mental distress and addiction. With the worldwide spread of modernity, this phenomenon is ever expanding leading to the severe weakening of community bonds as well as the degradation of nature, the epidemic proportion of mental illness and addiction. Non-Western traditional cultures as well as indigenous cultures are the ones where this phenomenon has least penetrated and thus can inspire us to learn to break out of this cage. In indigenous Amazonia every plant, tree, water course, spring, and such has a madre, literally ‘mother’ but meaning ‘spirit’. Nature, the cosmos is alive, sentient and has agency. It is also numinous. However, to experience and know this, it is necessary to dissolve the ego/self. The ceremonies with the Amazonian psychedelic ayahuasca have a powerful and rapid effect of dissolving the self/ego and revealing to us the numinosity of the cosmos/earth and of the human being as an integral part of it.
“Psychedelic consciousness… grant[s] us a wider, more generous lens through which we can glimpse the subject-hood — the spirit! — of everything, animal, vegetal, even mineral, all of it somehow returning our gaze.” — Michael Pollan, 2018
18. BLUE RIBBON MOVEMENT — ME-WE-US FRAMEWORK
Who: The Blue Ribbon Movement
When it began: October 2017
Located: Don Bosco school, Mumbai, India
Program Offering: 3 months co-designed, co-learning and co-managed Social Artivism course
Favourite Quote: “Love and compassion is the heart of facilitation.”
Website: http://brmworld.org/
What is the radical pedagogy? The ME-WE-US framework of learning focuses on understanding a single issue from different perspectives, such as how the particular issue affects ME, on the individual level, group/family level (WE) and society as a whole (US).
How does it work specifically? This understanding only helps the participant to understand the root cause of the issue and also helps the participant to find a solution to this problem which can be acceptable by all stakeholders. All the fellows of the Social Artivism program collectively choose a current social issue which they want to explore and understand. This process takes a week time. In this week time, every participant tries to collect information about the issue from different stakeholder/research etc. Also, one fellow, every week takes the lead to compile all the information to facilitate a session cum dialogue with all the fellows on the respective social issue and share their understanding of how this issue affects them and other stakeholders of the society. After such discussion within fellows, they decide a day on which they facilitate a similar session with the general public of the community in a public space.
One topic that was chosen was zero plastic waste generation. The fellow not only explored this topic theoretically with the group but also she started translating this in her daily life and used her newly developed skill of facilitation in her local community. These dialogue circles inspired the active village youth and helped initiate multiple beach cleaning and awareness events in the village related to ill effects of plastics.
Why is it important for the world today? On one hand, this framework helps to increase awareness between the fellows about the current social issues and help them to explore and deepen their understanding of the same social issue from the perspective of different stakeholders thus reducing their tendency of blaming a specific body/ entity for the current social issue and encouraging them to take creative actions to solve these issues on multiple levels. On other hand, fellows learn the skill of facilitation across different perspectives which supports the fellow to host effective dialogue in their community and play a role of a catalyst of change in their society.
19. ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSITY — BADGES
Who: Alternative University
When it began: 2008
Located: Bucharest, Romania
Program Offering: Yearly membership that gives access to a varied menu of learning experiences;
Favorite Quote: “I dream of a school where, actually, nothing is being thought.”
Website: www.universitateaalternative.ro
What is the radical pedagogy? Design your own badge as a playful expression of a learning objective.
How does it work? Designing your own badge is part of our “Art of Learning Program” where new learners in our community get support to learn how to learn in a self-determined way. A badge is a visual representation of an achieved learning goal that has a name, a description, a list of criteria and the evaluation methods described. It is done through a series of weekly 1–1 meetings with another member of our community. Naming, drawing and describing your learning goals and then awarding yourself your own certificate for that learning means taking back the control of your own learning. It is playfully turning yourself into “the authority” who has power to set definition and direction of your learning. Many of our students report that this is the first time they were asked “What do you want to learn?”
In the process of designing a badge a learner uses a more creative, symbolic and synthetic thinking to give a name, a visual representation and a description to a learning goal but also uses an analytical approach to define criteria and evaluation methods. Some of the names we have heard of: “PHPerfect”, “Illustration Madness”, “PreTED to Talk”, “Shut up and run”, “First follower unlocked”, “Art to be you”, “Wordpress Ninja”. A description of a badge called “Digital Zen” could have 2–3 sentences like “My digital possessions, like files, folders, tags, accounts are minimal and very easy to keep in mind.” One criterion for that could be “I use less than 5 web apps” and an evaluation method could be to present your new digital life to a friend that is minimalist and have her determine if you achieved the criteria. For a badge like “Junior Graphic Designer” you could select and tweak the criteria from an national ocupational standard like UK’s “SKS-ADV-7: Develop persuasive visual design for use in marketing communications” and ask an experienced Art Director give you a brief and evaluate your proposal.
