Don’t Forget About the Body: Exploring the Curricular Possibilities of Embodied Pedagogy

Abstract

Traditional pedagogy divides mind and body into a dichotomy that regards the body as little more than a subordinate instrument in service to the mind. Embodied pedagogy joins body and mind in a physical and mental act of knowledge construction. In this article we offer an integration of extant literature analyzing isolated applications of embodied pedagogy into a holistic curricular vision. We employ a constructivist lens informed by the socially situated perspectives of critical pedagogy. Our exploration reveals shared salient characteristics that bridge disparate disciplines in the implementation of embodied pedagogy. Based on our analysis of these characteristics, we offer actionable steps to realize a curriculum integrating embodied pedagogy.

Full text

Don’t Forget About the Body: Exploring the Curricular
Possibilities of Embodied Pedagogy
David J. Nguyen &Jay B. Larson
#Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Traditional pedagogy divides mind and body into a dichotomy that regards the body
as little more than a subordinate instrument in service to the mind. Embodied pedagogy joins
body and mind in a physical and mental act of knowledge construction. In this article we offer
an integration of extant literature analyzing isolated applications of embodied pedagogy into a
holistic curricular vision. We employ a constructivist lens informed by the socially situated
perspectives of critical pedagogy. Our exploration reveals shared salient characteristics that
bridge disparate disciplines in the implementation of embodied pedagogy. Based on our
analysis of these characteristics, we offer actionable steps to realize a curriculum integrating
embodied pedagogy.
Keywords embodied pedagogy.somatic learning .curriculum .teaching & learning .
classroom engagement
Embodied pedagogy has emerged as the subject of an expanding dialogue within fields as
diverse as cognitive psychology (Barsalou, 2008; Glenberg, 2010), mathematics (Goldin-
Meadow, Cook, & Mitchell, 2009; Lakoff & Nunez, 2000;Tall,2003), social psychology
(Niedenthal, et al., 2005), neuroscience (Kiefer & Trumpp 2012), and geology (Liben,
Kastens, & Christensen, 2011). These scholars have cited benefits in deepened cognition,
learner engagement, and professional socialization as they urge educators to weave this
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DOI 10.1007/s10755-015-9319-6
David J. Nguyen is a doctoral candidate in Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University.
He holds a M.S. in College Student Development and Counseling from Northeastern University and a B.S. and
M.S. in Accounting from Syracuse University. His research interests are focused on financial literacy of college
students, access and equity issues for marginalized student populations, and multiple ways of knowing.
E-mail: nguye327@msu.edu.
Jay B. Larson is a doctoral student in Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University. He
holds a B.A. and a M.A. in History from Southern Illinois University. His primary research interests are
international higher education, globalization’s effects on academic dialogue, intercultural pedagogy, and higher
education in the developing world. E-mail: larso107@msu.edu.
D. J. Nguyen (*):J. B. Larson
Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University, 620 Farm Lane Rd., Rm. 140
East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
e-mail: nguye327@msu.edu
J. B. Larson
e-mail: larso107@msu.edu

melding of the physical and mental into the fabric of learning. Not merely an instructional
methodology, embodied pedagogy in its fullest expression provides a perspective based in
holistic knowledge construction and social contextualization. We assert that realizing the
potential of embodied pedagogy rests in an integrated curricular vision.
For our examination we defined embodied pedagogy as learning that joins body and mind
in a physical and mental act of knowledge construction. This union entails thoughtful
awareness of body, space, and social context. Through our analysis we argue that by discerning
fundamental elements of embodied pedagogy educators can design curricula that facilitate
powerful experiences of shared knowledge construction for learners. We adopted Lattuca and
Stark’s(2009) definition of curriculum as an academic plan entailing decision making about
purposes, content, sequence, learners, instructional processes, resources, evaluation, and
adjustment. Our analysis is not a study of the measured cognitive benchmarks commonly
grouped under the umbrella of learning outcomes. Instead, we suggest a curricular application
of the elements of physical awareness, environmental and interpersonal engagement, and
socially constructed knowledge.
We begin this discussion with the historical and theoretical foundations of embodied
pedagogy, and then we discuss implementation by examining the salient elements of embodied
learning in varied disciplines. We next present implications for curricular integration. Finally,
we consider challenges for embodied pedagogy.
Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Embodied Pedagogy
To appreciate the nature of embodied pedagogy one must contextualize its essential
elements within the theoretical discourse. By highlighting elements of unified mind/body
learning, critical theory, and constructivism one can draw a historical pedagogical trajectory
moving from Dewey and Freire to recent scholarship. In our study, we used Merriam’s
(2009) definition of critical theory as a set of perspectives based on knowledge’s capacity
to emancipate and empower learners in social, political, and cultural contexts. Our defini-
tion of constructivism rests on assertions that individuals generate meaning through en-
gagement with the environment and social interaction with other humans in a community
(Creswell, 2009). We do not consider Dewey and Freire to be the originators of embodied
learning, but we recognize their scholarship as contributions to contemporary views of
embodied pedagogy.
Dewey’s pivotal writings stress the active roles of sensory experience and action in
knowledge construction, which constitute fundamental tenets of embodied pedagogy. In
Democracy and Education (1916/1997a), he argued that Bsenses are avenues of knowledge
not because external facts are somehow ‘conveyed’to the brain, but because they are used in
doing something with a purpose^(p. 142). Here, he asserted the body’s ability to feel
knowledge, internalize it, and commit it to memory. To illustrate the importance of
reconnecting the mind and body in educational spaces, Dewey (1938/1997b) asked the
following questions:
How many [students] acquired special skills by means of automatic drill so that their
power of judgment and capacity to act intelligently in new situations was limited? How
many found what they did learn so foreign to the situations of life outside the school as
to give them no power of control over the latter (p. 15).
These questions point to the essential act of connecting the body and mind, allowing the
former to use memory to construct complex meaning of our daily lives.
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Correspondingly, educators would be well-advised to continuously reinvent methodologi-
cal boundaries so as to connect bodily knowledge with curricular content. Education should
address manual skill not only in such inherently physical disciplines as kinesiology; it should
and can also address embodied aspects of the social sciences and humanities. Recognizing the
necessity of constant evolution, Dewey (1939/1960) criticized Bthe doctrine that knowledge is
a grasp or beholding of reality without anything being done to modify its antecedent state - the
doctrine which is the source of the separation of knowledge from practical activity^(p. 196).
For Dewey, the locus of learning resides at this constantly evolving nexus of body, mind, and
experience.
Contemporary scholars assign various terms to the nexus Dewey described, referring to it as
somatic,bodily,spatial, or integrative learning. Somatic learning designates engagement
through the body’ssenses(Stuckey,2009). Early embodied pedagogy proponents Gardner
and Hatch (1989) included bodily-kinesthetic and spatial intelligences in their multiple
intelligences concept. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence describes using the body to execute
movements and interact with objects. Spatial intelligence refers to the means by which one
perceives visual-spatial relationships and Bperform[s] transformations on one's initial percep-
tions^(p. 6). Bresler (2004) defined embodiment as Bintegration of the physical or biological
body and the phenomenological or experiential body^indicating Ba seamless, though often
elusive, matrix of body/mind worlds, a web that integrates thinking, being doing, and
interacting within worlds^(p. 7). Regarding the body as more than something offering physical
capabilities, our physical selves become a locus of sociological, neurological, and enlightening
happenings.
Critical pedagogy socially contextualizes Bbody/mind worlds^through praxis, which was
described by Freire (1968/2007)asunified action and reflection operating antithetically to
traditional pedagogy’s basis in dialectical mind/body separation (p. 53). Echoing Dewey’s
1916 statement on knowledge and doing, Freire contended there is Bno dichotomy by which
praxis could be divided into a prior stage of action and a subsequent stage of reflection, instead
action and reflection occur simultaneously^(p. 128). Freire’s praxis entailed Bproblem posing
education,^a form of problem based learning in which learners Bare increasingly posed with
problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world^(p. 81). When learners
confront problems that situate them in their environments, they can come to Bperceive critically
the way they exist in the world^(p. 83). While Freire is oblique in direct references to the body,
subsequent educators have described an embodied form of critical consciousness built on his
assertion that transformative learning, Brequires that people act, as well as reflect, upon the
reality to be transformed^(p. 130).
Embodied critical consciousness first entails awareness of our physical and social selves in
acts of knowledge construction. Mathew, Ng, Patton, Waschuk, and Wong (2008)arguedthat
social change calls for an educational approach that transcends Bprivileging of the intellect . . .
over the body-spirit^separation of theory from practice (p. 42). The authors described
embodied transcendence as cultivated awareness of physically based ways in which Bwe have
been conditioned to see ourselves and others^(pp.57-58). Matthew and colleagues echoed
Freire’s(1968/2007) assertion that dialectical learners effectively abdicate possession of their
bodies, thereby becoming psychologically and physically Balienated from the spirit of their
own culture and themselves^(p. 153). By facilitating perception and disruption of the ways in
which we physically enact roles of oppressed and oppressor, embodied learning contextualizes
the physical self in such areas as feminism and critical race theory (Gustafson, 1998;Warren,
2003).
