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National Embodied Education NetworkResearch · Relationships · Professional development

Seminar series

Embodiment and the Educating Community: Literature, Developments and Perspectives

  1. Target

Universities and Research Centres: university lecturers, researchers, doctoral candidates, subject specialists and students;

Schools: school leaders, teachers at all school levels, and social, educational and professional educators;

Local community: educators, education specialists, psychologists, psychotherapists and other professionals

Building an integrated network for sharing, research and development in educational and teaching practices centred on embodiment.

In a constantly changing society, where the pace of life is increasingly shaped by algorithmic procedures and the perceived need to use time productively, the concepts of education, teaching and school are becoming progressively more fluid. Educational institutions are increasingly called upon to focus less on transmitting content and knowledge and more on ways of being and becoming: being citizens of a world of endless possibilities, without being overwhelmed or constrained by assumptions suited less to a culturally globalised world than to an economically globalised market, where every component is necessary but not indispensable, useful yet replaceable. In this phase of the Anthropocene, marked by the growing presence of artificially intelligent machines, research and scholarly debate need new contributions that can clarify the place of humanity and the human, particularly as beings situated in and shaped by time. We can no longer confine ourselves to the online world: onlife is already here (Floridi, 2015).

From this perspective, it is useful to redirect research from the relationship technologies may establish with humans towards the relationship humans establish with technologies. The body acquires renewed centrality, both in the light of neuroscience and through the need for a new principle of ethics and responsibility (Jonas, 2014). To interpret embodiment as central to human cognitive development, we adopt the scientific approach of Embodied Education (hereafter EE), with particular reference to the Embodied Cognition paradigm.

“Embodied Cognition maintains that the brain, while important, is not the only resource available to generate behaviour: the form of our behaviour emerges from real-time interaction between the nervous system of an embodied organism and an environment offering opportunities and information for that particular action.”[1] Through this continuous relationship with itself and its environment, the body shapes its knowledge of the world, moving beyond a scientific conception that treats it merely as an object of assessment to acquire the standing of a subject of cognition (Gomez Paloma, 2013).

Within this context, educational practice increasingly takes the form of a workshop-based opportunity: a methodological approach using varied tools to reshape learning settings and support relationships and interactions among participants. The workshop becomes a place within a place, activating cognitive, physical and emotional resources and enabling relationships with oneself, others, physical objects and the cultural artefacts (Griswold, 1997) produced in these contexts. In other words, can we re-create educational settings within digital learning environments? This requires complex reflection that resists oversimplification. We must avoid assuming that it is possible simply to transfer meanings, and the possibilities for constructing them, faithfully from one environment to another, overlooking the profound differences between these settings. The Internet increasingly resembles an expanding semiotic sphere tending to absorb all communication (De Carli, 1997).

With teachers acting intentionally within contemporary education, and recognising the unique individuality of everyone involved, research design and the activities under investigation should be structured around inclusive thinking that embraces the full range of human conditions.[2] An approach concerned with more than assistance: an existentialand substantive approach, attentive to each person’s particular characteristics and explicitly open to everyone according to their possibilities. An educational design that is potentially enabling, rather than rehabilitative or enabling in a narrow sense. We must avoid a Malthusian proliferation of teaching methods, whether or not they are based on AI, and instead promote situated, concrete, productive and open learning in any context, informed by a deep understanding of the connection between the body–brain system and our cognitive and social abilities.

As Vittorio Gallese reminds us:

“How can subjectivity and intersubjectivity be studied and scientifically described without limiting their understanding to the ineffable realm of introspection? One aim of cognitive neuroscience is to understand the connection between the functioning of the body–brain system and our cognitive and social abilities. Yet intersubjectivity is inseparable from the subject. Neuroscientific research therefore cannot evade the question of subjectivity and the experience that constitutes it.”[3]

Those working in education have a responsibility to support learning while respecting each person’s pace and characteristics, understanding the learner as a complex system of meanings that acquires new meanings while continually producing others. EE can ultimately make a fundamental contribution to situating learning within subjectivity, taking account of the spaces, times and relationships of educational settings in the light of the scientific, epistemological, social and anthropological changes we are experiencing. For schools in particular, the volume “Manuale delle Scuole ECS” (Gomez Paloma & Damiani, 2021) demonstrates the urgency and necessity of this far-reaching paradigm shift. 

In the light of these considerations, participating universities aim to promote an ongoing dialogue between theory and practice and between artificial and emotional intelligence through scholarly exchange. These opportunities for discussion and development should reach beyond the academic community into local communities and institutions supporting human development in all its forms.

To establish an integrated network for reflection, a series of scientific seminars will be held during the 2024–2025 academic year, promoted by universities across Italy and coordinated by a designated academic at each institution. The series will conclude with the First National Conference on Embodied Education, promoted by the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, the initiating institution, with the support of the other participating universities. The institutions taking part are:

The representatives of each participating university, together with Professor Filippo Gomez Paloma of the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio as Coordinator and Professor Paola Damiani of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia as Deputy Coordinator, will form the National Scientific Committee on Embodied Education.

Each representative may nominate up to four additional experts, who need not belong to the same institution, to form their university’s Local Scientific Committee on Embodied Education.

The membership of the national and local committees will be annexed to the agreement signed by the directors of the departments to which the representatives belong.

Each university will focus on a specific EE topic according to the following annual schedule:

Each participating university will organise a one-day seminar following a shared format to ensure organisational consistency across local initiatives. In consultation with the National Scientific Committee on Embodied Education, each representative will retain substantial discretion over speakers and participation arrangements. The programme will comprise the following sessions:

Morning

  1. Institutional welcome
  2. Introduction by the university representative
  3. Keynote Speaker (Prof. Filippo Gomez Paloma)
  4. Round table with experts from within and beyond the university

Afternoon

[1] Gomez Paloma F., Embodied Cognitive Science. Atti incarnati della didattica, Ed. Nuova Cultura, 2013, pag. 32.

[2] Further reading: Savia (Ed.) Universal Design for Learning. La Progettazione Universale per l’Apprendimento per una didattica inclusiva. Erickson, Trento, 2016.

[3] Gallese V., Cognitive neuroscience: between classical cognitivism and embodied cognition. Psichiatry Online Italia, 06/2013.