The idea of badges hacks how certificates work by making them more playful, more rigurous, more transparent, more granular and more modular, as it is a vision of Open Badges for Learning movement. Possibly combining your own badges in collections with badges earned from a diverse range of badge issuers (from online games to museums, companies or social movements) can make the assessment of learning to transcend the monopoly of schools and universities. The aggregation power comes back to the individual and allows for more flexible learning paths and more diversity in one’s learning.
Why is it radical/disruptive/transformative? Why is it important for the world today? Too many people let bureaucracies such as schools and universities control their “learning” and turn it into an uninspiring, useless and even harming process, just to get a certificate. Even worse, they sometimes even let themselves be defined by grades and certificates that come from bureaucracies who are blind to who they actually are. Self designing your own badges is a way to subvert the institutional power of certificates and externally-driven modes of evaluation and incentivization.
Reclaiming control of your own learning from institutional setups is liberating and empowering for individuals and communities. It is like learning to make one’s own map: you can go anywhere. And the journey becomes more fun, engaging and the destination more relevant. As one gets autonomous, playful and creative with their own learning, their whole life gets off auto-pilot and is refreshed by self-awareness, agency and creativity. We believe that the world today needs people that are turned on and awake, looking for passion, contribution and meaning beyond the most common incentives of the world as it is today.
20. NO BULLSHIT ACADEMY — A DAY IN A HORSE STABLE
Who: No Bullshit Academy
When it began: 2018
Located: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Program Offering: A 1 day, 3 day and 3 months programme for teams and individuals.
Favourite Quote: “Turn the bullshit of today into the fertiliser of tomorrow.”
Website:www.nobullshitacademy.com
What is the radical pedagogy? Working from head, heart and hands, NBA takes a journey to confront, inspire and activate people on clearing out the bullshit (BS) in their work and lives.
How does it work? Every group starts the programme with working in a horse stable for 1.5 hours. Just cleaning up the shit of others. When all the senses in your body are activated and you feel the weight of the work physically, the parallels to the bullshit running your life becomes very evident. It’s a wonderful metaphor to start exploring the questions: What is BS? What BS do I get on my plate from others? What is my own BS? and How to turn BS into Fertiliser? The programme uses indoor and outdoor exercises as instruments to recognise, express and deal with what you call BS. You will also find out that the BS you thought is running your life is not the real issue and you will leave the programme with new insights, new friends and new actions to take in your life and work. The tools NBA offers come from a combination of methods based on: embodied learning, the 12 senses of learning by Rudolf Steiner, theory ‘On Bullshit’ by Harry G. Frankfurt (1986), acknowledgement practices, social presencing theatre, games and rituals. The participants get a temporary tattoo when they complete the programme to remind them of the new future they promised themselves. And they can choose the follow-up programme ‘Challenge the BS’ to have a structure to get support on keeping their promises.
Why is it important for the world today? Harry G. Frankfurt claims that bullshit is worse than lies, because where lies deny the truth, bullshit does not even concern itself with the truth. We all can see the amount of BS in our world today. This BS is created by people, and we are part of that peoples system. This means we all help to create the BS, or at least maintain it. But it also indicates we have a choice. We can choose a different world and create values that inspire us and acknowledge the greatness we have. The NBA programmes challenge how we relate to the world around us, how we relate to each other and to ourselves. And creates experiments to change our systems and old patterns. It is not an easy job, but with moments of vulnerability, rage, reflection, sharing, experiencing, experimenting, discussing, etc., it is a joyful journey to create relationships that work.
21. AUROVILLE AWARENESS THROUGH THE BODY — EXERCISE OF ATTENTION
Who: Auroville Awareness Through the Body Group
When it began: 1992
Located: Auroville, India.
Program Offering: Awareness Through the Body Workshops (offered in Auroville and internationally)
Favorite Quote: “Everything is an opportunity for expanding awareness”
Website: www.awarenessthroughthebody.com
What is the radical pedagogy? Awareness Through the Body is an educational and personal development practice based on Integral Yoga.
How does it work? Awareness Through the Body is a comprehensive curriculum that invites an exploration into the multiple and interrelating parts of our being, and of ways of centering, integrating, and harmonizing this complexity in a practice transferable to daily life. The program explores aspects of life and aspects of the being through the themes of attention & concentration, relaxation, sensory and kinesiological awareness, the subtle physical (energy) body, the five elements, and evolution. These are approached through a combination of dynamic, creative, fun and interactive activities as well as introspective and meditative exercises — individually, in pairs, and in groups.
