Educational, Ecological and Humanitarian Center Dr. João dos Santos
This project aims to transform the education process. It is designed to became an educational natural ecosystem, which promotes a culture of health and well-being, a culture of democratic and participative citizenship and a culture of sustainable and ecologic regeneration. This educational ecosystem is designed to promote a set of essential skills for the sustainable development of human societies. A local project with a global thinking.
Local
Portugal
Lisbon region
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Telmo Last name: Fernandes Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua da Liberdade, 10 Town: Cortiçadas de Lavre Postal code: 7050-636 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 964 462 840 E-mail:fernandestelmo@yahoo.com
We live in a context of climate, ecological and humanitarian emergency. Humanity is probably facing the greatest challenge it has ever faced in its evolutionary history: transform itself to reach and spread behavior patterns compatible with sustainable development and environmental regeneration in each of the 8 billion human beings’.
Education is probably one of the most powerful tools to help mitigate the negative anthropogenic impact on ecosystems; to provide quality preventive health services; to defend and strengthen democracy and its core values in our communities; to defend and promote human rights and in particular children’s rights.
Historical facts indicate that the dominant school narrative is obsolete and needs to be profoundly reformulated. Our educational proposal aims to transform the education process: the physical space where it takes place, the learning objectives, the ways of learning and building knowledge and also the type of relationships that are established between the different educational agents. . In a first phase, this proposal is aimed at a population between 4 and 12 years old and will be located in the Lisbon region.
Education
Participatory Citizenship
Health and Well-Being
Sustainability and regeneration
Ecology
1. Contribute to sustainable and regenerative development.
1.1 Develop an ecosystemic educational space.
1.2 Develop and include various actions with a positive climate impact in daily routines.
We want, for example:
• to create an educational environment largely inspired in natural ecosystems with an abundant presence of natural elements, as for exemple, trees, bushes and many more annual and perennial plants. This natural environment will serve as an ecological niche to protect biodiversity, protect and regenerate the soil and capture carbon dioxide. And will also provide a rich environment for child development with plethora of play opportunities and child exploration.
• to create a regenerative cultivation area, with fruit trees and shrubs, vegetables, flowers, etc., grown in full view of the children and with the possibility of their participation in the cultivation process. This regenerative cultivation area will be essential to model and reconcile the need to educate for healthy food with low environmental impact with the preservation and recovery of ecosystems and all species.
• Nursery for plants, to germinate all types of plants, for cultivation in the regenerative garden and to promote forestation and regeneration of ecosystems
• all buildings to have rainwater storage mechanisms; technology for harnessing solar energy (e.g. photovoltaic panels).
• to collect and separate waste, with compost station (this will make it possible to produce fertile soil and produce and collect methane gas for combustion and its use in the daily life of the CEEH. This is another contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
• to have a dry toilet.
• to encourage the use of public transport and soft transport on the way to school and in everyday school life. Each element of the educational community will have a bicycle available and public transport social card.
• et cetera
The key objectives of the previous point have also the intentionality of improving aesthetic and quality of experience for people. We want children be surround by beautiful forms, colors, smells, textures, sounds, flavours,etc. and we want to achieve this goal through the natural beauty of an ecosystem and all its dynamic elements. At the same time we will be fighting climate change and protecting biodiversity. The shapes of trees, the smell of flowers, the taste of fruits, the singing of birds and frogs, the touch of the wind, the sunlight, the texture of the soil and water in the pond, etc. are a part of the aesthetics we want to create and provide.
But we want also:
2. Promote the overall development of the child and Promote a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being of the child.
2.1 Provide child-centered education
2.2 Provide a welcoming physical space suitable for the real interests of children.
2.3 Provide social and affective environment that promotes the complete physical, mental and social well-being of the child.
In this approach, the world of adults is not segregated from children world. There is no place in the educational community where staff can go that children are not welcome. Children incorporate what adults do and say, therefore, so that children can learn, it is essential that adults are available, can be constantly observed and that children can, if they wish, to participate in their activities. Whenever children need help or have questions that cannot be answered by the peers, they can turn to any of the adults. A child who needs a lap, a friendly shoulder, advice, an answer to a technical question that he cannot find for himself or even a more prolonged help in the form of a tutorial or a course, knows which adult will fulfill its need and can turn to him/her.
Adults act as they are a close family member, they know well the children and juveniles, and are proud to see them develop.
3. Contribute to the formation of participatory citizens and to the construction of a democratic society
3.1 Provide social and affective involvement that defends and encourages democratic values and participatory citizenship.
