When education become possible

Workshops at the Edinburgh Chaiplancy, in collaboration with Light Up Learning:

2017_10_Education_becomes_possibles_Chaplaincy

 

Workshops for P7 Students

http://eidyn.ppls.ed.ac.uk/article/emotions-learning-outreach-workshops

The workshops have been realized in partnership with the widening participation program at the University of Edinburg, March 2017. I would like to thank the children and the teachers of the Craigentinny Primary School, Craigour Park Primary School, and Canal View Primary School for the wonderful experience.

Premise: 

Emotions have not just an instrumental value for learning – for example, helping to make juicier the process of learning for the students, and improve the students’ participation in the process – but also an intrinsic value, defined by the epistemic role of emotions in reasoning, i.e., to be the primitive source for the subject to understand and decide how to act in the world. Therefore, emotional skills are a core component of the thinking skills, both for individual and group learning.

Specific Topics:

– The practice of philosophy and learning as discovery

– What is learning? What is thinking?

– The value of questions. The example of Socrates;

– Emotions for learning: curiosity, enthusiasm, wonder and courage in the learning practice.

Method:

I adopt the participatory method of critical dialogue and collective inquiry. I bring my personal experience as researcher and, after a brief introduction of the topics, I ask to the students to think in small groups at their learning experience. Finally we discuss all together starting from their questions.

Purposes:

Emotions for learning adheres to the main purposes of the Curriculum for Excellence (CFE), in particular regarding to the “successful learners” purpose of education, emphasizing the enthusiasm and motivation for learning and presenting philosophy as a practice for thinking new ideas.