One example is the Exercise of Attention. In this individual exercise, we ask people to seat themselves comfortably, and close their eyes. We invite them to tune in to all the sounds they can hear. Then, we ask that they identify the sound that is closest to them, and to listen to only that sound (focused attention). After a few moments of this, we ask them to shift their attention to the sound that is the furthest away, and ask them whether they can feel the attention moving (attention as a sensation). A few times, we invite them to move their attention back and forth, between the sound that is closest and the sound that is the farthest away, and explore the accompanying sensations. Then we instruct them to share their attention between the sound that is the closest and the sound that is the furthest away (shared attention), and finally, we invited them to spread their attention to consciously hold all the sounds (spread attention). At each stage, we ask them to be aware of any changes in their sensory perception of their attention.
Why is it important for the world today? Remembering and reclaiming our inner territory is a radical pedagogical practice in this day and age, and in its rediscovery lays the potential for a rebalancing of society as a whole. Contemporary society has become extremely focused on achieving external goals, making excessive demands on our time and pursuits, imposing stressful rhythms on our lives, pressuring us to ‘do’ more and more, with no respect for an inner logic and capacity for self-direction, or the intrinsic value of ‘being.’ We are constantly, coercively pulled to the outside world, abdicating our own inner world and its perceptions and aspirations, conditioned by the societal values imposed on us. Attention is the first theme we explore, because it is crucial to undertaking any activity consciously, with self-awareness.
22. PEACE AND PERMACULTURE DOJO - MISO MAKING
Who: Peace and Permaculture Dojo
When it began: 2017
Located: Chiba, Japan
Program Offering: half-day to 2 day workshops with the miso harvest happening 6 months to 3 years later.
Favorite Quote: “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”
Website: https://numundo.org/center/japan/peace-and-permaculture-dojo--1
What is the radical pedagogy? To remember what it means to use our own hands for health and sustenance through a centuries old community practice of miso making.
How does it work? Miso is a highly nutritious Japanese soul food. Participants, many of whom have only bought industrially manufactured miso products, are given a lecture on the history and meaning of miso making. The lecture includes topics such as interconnections between the soil ecosystem, micro-organisms, and our bodies. Other topics include the history and politics of miso making, regional differences and the importance of localization, bio-chemistry of miso fermentation process, etc.
The lecture continues as a conversation with the participants as they start to mash cooked steaming soybeans in groups with their bare hands. As they enjoy feeling the heat, the texture of the soft creamy soy beans, and the hands of each other, koji mold, salt, and soy broth are added and mixed together. As they work they learn where each ingredient was sourced, the considerations given to sourcing each ingredient, and the name of the person providing it. This is a process of connecting to the life and meaning behind each ingredient and process in a world of industrially manufactured disconnection and dehumanization.
Once all ingredients are well integrated, the young miso ecosystem is placed in tubs to slowly ferment. In some cases, groups come together 6–12 months later to harvest the miso. Others have started regular miso making collectives, reclaiming their identities from consumers to producers.
On some occasions, the miso making process starts from making salt and koji. Sea water is boiled with wood-fire for over 24 hours, then sun dried. The koji, that naturally grows on rice in Japan, is mixed with steamed rice and wrapped into a ball. The ball is then wrapped tightly onto a person’s stomach to keep it warm for over 24 hours. Often men are encouraged to have a koji baby pregnancy experience, and carry the ball tightly on their stomach including while they sleep. This process gives men a chance to experience parts of what pregnancy is like, and gives them an experience of deep intimate connection with life.
Why is it important today? Many of us living in highly industrialized societies are rapidly losing our connection to life. Miso making is a revival of a cultural practice that engages our head, heart, and hands and produces a delicious tangible outcome in an otherwise abstract world of numbers and status. Every aspect embodies yojo, from the care of sourcing the ingredients, to the sense of community while making miso, to the consumption of this “priceless” miso. Yojo is a term we often use that consists of the Chinese characters “nourish” and “life”.
Some of this miso is sent to workers at nuclear power plants as a way to care for their well-being. It is said that a team of doctors working in Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb was dropped, regularly consumed miso and maintained their health in an otherwise devastating radioactive environment. In a political climate of fighting and abstraction, this is an opportunity for different political parties and citizens to come together and work together by celebrating culture and health. And even if we do not agree on politics, we can still work together for a healthier future.
