Conceptual framework
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.
[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.