Dewey’s examinations of sensorimotor cognition and Freire’s vision of socially conscience
praxis meet in embodied pedagogy’s constructivist underpinnings. Dewey influenced
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constructivists by contending that through the continuous processes of thought and action Btrue
knowledge is revised and extended, and our conviction as to the state of things reorganized^
(Dewey, 1997a/1916, p. 295). Accordingly, constructivists like Ashworth, Brennan, Egan,
Hamilton, and Sadenz (2004) asserted that learning is a process of sensemaking arising from
the interaction of personal experience with events and the environment in the act of knowledge
construction. Embodied constructivism recognizes that knowledge is not built exclusively by
the mind, but also with and in the body. Learners work Bto critically analyze their knowledge
of the body and their ways of constructing that knowledge^(Gustafson, 1998,p.52).
One finds reflection of Freire’s influence in such perspectives as Nieves’(2012) assertion
that our physical selves serve as repositories of knowledge holding Bpolitical, cultural and
historical memories^(p.34). Wilcox’s(2009) constructivism showed a distinctly postmodern
stance in her assertion that our bodies are Bspatially and culturally situated^in ways that
challenge the concept of universal knowledge (p. 106). Further, elements of constructivism and
critical pedagogy engender recognition of the body as Ba sight of cultural inscription where,
norms, practices, and symbols are inscribed by the body and for the body^(Perry & Medina,
2011, p. 63). Constructivist perspectives socially situate embodied pedagogy in ways that
highlight disciplinary values and identity and contextualize learning within society.
In sum, Dewey’s examinations of sensorimotor learning and Freire’s vision of socially
situated praxis converge in an embodied constructivism. Through this lens we discover that we
do not possess bodies, but rather we are bodies making connections to the world. These
elements combine across the disciplines of higher education, inviting thoughtful analysis of
embodied dynamics beyond individual classrooms.
Embodied Pedagogy across Disciplines
As previously noted, embodied learning takes different forms according to discipline and
subject matter. Curricular implementation requires ascertaining subtle differences in ways of
knowing and instructional method. We note that higher education courses fall into one of three
categories based on the physical and spatial attributes of content. These three categories cover
courses wherein 1) the subject matter has an inherent physicality, 2) the subject matter
facilitates socially-based classroom performance, and 3) the subject matter carries implied
spatial qualities. Some subjects possess an innate physicality either through a focus on the
body, such as kinesiology, or through the learning of manual skills as in musical performance,
artisan-based disciplines, or mechanics. The second category entails subject matter often found
in social sciences. Socially-based content facilitates semi-structured classroom performances,
commonly used in sociology and counseling courses, as a means of analytically enacting
social dynamics. The final type presents the greatest challenge, as it consists of those
disciplines based in conceptually spatial subject matter, such as mathematics or physics. The
three types of embodied disciplines align with Freiler’s(2008) notion of embodied learning in
that students have the ability to construct knowledge in physical, sensing, or being approaches.
A holistic curriculum of embodied pedagogy calls for integrating elements applicable to all
three subject matter types in order to construct guidelines.
Subjects with Inherent Physicality
In his examination of embodied learning in music, Bowman (2004) added cultural dimensions
to the biological and psychological. The author criticized the Binadequacy of Cartesian
dualism^that leaves thought Bghostly, disembodied, and attached to the physical body by
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only the thinnest of threads^(p. 33). He argued that, when the learner experiences motion,
timbre, and rhythm, Bsense, perception, action, and conception are mutually informative, and
structurally linked to one another^(pp. 36-38). Similarly, in a study of Taiko drumming,
Powell (2004) described body, form, and drum as linking to create a whole instrument. Powell
(2004) observed, BI felt a sensory shift in the way I perceive the boundaries of my body in
relation to space. I am aware of a different sense of my body, the way that it occupies positive
space against negative space^(p. 185-186). Such melding of the physical and mental does not
occur in a vacuum, but in a sociocultural context of skills, bodily proclivities, and dispositions
extending themselves to cultural ends and enacting systems of values (Bowman, 2004;Powell,
2004).
In aligned views applied to medical training, Prentice (2007) depicted the operating room as
a site where bodies, physical space, and even dress work to instill learning beyond the
technical skills of surgery (p. 538). Spatial arrangement, manual performance, and awareness
of one’s own body in coordination with those of others work to instill new schema of
perceptual thought that give rise to embodied practice and professional socialization (p.
550). Like Bowman (2004), Prentice (2007) argued that awareness of physicality and place
embodies social practice in the learning of a manual, technical skill. Sutherland’s(2013)
depiction of the theater as a similar space of knowledge production Bin and through the body^
(p. 729) helped illustrate Prentice’s(2007) view of the operating room as a performance space.