23. FINDHORN FOUNDATION — ATTUNEMENT
Who: Findhorn Foundation and Community
When it began: 1968
Located: Scotland, UK
Program Offering: Various formal and non-formal experiential transformational life learning programs related to Inner Listening; Work is Love in Action; Co-Creation with Nature in an Intentional Eco-Spiritual Community
Favorite Quote:
Website: www.findhorn.org
What is the radical pedagogy? It is called Tune In or Attunement, so as to fine tune and align each individual with their present reality, and to make conscious and clear the purpose and intention of coming together in that present.
How does it work? Before the start of every meeting, work shift, gathering, training, or course, the individual or group sits or stands together in a circle, and dedicate intentional time in silence. Often the group will hold hands, but sometimes not. The purpose for this practice is to be fully present in the present, with oneself and the rest of the group. There is often a Space Holder or Focaliser who holds the energetic space and often says a few words to support the group into the intentional silence. As part of the Attunement the Focaliser will call in or invite certain qualities to further deepen the experience of clarity and support of the gathering and its conscious purpose. This process takes usually 2–3 minutes.
Afterwards, a focused question could be asked that intends to enquire about inner state of each member of the group. Each individual speaks in time, if they so wish, in a context of shared group agreements, such as deep listening (listening with attention and a compassionate heart), confidentiality, and “I” Statements (where the speaker shares from their own point of view or experience, instead of stating something as a universal truth). The time for this is co-managed by the Focaliser initially though it’s encouraged that everyone engages in practicing holding the space of sharing within time limitations.
A good circle is one where everyone is visible to everyone in the circle and this has more than a logistics effect of being able to see each individual’s face while they speak — sitting in that kind of circle really makes possible to recognise who is not showing up 100%, who might be requiring support, and to also recognise ourselves as not alone, but part of something.
Why is it important for the world today? Creating intentional silence before any kind of collaboration has a well cherished place within the Findhorn Foundation and Community. This is one of our Community’s core practices: sitting in silence, opening to our intrinsic inner wisdom, and allowing ourselves to be fully present in where we are and who we are with. It’s a core part of mindfulness training and it allows practitioners to gain mental health resilience and to strengthen their integrity and authentic collaboration by grounding their intentions and purpose in the present.
24. BLACK DADDIES CLUB — THE BLACK LIBERATION BALL
Who: Black Daddies Club (Verandah International University)
When it began: 2015
Located: Toronto, Canada
Program Offering: Workshops and community based education programs for the black faith and LGBTQIA community
Favorite Quote: “Some people talk with their mouths and some of us like to talk with our bodies”
Website: theblackdaddiesclub.com
What is the radical pedagogy? The Black Liberation Ball is a celebration of the different entry points into Blackness. It take place annually as part of the Journey to Black Liberation Symposium which is dedicated to gathering around the theme of Black love, healing and hope in Black communities in Toronto and from around the globe.
How does it work? It takes place annually as part of the Journey to Black Liberation Symposium which is dedicated to gathering around the theme of Black love, healing and hope in Black communities in Toronto and from around the globe. The Black Liberation Ball gives Black LGBTQ2S+ communities the main stage (figuratively and literally), as this community has been traditionally marginalized even within the Black community.
The Black Liberation Ball, pays homage to Ballroom culture which is something that was created by Black trans-women and it was a space that Black LGBTQ2S+ communities came to create intentional families, especially for those whose biological families had shunned them because of their sexual and gender identities. The Black Liberation Ball is comprised of various “houses” which compete in various categories for top prize. Houses which are led by the mother’s and father’s of the house (which are usually people who founded the house or move up the ranks to status of mother and father). Each house also has the children or kids of the house who take the name of the house into their own names. Each member in the house will specialize in a specific category such as Runway, Face, Vogue, Realness, Hand Performance, Sex Siren, Body, Bizarre, and more.
The event gives people the opportunity to perform a theme and and more importantly it teaches us various ways of speaking with our bodies as well as using our mouths. Participants can compete in several categories, such as Best Dressed or Realness, where performers sing, dance, or perform in drag before the community and judges. There are also Runway competitions where people show off their personal flair and style, reclaiming their own bodies and celebrating them. The commentators and the DJ’s are really important to the Black Liberation Ball as they set and keep the tone, energy and overall vibe of the Ball for its duration of the night.
Why is it radical/disruptive/transformative? Why is it important for the world today? In today’s age of systemic racism black folks start to internalize negative messages, especially when this racism is broadcasted on public media as facts rather than fiction. Young Black children and teens are very impressionable, but even some adults have digested so much self-hate over their years of existence, it is difficult to love themselves or anyone that looks like them. Strong, positive messages are important for black people to feel comfortable in their skin and be proud of their blackness. However to simply ask folks to love themselves despite living through Anti-Black Racism is somewhat irresponsible and naive, there has to be a focus on individualized or self healing as well as communal healing.