The curriculum is co-constructed, children are called to participate in the process and there is an organizational commitment to achieve a high level of participation. It is necessary that children do not limit themselves to passively receive knowledge elaborated by others, and become protagonists of their own learning, that is, children will be invited to learn by doing, in a social context where values such as freedom, cooperation, tolerance, equal opportunities, among others, prevail.
The learning group will be mixed and without any type of segregation, allowing a peaceful and productive coexistence of children and youth of all genders, sexual orientations, skin colors, ages, religions and ideological beliefs.
There will be more than one learning facilitator available to the group. Different children have different needs and might need differentiated support, so different learning facilitators will be available to attend the group and each child will request the support of the one she/he finds more suitable for the ongoing project.
The school assembly will be another structural dimension of the curriculum. It is a fundamental structure in the sharing of power and in the management of the most varied aspects of the educational community. It is also essential in promoting democratic values, participatory citizenship and building a community that excels in tolerance and dialogue.
All the staff should be reelected each year, by vote of all the children, and therefore they are necessarily people who like children, who are liked by children and serve the needs of children in the most efficient way.
For exemple,as an essentially non-directive pedagogical approach it has the intention of keeping alive and encourage the intrinsically motivated activity of children, which is fundamental for a meaningful and quality education. It has also the intention of favoring trust inside and outside the community and stimulating responsibility and autonomy. It also implies that adults abdicate part of their power to allow children the opportunity to direct their educational process, which is also the only way to build an active and participatory citizenship.
This self-education approach also implies a minimum daily amount of unstructured time and quality space to allow for exploratory behavior. It also requires adults to trust children and their ability to make decisions.
At CEEH we will encourage the free sharing of ideas, because intellectual development is better when there is no censorship and fear of being ostracized and we will put into place a set of measures to prevent the harassment and violence by peers and adults.
It is our intention to weaken or eliminate conventional barriers between school environment and outside community. We can do it firstly by softening the conventional architectural barriers associated with the physical school space (e.g. transforming the conventional walls into smoother vegetation barrier). We want to open the school space to the family and the rest of the community so that, they can enrich the educational process with their experiences and knowledge and also learn from the particular culture of the project. We also want some of the space/resources to be available to the outside public (e.g. shared playground). We also want to influence local political decisions and the local way of making participatory political decisions, offering ourselves as a practical model of Participatory Citizenship (e.g. the way we organize ourselves internally to discuss and make informed collective decisions can inspire the local political community).
This is a process that is still ongoing. The promoter of this initiative had the basic idea for this project and in recent years began to establish contacts with various people and institutions that also have similar interests and goals.
For example, the management of the Slow Movement Portugal Association showed interest in collaborating with the initiative, showing itself to be available to lend its facilities (the building of a former school) to host the project. The management of Entretodos – Associação Portuguesa de Parcerias para o Desenvolvimento Local, also identified itself with the values of the initiative and made its network of partners available to find people with the profile we are looking for. We recently joined the New European Baushaus Community to try to get more support for our initiative.
We are currently in contact with the direction of Arterapias- Associação de Apoio à Clínica do Parque, with the aim of obtaining specialized support in the area of child and youth mental health, for example training and supervision for the future CEEH team.
At the moment, we also have several people, on an individual basis, who are collaborating in the preparation of a survey of the population, with the aim of better understanding their needs and signaling potential users.
This project is mainly the result of the research and experience of the representative of the initiative over the last 15 years and seeks to coherently integrate contributions from different areas of knowledge. The most significant contributions came from bibliographical references in areas such as Pedagogy, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Paleontology, Ethology, History, Biology and Geology.
Some of the innovative aspects have already been mentioned in the previous points, but we will try to illustrate and deepen some more.
The organization of teaching by subjects creates serious problems that call into question educational effectiveness and quality. The compartmentalization of knowledge into disciplines promotes a non-integration of the different areas of knowledge and disturbs the operationalization of intelligence. Thus, the educational approach of this community should unify and integrate the different curricular areas. The different curricular areas contribute to the understanding and resolution of life problems, and they will also have their place in this project, but only if children wish. They will be available whenever the child requests it.
Similarly to knowledge, educational time should not be fragmented. When knowledge is unified, the organization of educational time by fragments make no sense.
Thus, citizenship will not be transformed into a discipline. It will be an immersive experience in a democratic educational community that will endow participants with a sense of responsibility that will feed motivation for education.
At the same time, sustainability and environmental regeneration will not be taught as a module of any discipline, they will be problematized, practiced, experienced and integrated into all everyday moments.
