Embodied Learning on Interdependence

Description

How do students learn and what do they value six months after a course? What do students get from embodied and experiential learning? In this episode, Sarah interviews five students who all took the same course about interdependence at the University of Toronto in the Fall of 2019. In these interviews, conducted well after the course and when the world has been plunged into a global pandemic, students reflect on how the course changed them and their ways of understanding themselves and their worlds. Hear from students about just how transformational these embodied practices were, and how this kind of learning that intentionally used class time to work with putting things into a physical practice changed their relationship to a core Buddhist studies concept-- interdependence-- and what they are doing with that six months on. Listen and find inspiration to try new things in your classes too!

 

Quotes

 “I wasn't just learning about interdependence, but I was learning also about myself.” Xinran Huang

“I had an incredible sense of gratitude and awe at what my body was and what it gives me. It was pretty powerful. Sam Keravica

“I found out that memory isn't real, it's practiced.” Sally Andrews

“I'm struggling to articulate the kind of bodily realization of how we are intimately connected with each other, even beyond thoughts.” Richard Wu

“We have to open our circle of concern for this collective self that we're trying to protect.” Aaron Marshall 

 

Links and References 

Kriti Sharma, Interdependence, Biology and Beyond

https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823265534/interdependence/

Alexis Shotwell, Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/against-purity

Frances Garrett’s description of the course

http://francesgarrett.chass.utoronto.ca/interdependence/