Collaboration across international borders and gender and sexual spectrums brings in multiple wisdoms and approaches to looking at an issue, and it’s in these multiplicities that something beautiful is created and more importantly our understanding of what is Blackness broadens.
“The texture and aesthetic of the way the crises of this time are discussed will become characteristic of the ‘solutions’ generated. The warm data matters.” — Nora Bateson
25. FREE HOME UNIVERSITY — TIME CAPSULE
Who: Free Home University
When it began: 2013–14
Located: Salento, Southern Italy
Program Offering: winter, fall, summer sessions of immersive research in action residencies.
Favorite Quote:
- So how will you learn?
- I-ne-vi-ta-bly!
(quote from EN RACHÂCHANT, film by Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet, 1982)
Website: https://www.fhu.art/
What is the radical pedagogy? The Time Capsule is an exercise inspired by the research and artworks of the Russian multidisciplinary art-collective Chto Delat.
How does it work? At the end of every session at Free Home, the participants are invited to leave a message to the next group of fellows participating in the program. We put together some memorabilia, comments and feed-back, recommendations and warnings, our hectic, collectively designed schedule, artifacts or small objects and souvenirs that may evoke the struggles, doubts, methods, practices, and questions of the session, in a process of self-reflection that allows us to pass on our conclusions for future groups. Then, maybe they can continue the work, going deeper into the issues that emerged. We take notes or do cartography of sessions’ highlights and lowlights, feeling the most we can learn from our mistakes, trying to always address three core questions: — what did we study; — what did we learn; — what we wish the next generation to carry on in their learning.
In Free Home, we live together in a common house to create a temporary transnational learning community embedded within local communities of practices and communities in struggles. When the next group arrives, the session starts with an almost ritualistic opening the Time Capsule and people go through it and ask questions that triggers memories, anecdotes, a process of retelling. The Time Capsule is a way to build a different temporality, some connection and continuity among fellows of different sessions, a way to document and to self-reflect on our learning processes.
Why is it important for the world today? The time capsule tradition is connected to the burial culture where objects and messages were buried both to accompany the death in the afterlife world and to save knowledge. Now, we have adapted this ritual in order to send messages forward to other participants in the program. Instead of having people read reports, which can sometimes feel academic, this way allows each participant to leave something behind that they feel might help the next participant, and keep the discussion moving forward. It also allows the participant who is reading the time capsule a peak into a world that they entering, with support from their predecessors — almost like guiding spirits. It helps to engage different senses and helps the community reflect and grow in ways that are beyond just words. It’s a way to connect in the present, the past and the future, it helps make us understand that what we do has an impact.
26. LEMON SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP — 6E MODEL
Who: Lemon School of Entrepreneurship
When it began: 2015
Located: Nagpur, Maharashtra, India
Program Offering: 3 months to 2 years
Favorite Quote: “Your idea deserves a chance.”
Website:www.lemon-school.com
What is the radical pedagogy? The 6E model — Explore, Empathy, Experiment, Execute, Enjoy and Evolve — which helps entrepreneurs go from an idea to reality.
How does it work? In the first stage, the learner-entrepreneurs Explore themselves, asking internal questions, meditating, and eventually exploring their external world. They explore the problems they see, and think about what they are good at before coming to the idea stage. Once they have an idea, they go through the Empathy stage, where they really try to understand the end-customer. Many times, as humans, we jump to solutions without really understanding the problem, and so we encourage entrepreneurs to really slow down and engage with the problem and customers. Then they Experiment, and really develop their proof of concept or prototype based on the end customer and their feedback. Working prototypes for products are designed to meet basic functionality for the user and successful fulfilment of needs. This is an important phase because it helps them realize what the customer really needs, and helps the entrepreneur get real-life feedback and validation for solutions matching customer’s needs in a meaningful way. One of the essential elements is that the customer sees a value good enough to pay for it.
Prototyping is important because it challenges the notion of a “right answer” which is what we have followed since school. Prototyping requires the creators to embrace the reality that our first guess will likely be wrong or deeply flawed and so we need courage and a thick skin to put a flawed creation into the world. It means that customers are also co-creators.
Based on the customer’s reactions, they Execute their idea, and then take time to Enjoy the moment! Lastly, the entrepreneur must keep in mind to continuously Evolve their product or idea in order to excel. A mindset of continuous iteration of the product or idea is important to keep it relevant to the world.