And of course, Arts will have a central place in the curriculum, but especially as individual emotional and creative expression. For example, regulated dance will not be encouraged in this educational space, but neither will it be prohibited. Children will have daily opportunities to organize and perform dance times for and with the community. With regard to music, anyone who wants to learn to play instruments will be free to do so and will be able to ask, if they wish so, for help from a tutor.
In our opinion, all or almost all elements of this initiative can be replicated or transferred to other places, contexts and beneficiary groups. In fact, it is our intention that this initiative may become a positive reference in pedagogical practice and may become an inspiration for other people.
For example, it is possible and desirable that other places of education may have, in every daily action, concerns and positive environmental impacts: They can transform their place of education into a living ecosystem that highly promotes health, well-being and human development and that also protects biodiversity, regenerates the soil and stores greenhouse gases; they can transform their buildings into energy efficient structures that capture and store solar energy and rainwater; they can practice and promote healthy eating habits with less environmental impact; can practice and promote low emission or neutral transport habits. Etc. This is all replicable.
It is also possible and desirable to replicate the type of organization and educational processes. For example, placing children at the center of the educational process, giving them the power and protagonism they should have in their own education, giving them the real opportunity to participate in all decision-making. Provide empathetic and knowledgeable adults who create the environment of openness, tolerance and dialogue necessary for children to develop these attitudes and behaviors and for child empowerment to become a reality. Create school assemblies to give them the opportunity to develop their capacity for expression, listening and conflict resolution. Provide them with free time so they can play and socialize and learn to live in a society that values freedom. Etc.
Several methodological observations have already been made in the previous points, but we will now try to be more specific. Pedagogical practices will be eclectic, immersive and essentially non-directive and will be inspired, for example, by the self-education method, the investigative method and the natural method.
Self-education requires a daily minimum amount of unstructured time to learn through curiosity, play and sociability (the instinctual drives for self-education), without judgments, without pressures of any kind, without intrusions from authority figures. This unstructured time is critical for making friends, playing with ideas and materials, experimenting and overcoming boredom, learning from your own mistakes, and developing passions. Self-education also requires quality space to wander, to get away, to explore your interests. Children will be able to explore the built spaces of the community, the surrounding natural spaces, as well as outdoor public spaces, whenever they need to pursue their interests, as long as they let them know where they are going and take adequate security measures. This unstructured time and space is very important to develop the children's interests and trigger significant learning sequences that may reach a more structured dimension, what is called an educational project methodology.
The investigative and natural methods assume a similar form to the scientific method, however with the necessary adaptations, since children do not have the same interests and abilities to conceptualize problems, nor are the purposes of educational research the same as those of scientific research. The approach exists because of the need to conceive learning as a process of finding solutions to real life problems and because of the need to progressively endow children's spontaneous exploratory behavior with more rational tools for elaborating, structuring and systematizing knowledge.
This local iniciative addresses at least 5 global challenges made explicit in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 3 – Ensure healhty lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Goal 4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life long opportunities for all
Goal 13 – Take urgente action to combat climate change and its impacts
Goal 15 – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Goal 16 – Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide acess to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Deadline - Goal - Status
September 30, 2022 - Prepare the educational project proposal (Done)
November 30, 2022 - Find potential partners for the project (Ongoing)
December 31, 2022 - Submit to New European Bauhaus (NEB) network for the Transformation of the Places of Learning (Done)
January 31, 2023 - Submit to New European Bauhaus Prizes (Done)
February 10, 2023 - Prepare the survey on education for the population (Ongoing)
February 28,2023 - Contact local councils: Try to get some support from local authorities (To do)
March,15 2023 - Fill-out of the education survey (To do)
March 31, 2023 - Process survey data: to better understand the population needs and identify the target population (To do)
June 1, 2023 - Open enrollment for children (To do)
July, 31, 2023 - Preparing the facilities where the project will take place (To do)
September 1, 2023 - Practical start-up of the project. Day one with Children (To do)
September 1-september 30,2023 - Time for people to get to know each other and explore the potential of the place. As a group, establish the first routines. (To do)
September 1-september 30,2023 - Form a group and create a sense of belonging among participants. (To do)
September 1-september 30,2023 - Begin to define the group agreements that will serve as a basis for understanding. (To do)
September 1 – October 31, 2023 - As a group, identify some vital functions of daily life and share tasks and leadership (To do)
September 1 – December 31, 2023 - Found school assembly (To do)
September 1, 2023– January 31, 2024 - Co build a diagnosis of the current situation of the school/environment and co build the
dream/future vision for the school. (To do)
September 1, 2023– March 31, 2024 - Plan, organize and carry out actions that contribute to the realization of the common vision for the school. (To do)
