Tsolife/Filosofia de aprendizaje
From Travelling School of Life
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Contents |
The education in Travelling School of Life
Philosophy/Base
The first question when talking about education is: What is the goal of ‘education’? The Travelling School of Life has found an answer in the following quote:
“Think about the kind of world you want to live and work in.
What do you need to know to build that world?”...
(Kropotkin)
... and then go and look for the teachers who can teach you that,
or the places and the conditions that support you to learn that.“
(Tsolife)
The people involved in Travelling School of Life want to contribute to building a more peaceful and sustainable world, where people treat each other and the planet in a more respectful and conscious way. Basic qualities are cooperation, solidarity, trust, etc.; see also statutes.
Many of the things needed to build such a world are not taught in traditional educational programs, nor are they sufficiently considered in "alternative" education programs. Far too often people are being "filled up" with knowledge that has no relation with them and does not serve them for anything. "Someone" decides what they should learn, instead of the learners themselves. This cannot be an effective and useful knowledge transfer. In contrast, the Travelling School of Life aims to be a supportive framework for people to develop - self motivated and actively - the skills and knowledge they need to build up our world. One's individual curriculum can include both usual and still unusual subject areas. The way of learning is self-organised and self-accountable.
Everything in TSoLife is based on trust, responsibility, visibility. We emphazise sharing, clear and non-violent communication, co-operation, awareness of emotions, ability to deal with conflicts. Learners are also teachers; teachers are also students. 'Learner' and 'teacher' are flexible and dynamic roles.
Contents - what can you learn?
In TSoLife you can develop practical, social and mental skills, covering common and maybe uncommon subject areas. "Uncommon", because the world we want to build may be different from the one we are living in now, so there are things we have not been used to teach, learn and live.
Subjects can be things like:
- All kinds of crafts, practical work and art
- Bioregions, Resisting Globalisation, Permaculture, Local Organic Food, Biodiversity
- Ecological Building, Ecovillage Design,
- Consumption and Recirculation
- Creativity, Personal Unfolding, Spirituality, Finding Divinity within,
- Uniting with Nature, Celebrating Life, Honoring Cultures
- Worldviews (holistic, integral), Science and Philosophy
- Natural Cycles, Localization, Wilderness, Earth Restoration,
- Lifecycle Analyses,Localizing Economics, Complementary Currencies,
- Building Community, Emanzipate Sexuality
- Decision-Making, Conflict Resolution, Living and Learning, Education and Communication
- Relationship of children and elderly, Integration of Handicapped,
- Healthy Lifestyle, Preventive Healthcare, Complementary Medicine, Modernizing Welfare
- Theatre and music
- gender issues
- political activism technics, direct action, making campaigns,
- technical and electric things
- working with computers
- and so on...
Ways of learning - How does “learning” happen?
“The first principle of teaching is that nothing can be taught
” (Sri Aurobindo)
According to our interpretation of this quote, there are various reason why “nothing can be taught”:
- Learning is an action of the learner.
People want to learn, if you let them....
Nobody can put something into someone's brain and fill it up like an empty book. You can offer skills and knowledge, but the learner takes it in actively and voluntarily.
- “Life-Learning” happens often without schedule and planning.
People ‘learn’ (i.e. understand, experience) things when it’s the right moment for them. And that is different for each individual person.
- First when you use what you have learned, you really assimilate it!
By applying what you have learned, you deepen your understanding of it and memorize it more easily. And in order to pass on knowledge to someone else, you have to think through it again carefully in order to be able to communicate it. You get a new perspective and a deeper insight.
Considering these statements, there are three levels of learning in Travelling School of Life:
You...
- ...learn what you choose to learn
You choose, consciously, what you want to learn. The framework of the Travelling School of Life supports you to realize your learning plan.(curriculum, mentor, learning partners, modules, meetings,...)
- ...learn additional, unplanned things in daily life
This learning happens often unconsciously, in daily life, and especially in the daily interaction with people. By making it conscious, we can make it more effective, more visible and more useful. The framework of TsoLife creates an environment that catalyzes this unconscious learning and animates to make it more conscious by reflecting alone and with others. (Opening Course, students' community, reflecting meetings, diary,...)
- ...learn by using and passing on what you are learning.
In Travelling School of Life you have a lot of possibilities to directly use what you have learned in own projects, and to pass on your knowledge to others and so deepen your own understanding of it. Naturally, there is a continuous exchange of skills and experiences among the students community, and you are encouraged to create own workshops for other students.
These three ways of learning are a basic categorisation of how learning happens in Travelling School of Life. For further classification look at the different types of modules.
In a way, using these different ways of learning are a learning experience themselves, independently from the subject areas we are dealing with... Some skills for building up this kind of world mentioned earlier are cooperation, solidarity, self responsibility and others that are enhanced by the structure and ways of learning in TSoLife.
Resources – where does learning happen?
The Travelling School of Life wants to make existing resources accessible - through networking, collecting data, coordinating, supporting low cost activities.
Ideal places for learning "things we need in order to build the world we want" are places where people are living according to this aim. In many projects like ecovillages and intentional communities, people have come together in order to create a lifestyle according to their ideals - more ecological, more social, more cooperative and solidary, more creative, more conscious, more responsible, etc.
The idea to use these places as 'learning centers' is not new and does not come from the Travellig School of Life. Many people have discovered these places for themselves as colourful resources for learning useful things in a creative way. TSoLife starts from there, adding some more ideas and improvements, connecting the people who up to now are doing this individually and alone, and creating an online portal for exchanging information and experiences.
Although TSoLife has started from the idea to visit ecovillages, communities and eco-farms, the network is open and future hosts can be all kinds of different places that we may not have thought about yet.
Who could join? target group
"Students": a wide range of youth who
- are looking for their own way and their contribution to the world
- are motivated to learn by living/doing/working
- want to get to know new ways of living
- are searching an alternative to the alienated lifestyle of the current western society (alienated of nature and of each other)
- want to learn what is meaningful to them instead of taking an educational program where others decide what they should know
- etc.
"Hosts": existing or starting individuals, groups and projects who
- want to share their knowledge and experience in order to spread them in our society
- who would like to see some young, youthful energy in their place
- like the idea of “volunteering” but see the need for improvement (save resources by hosting well prepared people and facilitating small groups rather than individuals)
- want to improve their educational skills by teamworking with other hosts