We believe that the real world is the classroom. So through experiential learning, we want our learners to experience real life connections, and interact with experienced people who share their successes and failures.
Why is it important for the world today? Entrepreneurs have the ability to create change by challenging the status quo. However, sometimes it can be tough for young people to get started or to get focused though they have lots of energy. There are many roadblocks internally and externally, from fear of mistakes and failing, to not getting the right mentorship or contacts. This oftentimes paralyzes them. The 6Es helps them to start moving forward. The deep learning is in the ‘doing’, ‘getting feedback’ and ‘continuous experimenting’. Creating something new, whether it be a new product, idea or new relationships, takes time and effort, and courage.
We feel that young people don’t have to always follow someone else’s advice, but can reflect on their own learnings and experiences with the proper feedback tools built in. This gives them a chance to trust one another and also gives space to co-create and deepen relationships.
As part of the self exploration phase every entrepreneur does a deep dive into their self and deeper purpose. One of the fundamental questions we encourage participants to keep this question in their minds is: why do you want to be an entrepreneur? Being an entrepreneur is not only about making money, but addressing an important problem that they see in the world in innovative and new ways.
27. BEIJING NORMAL UNIVERSITY— INTEGRAL DRAMA
Who: Beijing Normal University
When it began: 2009
Located: Beijing, China
Program Offering: Practice-Based Courses with Integral Educational Drama (ED) and Therapeutic Drama (TD) on Professional & Self Development
Favorite Quote:
Website: https://english.bnu.edu.cn/
What is the radical pedagogy? Integral Drama integrates educational drama (ED) and therapeutic drama (TD) methods. In ED, participants take part in role-play situations, act out imaginary scenarios, and/or demonstrate fictitious images for the purposes of insight and growth. In TD, participants can tell their stories, express feelings, achieve catharsis, and solve their personal and social problems.
How does it work? Integral Drama techniques include creative drama, process drama, desire of rainbow, playback theatre, psychodrama, and forum theatre. The learning process is practice-based and effectively combines counseling theories with personal development and practical application. In Integral Drama, the pedagogy differs from traditional performance in theater because it is an impromptu action without scripts. Also, the audience are ‘spect-actors’, both actors and observers.
The technique of Forum Theatre engages deeply with the audience by asking them to participate in the play, thereby giving everyone the power to collaborate to create the end of the play. This way the audience is also given the power to change or create new solutions to the conflicts presented in the play.
For example, when discussing the issue of sexual harassment, each student group will produce a short play of 5–8 minutes to perform different kinds of sexual harassment situations. Then during a play, the audience members can say ‘stop’ at any time they want. The one who says ‘stop’ will take the role of the protagonist of the play, and perform in his own way. He can change the way the previous character performs. In the same way, others can also try to replace the characters in the play and show their problem-solving methods. There is also an opportunity for the audience to pause and directly ask questions to the different characters to better understand their perspectives.
During the process, some students can see their helplessness, build greater empathy towards other characters and also learn from others’ preventive solutions. Through acting, the confidence of most students improves in dealing with these problems. The students also become more clearly aware of their body boundaries. Sometimes, after the Forum Theatre, some of the participants who have experienced sexual harassment have the courage to face their past and want to deal with past trauma, we assess the safety of the field and then lead the group into processes such as psychodrama.
Why is it important for the world today? We need to support students to develop the necessary abilities to confront their uncertainties and adjust their actions. Pedagogy needs to be for whole person education, beyond a focus on only rationality, which integrates the spirit, mind, and body.
Through the Integral Drama process, the depth and breadth of inner experience can be actively explored and interpersonal relationship skills can be enhanced. Participants can expand their repertoire of dramatic roles to find that their own life roles have been strengthened. Integral Drama promotes greater empathy and compassion of the participants by having them experience inclusivity and deeply understand differences and diversities. It can help participants deepen connections with each other in the group, be more aware of their needs, increase their social adaptability, and generate wisdom to deal with uncertainty in life.
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” -Margaret J. Wheatley
28. EA ECOVERSITY — TRADITIONAL CEREMONY
Who: EA Ecoversity (EA stands for Education with Aloha, but also means sovereignty in Hawaiian) Kū Kahakalau, Ph.D.
When it began: First camp in 1992
Located: Hawaiʻi Island (Occupied Territory)
Program Offering: A 2-Year Self Designed Course
Favorite Quote: “Pūpūkahi i holomua. — United we will progress!”
Website: https://www.kuakanaka.com/eaecoversity
What is the radical pedagogy? Rooted in a Pedagogy of Aloha (love, compassion, kindness), EA Ecoversity works with ancient, spiritual ceremonies.
