Confronting the problem of embodiment in education

Abstract

In this chapter we argue that embodiment needs to be a significant philosophy in contemporary teaching and learning. An embodied pedagogy encourages teachers to actively seek and provide meaningful, sensual and profound learning experiences that shape the embodied learner in an ethical way. An embodied pedagogy does not simply teach, tell, or instruct the learner about the world as an external place. Rather, it recognises students’ bodies as a medium for making sense and making connections with a world in which they co-participate in creating. Using a narrative approach, we worked in a collaborative way with a teacher to interpret his assumptions and thinking about the teaching of capoeira. The analysis reveals that if bodies and the movement of those bodies are seen to be central to the work of educators, then embodiment should form the basis from which any future pedagogy in schooling should develop.