In both venues, bodies and space communicate shared meaning.
In sum, subject matter requiring action and spatial engagement highlights the mutually
informative activities of body and mind in ways that lead to new modes of perception,
reflection, and knowledge construction while also taking into account the Bculture, language,
learning style, literacy skills and readiness to learn^of the learners (Swartz, 2012, p.17). As
Dewey (1997b/1938) suggested, physical settings provide students with the opportunity to
reconnect the mind and body in order to overcome the disconnection that can hamper
traditional pedagogy.
Subjects with Socially-based Content
As a counter to manual skills learning, disciplines of a sociocultural nature present content
inherently situated in society, but call for thoughtful integration of physicality. Fields such as
social work, psychology, history, and education examine our behavior in society. Roleplaying
performance presents one means for embodied social learning (Kumagai & Lypson, 2009;
Sutherland 2013). In his study of an interactive performance staged in a South African college
Sutherland (2013)describedBthe potential theater and theatrical processes have in creating
participatory sites^(p. 730) for examining race, class and gender-based issues. For both the
cast and audience, Bthe embodied aspect of theatre was particularly powerful^through its
capacity to share views and experiences (p. 735). Through classroom performances, learners
can experience social dynamics by physically engaging ideological and intellectual ideas in
concert with others (Perry & Medina, 2011). In Warren’s2003 ethnographic account of a
course on race and power, the author recommended acting out social situations as a means to
acknowledge a Bconstitutive body^of social enactment for learners to experience Bhow
meaning gets made on/through physical bodies^(p. 23). Like many scholars of embodied
pedagogy, Warren (2003) cited Cartesian dualism as drawing a false division between mind
and body in experiential learning that obscures our physical internalization of social realities.
To bring our bodies into the social light, Warren (2003) proposed using Freirian problem
posing social situations from which students construct performances. By doing so, learners
literally feel the enactment of social forces in performances that are both dramatic and
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conceptual. Warren (2003) described one conceptual enactment where Bstudents created a tug-
of-war in which a student’s body became the rope between two opposing sides of antiracist
desires and the seduction of privilege,^leading to a Bpowerful conversation of resistance and
cultural possibility^(p. 161). Such role playing brings awareness of unexplored physical
nuances as it reifies and internalizes subjects that would otherwise remain theoretically
detached discussion topics.
Courses rooted in a socially based context provide for a unique embodied experience
because they draw on emotion and bodily sensations that are linked with previous memories.
Connecting academic interests and embodied learning experiences provides one venue for
engagement in conversations that traditionally might not find their way into the discourse. In
doing so, the empowerment of students will often reveal ways of learning and knowing seldom
considered and push learners to explore beyond conventional boundaries imposed through
normative academic discourses.
Subjects with Implied Spatial Qualities
One must ask how embodied pedagogy can enter into disciplines that have no inherent
physicality or capacity for stylized social enactment. Few subjects would seem to lend
themselves less to this pedagogy than mathematics, yet innovative educators have found ways
to embody its implicit spatial elements. With a perspective that parallels both Bowman’s
(2004) and Warren’s(2003) criticism of Cartesian dualism, Tall (2003) contended that
mathematics lends itself to representations beyond the standard symbolic and axiomatic modes
to include real-world embodied contexts encompassing manual and visual aspects (p. 3). To
integrate embodied perspectives into mathematics Tall (2003) proposed the use of computer
programs that allow visual representations to be manipulated through sight and hand-move-
ment, creating Ban embodied link^between a problem and its solution (p. 16). The author
found that students normally intimidated by complex, subtle mathematical concepts not only
grasped them when using the program, but spontaneously engaged in discussion of their
intricacies (Tall, 2003). Thus, Tall (2003) asserted that embodied pedagogy brings about the
cognitive outcomes valued by traditionally-minded educators.
Alibali and Nathan (2012) suggested that, as they are learning new ideas such as mathe-
matical concepts, learners use gestures before they are able to articulate the concept itself.
Further, these authors argued that the use of gestures in explaining concepts showed that the
mind and body cooperated in tandem. In their 2012 study, they showed how students in
explaining their answer frequently pointed to the specific numbers within an equation.
Pointing reveals to the instructor how the student derived the answer, and the instructor can
then intervene if the student is not successful. The results of this study suggested that
mathematical principles and concepts can embrace embodied forms of learning to strengthen
recall.