How does it work? A group of about 20 intergenerational Native Hawaiian learners spend one moon cycle in a remote environment, without modern conveniences, living off the land, engaging in subsistence planting, gathering and fishing, practicing native arts, sports and games, communicating in the Hawaiian language (which was outlawed in 1896) and participating in traditional protocol and ceremonies (also outlawed in the 1800s).
In one ceremony, learners start the day by chanting the sun out of the ocean so that it can provide strength to all creation. Lined-up according to sex, to learn about balance, and age, to understand their responsibility to lead those younger than themselves and serve those older than themselves, learners then greet the ancestors and ask them for guidance, strength, intuition, and spiritual power. Throughout the day, learners acknowledge through chants the interconnection between man, the land and the spiritual world. This means that every activity from planting, to fishing, to gathering, to eating, to playing games is preceded and concluded by prayers to the ancestors and the various deities in charge of these activities.
Depending on the season, learners also engage in traditional ceremonies, such as a traditional ushering in the Hawaiian new year (kuapola) or harvest (makahiki) ceremony, where offerings are given to the deities in charge in an effort to solidify amicable relations. Over the course of the camps, learners also start to understand the impact of the moon on our daily lives, the intricate interconnections between man, the land and the spiritual world and their responsibility to protect our resources, perpetuate traditional knowledge into the future and maintain a balance of giving and taking. Each of our learning camps is concluded by a closing ceremony, as well as a traditional performance to family and community members teaching them about the things they have learned over the past moon cycle.
Why is it important for the world today? Ceremonies help shift our focus to things beyond our current imaginations and into sacred, timeless spaces. By invoking and practicing interdependence with other beings, learners also re-establish traditional Hawaiian gift-culture, hospitality, and the reciprocal lifestyle of our ancestors. They begin to see that when we take care of the land and the spiritual world, they will take care of us. They also begin to understand that we are dependent on one another not just for mutual survival but also for mutual joy and happiness. Most importantly, they realize that for Native Hawaiians ancient is modern and that reviving and re-establishing the ways and practices of our ancestors will not only enable us to survive as Native Hawaiians, but allow us to thrive as 21st century global citizens.
29. GAIA UNIVERSITY — ONLINE PORTFOLIOS
Who: Gaia University
When it began: 2006
Located: Global online with programs in English and Spanish
Program Offering: Certificates, Diplomas, Bachelors, Masters, Graduate Diplomas around Ecosocial Regeneration
Favorite Quote:
Website: www.gaiauniversity.org
What is the radical pedagogy? Gaia U International has been committed to the use of Online e-Portfolios as a documentation tool for demonstrating effective and strategic outcomes of student associate project work.
How does it work? Learners document their experiences and reflections in e-Portfolios, mentored by Gaia U trained graduate advisors and then reviewed by external reviewers before degrees are granted. Gaia U looks at whole systems and whole people and understands that we need to both learn and unlearn and deal with internal and external oppressions in order to achieve a regenerative future in an uncertain world. All Gaia U student associates take a fundamental online course called the Certificate in Ecosocial Design. After this, those who continue with deep dive programs set up their ePortfolios, do a Life and Career Review (what I have learned and unlearned in my life) and then a Learning Intentions and Pathway Design (what I want to learn and unlearn and how I might do that). Following that people are ready for the Action Learning Cycle in which they focus on their self-designed and directed projects, generally in their local communities.
While generating their e-Portfolios student associates learn documentation skills. The level of digital literacy needed is akin to creating one’s own rich website and the ability to make creative use of mutli-media in this process makes this a joyful exercise. There is a huge amount of information, knowledge and experience created around the world and very little of this is actually shared. By creating an online portfolio, a person is able to share their work with anyone they choose and for as long as they choose, be it a colleague, a future employer, family, friends and more, and receive constructive feedback and support.
Our online portfolio software enables the owner to curate many different versions of their life and work tailored to the needs of multiple viewers. By using and sharing templates, students can ensure that their own documentation is fully featured and delivered in a form that is easy for a viewer to navigate — this allows for a rich presentation of complex and emergent projects that includes an experiential commentary by the learner. Online portfolios allow for the assessment and accreditation of learning and unlearning derived from practical work in the field. Online portfolios become life-long learning tools on which people can build as they progress in their personal and life work beyond the programs in which they might initially engage.
