Transformative teaching: Climate change as wellbeing agenda in the classroom

“How do we prepare the children in our lives to be visionary, and to love nature even when changes are frightening and incomprehensible?” ( A.M Brown)

“Allowing students to play with their perception and description beyond the existing forms of expertise is a way open the channels of new findings (Nora Bateson, Ecology of mind)

Transformative teaching

Transformative teaching is practicing the teacher’s inner process  to reflect in the classroom the change you see needed in the world. From biology process, biomimicry “the small scale pattern that is mirrored in the macro pattern”. Transformative teaching is moving away from teachers burnout and students learnout (moving away from results that nobody seems to want, Otto Scharmer) by putting in the center co-sensing, co-learning and co-creating, we call it experience based learning approach. Burnout and learn out are the manifestation of climate change in the classroom: stuckness -feeling lack of meangfulness, mattering (Odell, 2023). 

We practice from Nature teaching (Listening and cultivating Attention)

 ” When we listen, the way we perceive reality changes exponentially, and then any transformative change becomes possible in matters of weeks” ( Otto Scharmer, MIT). 

 Nature is the best context- we did not listen in nature, we are listening now, it has our attention! Finland has been an educational system that kept nature close, they are too getting nature closer to the learning systems, as this is part of future skills mindset. Nature learning offers the amazing environment on how do we use efficiently our resources and energies, how do we move away from cluster thinking to systems thinking and make sure we do not deplete ourselves. 

What is sustainable curriculum? Students and teachers learn what is most meaningful  to them, making sense hence space to practice critical thinking, and holding the process instead of jumping to imediate results or focusing on results (creativity).

Wellbeing, transversal everyday agenda and practice as “the Science of Choosing Hapiness on purpose”-Greater Good Science Center University of California is part of sustainable curriculum.

Location 

NoD Makerspace, social grassroot space; Splaiul Unirii 160, Bucharest.
 

The course is offered  steps away from the “only Urban Delta in Europe”, with Dambovita river at a few steps away.

Module 1

 Cultivating Relaxed Attention in the Classroom ( “serious” playfulness) 

Nature teachers room- how do we teach with and from nature (Deep Walk Pedagogy) Skills practiced: self directed learning, centered and active listening, teachers as active researchers; data Informed decision making

Module 2
Practicing listening and sense of “more time” 

Skills practiced: creating systemic education model for the class, leadership and unlearning, supporting critical and scientific thinking, time perception essential for self management 21st century competencies

Module 3

Not Knowing -what we do not listen in nature ( pedagogy of the heart)

Skills practiced: presencing, social presencing theater for future skills, learn outside the classroom facilitation

Module 4

Prototyping -Assessment as “leaving them learning”

Preparing for a future where we get more often confused, a future of  “wicked” problem; creating a horizontal relation in which the student can clarify their own throughts, shifting capacity midset. 

Skills practiced: self directed learning, compassion and empathy, inherent motivation, teachers as active researchers, time as priorities in a world of unexpected concomitent climate challanges

 During the program we will practice something called Social Presencing Theather as a practice for taking notice to the environment around us, hold that in order to inform our meaning making or prototyping (critical thinking) and soften “harsh” realities around sustainability (creativity). Creativity is always sustainable, stuckness- refusing change is not.  Staying with difficult questions and moving through an emotional learning with climate change (Integrative practices, Peter Hawkins, 2021) with a light heart (Open Heart).

At the end of the course...

 
  1. Tools for each module & support to include them in your class as everyday ‘Drama in the class” tools
  2. Silence pedagogy, teaching with resilience
  3. Working on your own process, self-actualizing ( tools for teacher as an active researcher)
  4. Case studies & guests to support your inspiration

Possible learning path

  1. Practice peer learning ( instruments offered as support for peer practice- democratically led facilitation)
  2. Accelerate the learning with each Module ( a shares space for generating insights backed by critical assessment)
  3. Apply in real environment instruments & your prototype for each module & self reflect based on the feedback from the class

Trainers & special guests teachers practicing nature curriculum

Andreea Gatman –  ICF Certified Coach, U Lab (MIT) practitioner, Eunos Trainer in Finland for programs like Integrated Curriculum Teaching Global Skills, Coaching Strategies for Schools, New Learning Ways & Environments, School Development together with Forum Schule Germany

Transformative teaching: Climate change as wellbeing agenda in the classroom

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