Nunez, Edwards, and Matos (1999) also recognized that this human, embodied, and social
element is present in even the highly conceptual field of mathematics (p. 62). In a passage that
aligns with Warren’s(2003) and Freiler’s(2008) work, Nunez et al. (1999) asserted that
Bembodiment provides a deep understanding of what human ideas are, and how they are
organized in (mostly unconscious) conceptual systems grounded in physical, lived reality^(p.
50). Advances in computer technology and the Internet have created a new way through which
embodied learning of such subject matter can take form. Online roleplaying games combine
visual and manual elements that can stimulate learner engagement in virtual realms. Instructors
now have the capacity to tap into these innovations and allow students to engage in a new set
of embodied exercises.
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In summary, we believe that the varied modes of physicality across disciplines form
dynamics and parameters singular to each situation. Furthermore, we have provided examples
to illustrate that even the most conceptually driven and theoretically abstract disciplines can
indeed incorporate embodied pedagogical strategies. To bring these together in a holistic
embodied curriculum we now propose a set of inclusive, applicable characteristics for
embodied learning.
Salient Characteristics of Embodied Pedagogy in Curricula
A curriculum for embodied pedagogy is analogous to the learner in that it melds the conceptual
and physical in service to learning. Conceptual aspects such as pedagogical and social theories
inform curricular purposes and goals. Concrete aspects –bodies and learning spaces –assist in
translating these goals into action. In this section, we first outline three conceptual elements of
embodied pedagogy. These conceptual elements are bodily and spatial awareness of sensation
and movement, unification of mind/body in learning, and the body’sroleassociocultural
context. Following a discussion of these three conceptual elements, we advance three guide-
lines for concrete implementation. For a conceptual framework to be more than a collection of
laudable ideals one must be able to discern concrete guidelines for implementation. Actionable
curricula for embodied learning call for guidelines that describe how to engage bodies and
space in learning. Optimally, these should call on existing physical resources and administra-
tive means of inter-departmental coordination that facilitate diverse disciplinary pedagogical
contexts (Freiler, 2008). We suggest that such a curriculum entails three guidelines - interdis-
ciplinary collaboration, problem-posing instruction, and thoughtful learning space design.
Interdisciplinary collaboration calls on educators from various disciplines to connect
knowledge from different subjects into concepts that transfer learning strategies (Sicherl-Kafol
& Denac, 2010). Such collaboration facilitates mutual support, and dialogue amongst diverse
groups of educators can spur new perspectives on the body’s place in learning (Tagg, 2003).
Freire’s(1968/2007) problem-posing instruction directs learners to unexamined roles their
bodies play in learning and socialization. Problems posed to draw learners’attention to bodies
and their contexts not only aid individual awareness, but also shape classroom dynamics as
learners become agents in their own knowledge construction (Tagg, 2003). Finally, such a
curriculum must show awareness of the spatial affordances of the learning environment that
facilitate active physical engagement rather than passivity (Tagg, 2003). As such, malleable,
open classrooms provide responsive, interpretive spaces for action and reflection.
Bodily and Spatial Awareness
The first component of the embodied curriculum, awareness of body and space, seems
deceptively simple; but dismissiveness ignores the value-laden stance of Cartesian divisions.
Dualistic perspectives not only separate the physical self from the mental, but largely disregard
the body as a locus of learning, thereby treating it as little more than a tool or unwanted
distraction to the mind.
Health and physical education courses present Bready-made^venues to introduce and
address bodily awareness. Gustafson (1998) wrote of how a class incorporating qi gong
exercises first introduced her to the knowledge that comes from being an embodied subject:
I felt my foot rooted to the floor. I sensed the movement of my limbs in relation to the
space I occupied. I sensed the tension and relaxation of my muscles as a physical
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experience of my tissues. I felt the flow of breath that was at one moment a part of me,
inside and lungs, and the next moment, a part of the air that surrounded me (p. 53).
One should note that Gustafson did not isolate her sensory narrative to the confines of her
body, but also its relationship to the floor and surrounding air and space. The arrangement of
learning spaces influences the manner in which we learn with our bodies in two ways. First,
the shape, objects it contains, and the placement of these objects communicate purpose,
method, and power. Second, classroom design either facilitates or hinders physical interaction
with the environment and fellow learners. Arrangement communicates pedagogical beliefs to
learners (Jamieson, 2003). For example, learning spaces with fixed or cumbersome furnishings
arranged in tightly packed rows that face the prominent placement of the instructor tell learners
that they are passive recipients of knowledge, the authoritative source of which they face at the
front of the room. By diminishing mobility these spaces reify power dynamics while
constraining bodies from their roles in knowledge construction, as well as obscuring the
complex social relationships inherent to spatial arrangement (Meyer, 2012).