Why is it important for the world today? The online portfolio shifts the educational focus from obtaining paper degrees and certificates to getting more and more real world experiences and skills. It helps learners recognize many diverse and powerful forms, processes, spaces that they are continuously learning from. By documenting what a person has learned and unlearned while designing their pathway through a project, the learner is able to more effectively demonstrate the outcomes of their internal and external processes. An online portfolio makes assessment and accreditation of student work easily available for reviewers world-wide and is a transparent form of quality assurance that assesses both the educational organization offering the learning programs and the student.
30. SWADHARMA — INNER FLAME
Who: Swadharma Auroville Campus Initiative, Department of Further Learning, SAIIER
When it began:
How long? Five weeks
Located: Auroville (International Community situated in Tamil Nadu, India)
Programme Offering: Five weeks course; twice a year; once in Jul-Aug & once in Jan-Feb
Favorite Quote:
Website: https://www.swadharma.auroville.org/about
What is the one radical pedagogical process/exercise/tool or approach you use in your ecoversity? There is a fire deep within the human heart that thirsts for truth, goodness, and beauty. This is Agni, the flame of human aspiration, which is behind our will to progress and it is the leader of our evolutionary journey towards greater harmony and delight. In the process of discovering this fire and being led by it, the students get a sense of what it means to be their authentic self by shedding all the masks.
How does it work? There are no textbooks. Each one learns to read their own inner movements to follow the call of the inner flame and bring it out into action. On the very first day itself, we acknowledge the inner flame in each one. All participants and the facilitators surrender through a symbolic ceremony to the divinity within each and every one. We accept this inner flame to be the true teacher, the true leader of our learning journey.
In the coming weeks, learners start to discover the inner flame is by identifying one’s soul values, soul force and ikigai. Values can be defined as broad references guiding appropriate courses of our action. Values are: 1) Culturally inherited (external source, social values) or 2) Developed from within (internal source, soul values). The process of becoming a true individual involves consciously shifting from social values to soul values. Soul values are universal. The soul space within can be accessed through an inner silence and when there is inner silence the soul reveals itself in the mind as words and images.
One of the ways we find soul values by identifying the trails of inspiration. Each student distills out the values by studying the people and organisations who s/he is inspired by. Following the principle of mirroring, what each student sees in the inspiration of others is a part of themselves. What one deeply resonates with is one’s own inmost qualities. Through this process, each student’s own unique values mandala emerges and this value mandala becomes an important reference point for one’s choices in life.
When we stand up for our values, our inner strength awakens and radiates as soul-force. Soul forces are universal powers and different cultures have expressed them differently as archetypes. However, across all cultures, there are four fundamental soul-forces which have been identified. As we call them, they are Wisdom, Strength, Harmony and Perfection.
The soul force is independent of the field of work, yet it is the key to finding out how you engage in your field of work. Thus, it is the bridge between the soul values and the ikigai. It is through theater, reflective dialogue, questionnaire and mapping that each student finds out their primary soul force.
After identifying one’s soul values and soul forces, the students identify their Ikigai. Ikigai is the Japanese word for ‘the reason for getting up in the morning’. Ikigai is a simple and well-known framework which helps identify where one’s true calling lies. It is at the intersection of what one loves, what ones skills are, what the world needs and what one can get paid for. The sweet spot between these four is Ikigai.
Why do you think it is powerful for the world today? Today’s education system does not look into the inner aspiration of the learner. As a result, most people are not in touch with their own deeper truth causing increasing disharmony individually and collectively. By realigning the individual with his/her inmost truth, we are not only aligning the individual with his/her own purpose but also with the larger purpose of the life of which we are all a part. It is central for liberating the evolutionary potential of the individual as well as the collective. Self-directed learning journeys become effective & accelerated only when the student comes in touch with the inner flame that guide them.
***
“Magic doesn’t sweep you away; it gathers you up into the body of the present moment so thoroughly that all your explanations fall away: the ordinary, in all its plain and simple outrageousness, begins to shine — to become luminously, impossibly so. Every facet of the world is awake, and you within it.”
― David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
“How monotonous our speaking becomes when we speak only to ourselves! And how insulting to the other beings — to foraging black bears and twisted old cypresses — that no longer sense us talking to them, but only about them, as though they were not present in our world…Small wonder that rivers and forests no longer compel our focus or our fierce devotion. For we walk about such entities only behind their backs, as though they were not participant in our lives. Yet if we no longer call out to the moon slipping between the clouds, or whisper to the spider setting the silken struts of her web, well, then the numerous powers of this world will no longer address us — and if they still try, we will not likely hear them.”
― David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
PLS WRITE TO US TO SHARE YOUR RADICAL PEDAGOGY…<manish@swaraj.org>. THANKS.
