Somatic education: the body as experience

Authors

  • Débora Bolsanello Université du Québec à Montreal - Canada

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5016/167

Keywords:

Consciência corporal, métodos educacionais alternativos, sensação, percepção, educação somática.

Abstract

In this article, I propose a definition for somatic education, a field still unknown in Brazil. I present the concept of body as an experience which is central for the pedagogy of somatic education. Somatic education is a theoretic and practical field that focuses on the relations between human mobility, consciousness and the learning process. The change of paradigm brought forward by post-Positivism and the epistemological revolution announced by Phenomenology entails that the human experience and subjectivity be recognized as valuable source of knowledge. Anchored on these philosophical grounds, somatic educators do not tackle the body of a person but rather the experience a person has through the body. For this reason, somatic educators use the following pedagogic strategies: the sensibilization of the skin, the learning through experience and the flexibility of perception.

Published

2007-02-22

Issue

Section

Original Articles