When making ready my poster for the AAPT/APA convention in New York in January 2024, I needed to take into account not solely what matters would curiosity fellow educators but additionally what is perhaps aesthetically interesting to spark curiosity and dialog. I attempt to incorporate the identical components in planning my syllabi and particular person courses. Together with what appeals to or intrigues our senses means we’re inspired to spend extra time with the topic at hand. We frequently neglect embodied realities for the sake of mental pursuits when in actual fact partaking the physique—whether or not via the senses, motion, or enthusiastic dialogue in various settings—helps to higher interact the thoughts as properly.
My poster consisted of a number of parts demonstrating embodied pedagogy. For me, this time period means two foremost issues: 1. listening to the role of our bodies in educating and studying and a couple of. incorporating components from exterior the classroom related to our lives into class plans, actions, and assignments. Making these efforts has netted constructive suggestions from college students, who usually say they higher relate to materials that beforehand appeared irrelevant to their day by day lives and different research. That is particularly heartening for these of us who train gen eds full of scholars merely seeking to full a requirement relatively than college students excited to delve deep into difficult philosophical ideas.
Embodied Assignments
In all my programs, I incorporate no less than two assignments that I take into account “embodied” in a roundabout way in what’s sometimes called “experiential learning.” My definition is a little more expansive; embodied pedagogy includes doing but additionally being-with within the phenomenological sense, which suggests direct interplay with others and our environments. The “field assignment,” which I give in lieu of a mid-term, asks college students to decide on an embodied exercise related to course themes and supplies for no less than quarter-hour for 5 consecutive days. They write quick reflections after every session after which an extended 3-page reflection on the expertise as a complete, utilizing citations from course assignments or exterior analysis. In my Reorienting Asian Thought class, college students can elect to do one thing like cooking, meditation, yoga, or martial arts, all of that are actions based mostly on their studying assignments. In my Human Nature class, which is grounded in Western philosophy, having them do their very own model of Descartes’ Meditations can result in fascinating reflections on thoughts/physique dualism.
This concept will be utilized to any course that won’t appear amendable to such an train. For instance, if I had been in a position to train an upper-level seminar on Kierkegaard (an avid flâneur), I might require college students to stroll and assume earlier than documenting each their reflection on the fabric for the week and how their reflection was influenced (or not) by the strolling. Doing this encourages college students to assume past the small realms of their screens and notebooks with the intention to interact extra explicitly and immediately with the world.
The opposite embodied project is a versatile closing that may take the type of a conventional paper or a inventive undertaking. I’ve acquired a lot inspiring work, together with: make-up appears to be like influenced by the 4 Noble Truths by a gender research main; a web based, interactive meditation session coded by a pc science main; a podcast interview with an area rabbi concerning COVID restrictions clashing with spiritual necessities by a communications main; a choreographed, carried out, and filmed piece based mostly on spiritual and religious engagement with nature by a dance main; the listing goes on. At a faculty like SUNY Buy, which cultivates artists of all types (dancers, painters, graphic designers, musicians, and so forth.), each assignments present ample alternatives for college kids to use their extant abilities to our course and, in flip, higher perceive how matters in philosophy and spiritual research are related to their work. Tailored approaches will be profitable for different demographics as properly, the concept being that college students not solely do the issues they’re studying and considering and speaking about, but additionally experiment with greatest practices by way of examine habits and exploratory scholarship. As I’ve written elsewhere in relation to this type of project, embodied pedagogy can be a way to subvert scholastic tendencies that are inclined to repeat the identical sorts of voices on the expense of others.
Embodied Actions Throughout Class
Since philosophy is couched in dialogues and commentaries, I discover it crucial to all the time contain college students immediately at school time. This contains open discussions in addition to actions that encourage each time to assume and time to have interaction with others. In my on-line courses, I make the most of Google Docs enabled with the “remark” function so college students can reply to questions and add commentary to each my lecture notes (displayed stay) and particular locations for them to reply. In my in-person courses, I make the most of group dialogue time so college students can share their concepts with one another. Once I train longer courses, although it might appear trivial, I encourage college students to stand up throughout our quick break and transfer round a bit. I virtually all the time discover we’re all extra refreshed upon our return. As well as, I’ve every pupil plan their very own presentation for a selected class that they join firstly of the semester. They’ve the choice of working solo or in a gaggle with one other pupil, they usually can create a class- or group-oriented exercise or slideshow. This can be a nice alternative for college kids to observe gentle abilities and it tends to assist them really feel extra comfy facilitating discussions with their friends.
Embodied pedagogy could be a normal technique of educating and studying in addition to the focus of a category. I had the chance to show a course referred to as Embodiment: (Re)Defining the Human within the fall of 2023 as a Instructing Students Fellow within the Columbia Faith division. Along with the assignments described above, I integrated an embodied train firstly of each class to correspond with the theme of the day. For instance, to begin the category on “Monsters” (for which college students learn Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s introduction to Monster Theory: Reading Culture and the superb comedian guide collection Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda), we performed a recreation of “beautiful corpse.” In teams of three, one pupil attracts the pinnacle of a monster and folds the paper over. The following pupil attracts the torso, folds the paper over once more, and the final attracts the legs. On the finish of the train, the group has a composite monster they will then give a narrative to and relate again to the subject at hand. Related actions will be drawn from theater and efficiency research programs that usually make the most of such strategies to nice impact for pupil engagement.
Branching Out
One of many widespread conversations I had with others on the 2024 convention revolved round how embodied pedagogy can be incorporated into courses that appear much less clearly suited to it as a strategy. Although my pursuits and elegance immediately pertain to embodied pedagogy, I firmly imagine it’s merely a matter of determining our personal pursuits with these of the scholars and developing with inventive methods to use summary materials to the “actual world” and vice versa. Essentially the most profitable class in my Embodiment course was due to visitor speaker Mike Araujo, Parkour Teacher for The Movement Creative in NYC. He gave an indication and hosted a improbable Q&A throughout our week on constructed environments and incapacity research on learn how to take into account our environment within the forefront relatively than the background of our consideration. Leveraging the experience of others is a good way to show college students to methods of considering, doing, and being that may assist increase their understanding of what’s related to their lives within the context of a specific matter.
One other thought is to make the most of field trips or give assignments that require college students to go to native websites or companies that pertain to themes of a category. In large cities, this may imply encouraging college students to benefit from museums or stroll round neighborhoods. In small faculty cities or on campuses in additional rural areas, this may imply visiting parks or making an attempt a brand new exercise exterior. The purpose is to get college students to assume with their entire selves, not simply their minds. Doing so ensures we do our greatest to stop tutorial siloing and Ivory Tower contemplation, resulting in schooling that may assist us all attempt to make a greater world for ourselves and future generations.
Solutions for additional studying:
Sarah Rose Cavanagh – The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion
Matthew B. Crawford – Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work
Carla Hannaford – Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head
Sara Hendren – What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World
Susan Hrach – Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning
Tim Ingold – Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture
Paul A. Kirschner and Carl Hendrick – How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice
Annie Murphy Paul – The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
Ben Spatz – What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research
Emily FitzGerald
Emily is presently ending her dissertation at Columbia College. She has been educating within the Philosophy and Important Thought Division at SUNY Buy for 3 years and can quickly be Assistant Professor of Humanities at Utah Tech College. Her embodied pursuits embrace phenomenology, deconstruction, Buddhist philosophy, and martial arts.