Classrooms for an embodied curriculum require Bspaces designed to generate interaction,
collaboration, physical movement, and social engagement as primary elements of the student
learning experience^(Jamieson, 2003, p. 121). Learning places with mobile, versatile furnish-
ings and open spaces facilitate active, aware physical engagement, as well as learner ownership
(Jamieson, 2003; Tagg, 2003;Wolff,2002). An interdisciplinary approach to classroom design
can involve disciplines such as architecture, psychology, education, and kinesiology in the
creation of malleable spaces for exercises in promoting physical awareness and leading to
unified mind/body learning.
Unification of Mind/Body in Learning
Physical awareness is a prerequisite for embodiment, but by itself it does not constitute
embodied learning consciousness. Perry and Medina (2011) regarded such consciousness as
a two-step process as they argued Bif we cannot deny our bodies’relevance . . . we must raise
awareness of the discourses that are imbedded in them^(p. 63). Curricula should facilitate two
cyclical modes of embodied consciousness in knowledge construction - mindful action and
reflection. Mindful action means awareness concurrent with motion and sensation, while
reflection follows with thoughtful analysis that informs and refines ensuing mindful action.
In mindful action the internal sensing of the body not only influences how one learns and
performs but also how one perceives subject matter, whether it be dance, chemistry, or
counseling (Stinson, 2004). An interdisciplinary curriculum inherently contains seeds of
perspective-changing problems for reflection. When instructors introduce unexpected
physical/manual exercises, objects, and learning space arrangements from other disciplines,
learners are invited to confront their assumptions regarding learning, their discipline, and
relationships to other learners. For example, when laboratory classrooms are rearranged from
rows of tables to the circular configuration of discussion-based courses, learners can begin to
re-imagine the Bsolitary researcher^as a member of the scientific community. The sense of
community is reinforced when instructors design experiments in steps that call on learners to
assist one another physically and cooperatively, turning the experiment into a Bbodily dia-
logue.^In this example, the mindful actions inform reflection through sensory experience and
symbolic ideas which can later be linked to formal analysis (Tall, 2003). Conversely, reflective
analysis develops new layers of awareness in bodily experience.
Interdisciplinary curricula insert problems into experience, generating sensation and reflec-
tion. In these ways, interdisciplinary perspectives in embodied pedagogy complicate
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assumptions regarding subject matter, encouraging learners to imagine alternative ways of
being a scientist, historian, or educator (Wilcox, 2009). In Powell’s(2004) taiko drumming
study the author argued that one of the most significant issues raised by the embodied
experience Bconcerns the self in relation to learning, a quality that involves connection
between the person, instrument and other players by developing a relational identity with
learning^(p. 193). As embodied learning brings closer identification with our bodies as
ourselves we further come to understand the socially constructed identities we enact.
Awareness of Socialization in the Body’s Role as Embodied Text
The complementary processes of mindful action and reflection lead the learner to an under-
standing of how bodies encode and enact social norms. Learning, as an inherently social
activity, not only involves verbal exchange, but a Bsense of place manifest through a sense of
being oriented to one another through bodily knowledge^(Freiler, 2008, p. 41). Awareness of
the body’s function in socialization can take two forms, that of critical consciousness of
physically enacted roles within structures of power and that of conscious socialization into
desired disciplinary and professional roles. A passage from Perry and Medina’s(2011) study of
a drama course within a teacher education program illustrates this point. Describing a student
who enacted the role of Bpolitician^by standing on a raised platform, the authors wrote,
Renaldo’s response relates to the critical discourses of space and acknowledges the close
relationship between space, place, and politics. He was aware of what tools were
available to him, to engage in the transformational nature of space within the performa-
tive moment, to participate in that activity. As a result, he chose a role that could disrupt
the single plane of the classroom space. (p. 68)
The scenario highlighted intersecting aspects of embodied socialization enacted in learning.
First, the course is indeed interdisciplinary, a cooperative effort between faculty members from
the drama and education departments. Second, the authors recognized the classroom as a
socialized space where individual bodies in relationships with others carry out mindful action
and spur reflection. Finally, Renaldo displayed the problem-posing force of embodied peda-
gogy in the way he uses his physical placement to knowingly disrupt classroom space.
Through embodied pedagogy educators have found that students take refined critical
perspectives and incorporate Bperformative ways of thinking into the body, creating
problem-posingimages/performancesthatchallengedandcomplicated...sedimentedways
of thinking^in the classroom to explore larger societal issues (Warren, 2003, p. 161).
