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Books > Social sciences > Education > Higher & further education > General
What happens to teaching when you consider the whole body (and not
just "brains on sticks")? Starting from new research on the
body--aptly summarized as "sitting is the new smoking"--Minding
Bodies aims to help instructors improve their students' knowledge
and skills through physical movement, attention to the spatial
environment, and sensitivity to humans as more than "brains on
sticks." It shifts the focus of adult learning from an exclusively
mental effort toward an embodied, sensory-rich experience, offering
new strategies to maximize the effectiveness of time spent learning
together on campus as well as remotely. Minding Bodies draws from a
wide range of body/mind research in cognitive psychology,
kinesiology, and phenomenology to bring a holistic perspective to
teaching and learning. The embodied learning approaches described
by Susan Hrach are inclusive, low-tech, low-cost strategies that
deepen the development of disciplinary knowledge and skills. Campus
change-makers will also find recommendations for supporting a
transformational mission through an attention to students' embodied
learning experiences.
Education is a social practice that poses ethical questions of
policy and practice at every level and at almost every turn - what
we teach, how we teach, how we organise educational provision, how
we research it, who controls it, and what principles drive policy
nationally and internationally. This collection is rooted in the
author's experience in the education system nationally and
internationally over half a century, and reflects both the
educational history of this period and the author's experience as a
teacher, parent, school governor, teacher trainer, educational
researcher, senior leader in higher education, and advisor to
governments in many parts of the world. It is, then, historically
located, but the approach to ethical questions is primarily in the
tradition of analytic philosophy, and applied and situated ethics.
There is a dire need today to create spaces in which people can
make meaning of their existence in the world, abiding by cultural
frameworks and practices that acknowledge and validate a meaningful
existence for all. People are not just isolated individuals but are
connected in diverse ways with other persons within our natural and
social environment which is part of the whole universe. The African
philosophy of uBuntu or humaneness is re-emerging for its timely
relevance and potential as indispensable in our quest for global
citizenship, peace, and mutual understanding in securing
sustainable human development in the broader ecosystem. Comparative
educationists have the challenge to devise theoretical frameworks,
epistemological and pedagogical constructs as well as pragmatic,
useful and effective ways of promoting the virtues of compassion
and recognition of our common humanity in eliminating the ills of
domination and control that are guided by greed, hatred, jealousy,
and intolerance. Comparative Education for Global Citizenship,
Peace and Shared Living through Ubuntu paves the way for a better
understanding of the critical importance of the collective search
and endeavor towards achieving the virtues of nonviolence, peace,
shared values of living together, global citizenship, improved
quality of life for all and a better appreciation of the positive
implications of interdependence.
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