In the context of an Erasmus project, students and teachers co-created a seeing and sensing journey first to Helsinki and then to Lapland, on the land of the Sami people. ELab program in Helsinki and Campfire program in Lapland invited practices of Awarness and Social Arts, for everyday learning and teaching with Sustainable Development Goals. Organised and facilitated by Andreea Gatman from Actonlearning and artful guests, Alexandra Sargent, Fabric Artist & professor, and Professor of Race, Justice, and Equity in Education, Christina da Silva from Vanderbilt University, USA. Elab and Campfire programs, part of the Oddience2030 project, aimed at integrating embodiment methodology and social arts practices for critical thinking and creativity in teaching with sustainability as an everyday class reality.
Students and teachers engaged in a series of practices to support scaffolding into empathetic imagination and an unpredictable new move as their educational prototypes.
Embodied practices for local ecology
“They were not just demanding change but embodying it,” in the words of Rebecca Solnit, artfully expressing what we intended with the Campfire program in Lapland. Students would not only demand change in how we learn about and with local ecologies but embody these changes and inform educational prototypes from the future as it emerges(Otto Scharmer). Embodied pedagogical practice from Arawana Hayashi’s practice called “Stuck”, allows the learning for youth and adults to unfold in time, yet committing.
The students and teachers engaged in a variety of practices to support empathetic imagination and create a toolkit (a pocket) for connecting to oneself, others, and place, as their social artifact and educational prototypes. They explored Village practice, worked with “Stuck with forces” for the local ecology, and used Polaroid photography to document their embodied experiences. Via aesthetic language cards, technology developed by Arawana Hayashi and Ricardo Dutra, they represented movement for words reflected by the larger group of adults and youth.
The program also included the exploration of the Leadership Field for story stewardship, holding the perspective of different Elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Life. Youth and adult participants delved into the intangible aspects of learning (Dutra, 2024) and created four social artifacts as “petitions for the land”.
The programs are part of a 3-year-long teachers’ preparation program based on principles of Systemic Thinking and Relational Mapping, aiming to support the inner processes of teachers.
Pictures by Alexandre Gomes, Bora Ambientar.