Numerous educators have hailed performance as a powerful means of disrupting habitual
enactments of power dynamics (Freiler, 2008;Perry&Medina,2011; Warren, 2003;Wilcox,
2009). However, a variety of means suited to diverse situations also exist, as Wilcox (2009)
described in an interdisciplinary, feminist-based Biology and Psychology of Women course (p.
117), the very title of which implies a holistic view of body/mind. Embodied learning can also
examine socialization through the embodiment of disciplinary and professional values leading
to confident self-efficacy. Earlier we posed the question of how sensation can connect us with
subject matter and knowledge construction, but it is just as fundamental to be aware of how
those sensations connect us to a disciplinary community. Prentice (2007) argued that to
embody the knowledge, skills, and values of a discipline Brequires understanding how social
milieu and guided practice interact^(p. 535). Through embodied pedagogy, learners feel
themselves taking part in a community of experience.
Interdisciplinary design can aid social embodiment across the curriculum. For example, a
BHistory of Mathematics^course designed by faculty members from the mathematics and
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history departments can reintroduce the manual slide rule and abacus to future mathematicians.
Confronting the student with Barchaic^instruments reifies the physical and spatial properties of
mathematics as a few computer keystrokes could not. As Stinson (2004)assertedinastudyof
embodied learning and dance, Bthe internal sensing of the body has great significance not only
for how one learns and performs . . . but also for how we perceive^subject matter in action (p.
154). Further, it enhances how we perceive our relationship to subject matter as holistic mind/
body beings.
Framework of the Embodied Curriculum
Professionals can fashion curricula employing embodied pedagogy by combining elements of
the threaded and integrated models for holistic curricula as described by Fogarty (1991). In a
threaded model, cross-disciplinary teams weave desired learning objectives, such as increased
physical and spatial awareness, through courses of varied content (Fogarty, 1991). In an
integrated model, teams discern cross-disciplinary commonalities in content to create synthesis
from overlapping desired outcomes, such as recognizing physical enactment of socialization
(Fogarty, 1991). Combining elements of the threaded and integrated models constructs mutual
support within the areas of intersection. In the examples below we describe how curricular
design teams can use the tools of interdisciplinary support, problem posing instruction, and
learning space design to achieve goals of physical and spatial awareness and the translation
into social enactment.
Let us consider a cross-disciplinary element introduced into two classes, a course in
agricultural soil sciences and another in American literature. In the agriculture class, one
learner reads aloud from Steinbeck’s(1939) starkly visceral description of Dust Bowl earth in
The Grapes of Wrath (pp. 1-4) as the others follow. After discussion to contextualize
Steinbeck’s description within their knowledge of soil science, learners then turn to physically
handling and testing soil samples with renewed awareness of sensory properties. Our literature
student enters class to find bowls of soil on the desks, possibly discovering new meaning in
Steinbeck’s description after running fingers through rich potting soil and dry, depleted dust.
Reflecting upon these sensations, learners in both courses may ask questions such as the
following. What does crumbling, dead earth say in the fingers of someone whose existence
depends on its fertility? How did Steinbeck go about creating his vivid description? In this
way sensory experience infuses the literature with unexpected depth and immediacy. Similarly,
literature encourages the agriculture learner to contextualize the science of soil analysis
physically and socially. The interdisciplinary approach presents learners with a new experi-
ence, inserting unexpected objects into the learning space which can lead to enhanced tactile
awareness and reflection on social context.
Similarly, departments in social work and theater can cooperate in a class on the body
and social construction of space. Familiarity with set design –the conscious why of
arrangement –urges the social work learner to view a counselor’s office as communicative
of the counselor/ client relationship. In a malleable learning space the placement of a desk
becomes a problem for reflection. Learners can role play as they rearrange the Boffice^or
switch seating of client and counselor in order to feel the spatial construction and physical
enactment of social dynamics. For those in the theater department, the perspectives of
social work render the stage rife with meaning. Learners become aware of the set and their
bodies as social phenomena. Again, a re-assessment of learning space and bodies that arises
from interdisciplinary design spurs both groups of learners toward greater physical and
social awareness.
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Interdisciplinary perspectives provide avenues for educators to integrate the physicality
from some disciplines with the more conceptual subject matter of others. Diverse perspectives
can introduce the physical into the reflective and the reflective into the physical in unexpected
ways that disrupt assumptions, passive Blearning,^and mind/body division. The resulting
physical awareness expands to appreciation of the unified learning roles of mind and body
through the cycle of mindful action and reflection. To facilitate these processes curricular
experts must design space as well as methods and goals so that open spaces with mobile
furnishings facilitate physicality and learners’agency in shaping their learning environment.
Melding these elements, the curriculum does not merely employ embodied pedagogy, but
takes on a physical form of its own.
Challenges for the Embodied Curriculum
We would be remiss if we did not address the resistance embodied pedagogy may encounter from
students and faculty members. Gustafson (1998) pointed out that students have been socialized to
view the classroom as a place of Bsitting and listening, thinking and questioning, challenging and
synthesizing^(p. 54). As learners continue through the educational system, their expectations are
shaped by learning spaces and instruction that direct learning from the neck up rather than
speaking to the entire body as a location of knowledge construction. Regarding these expecta-
tions, Kumashiro (2002) pointed out that Bstudents often want learning that affirms their
knowledge and self-identification^(p. 73). Learners may react with resistance to the challenges
that embodied pedagogy poses to familiar knowledge, identity, and expectation.
Faculty members who play an essential role in learners’adjustment to unfamiliar methods
may be ill-equipped to do so, or equally resistant. During their graduate programs faculty
members are introduced to and socialized into modes of teaching. In Austin’s(2002) study of
doctoral student socialization, she noted that a student’s observation of a particular teaching
practice may have a lasting impact on understanding how to teach. Paradigm shifts from
teacher-centered to learner-centered instruction have already changed ways in which faculty
members actively engage learners (Austin, 2002). However, instructors may be resistant to
methods and perspectives that run counter to their early professional socialization or to those
that challenge their own social assumptions.
Embodied pedagogy may meet with physical resistance as well. It would be naively optimistic
to believe that the assumptions encoded in our bodies and learning spaces will simply crumble in
the wake of a thoughtfully designed curriculum. The third factor we examine in resistance to
embodied learning pertains to bodily politics - gender, culture, power and size (Gremillion, 2005).
For example, Lugo-Lugo (2012) described the resistance she faces in the classroom due to her
ethnicity and gender as a Latina faculty member. The socially learned ways we react to one
another’s bodies regarding such factors as size, gender, or perceived ethnicity can present barriers
to interaction. Further, the moments of discomfort inherent to the challenges of embodied
pedagogy could lead some learners to resist or physically shut down.
Bodies in the Changing World
We must also acknowledge developments in higher education’s constantly changing environ-
ment. Among these, technological innovation and internationalization present two of the
greatest challenges for embodied pedagogy. According to the 2011 Sloan Survey of Online
Learning, over 6.2 million students participated in online education courses, a number that
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represents a nearly 385 % increase from 2003 (Allen & Seaman, 2011). This medium erases
traditional instructor/learner interaction, leaving the body virtually absent. Instructors must re-
conceptualize not only course content but also the delivery mechanism for creating an
integrated experience for the whole learner. Accordingly, those interested in implementing
embodied pedagogy should consider the body’s role in digital education –amediumbywhich
students are likely sitting in front of screens reading material delivered through content
management systems, watching video clips, and responding only verbally to fellow class-
mates. Motor and visual computer programs, such as those suggested by Tall (2003), are one
step toward bringing the physical self into this increasingly pervasive mode of education.
High-definition television screens and refined laptop monitors in the classroom and at home
provide further means for technology to stimulate physical sensation, being present, and being
aware of others’presence (Bracken, 2005; Bracken & Atkin, 2004; Lombard & Ditton, 1997).
Through such advances, educators can create a role for the body in online environments.
Consider the following example: in an online engineering course teams of learners are tasked
with building a tower by using a mouse or control pad to manipulate shapes provided in an
online forum. The instructor can evaluate what constitutes a structurally sound tower, while
observing the ways in which learners engage the apparatus, contribute to the project, and
engage one another in a virtual environment. Similar exercises can entail cooperatively
constructing conceptual models organizing course content. Examples of these technological
advances include visiting college campuses where students are led on virtual tours or simulate
the experience of being in the classroom. Taking advantage of the seeing is believing elements
of embodied learning unlocks numerous opportunities for learners to be Bpresent^in any
location at any time. When thoughtfully employed, technological innovation itself presents
solutions to many of the challenges it presents to embodied learning.
Our increasingly interconnected planet, in which technology plays a significant role,
presents new possibilities for embodied pedagogy. Embodiment transcends linguistic differ-
ences even as it reifies many of our culturally and socially enacted pedagogical disparities.
Understanding of the social and educational relationship between body and self varies across
cultures. Embodied pedagogy holds valuable potential for the transnational classroom where
learners from diverse cultures strive to construct knowledge of not only subject matter, but also
of one another and the world. Instructional innovation and comparative scholarship are only
two intriguing possibilities for a transnational embodied pedagogy.
Conclusion
We can claim that education occurs only when the whole learner constructs knowledge and
meaning from the experiences we facilitate. Learners are simultaneously sensorimotor bodies,
reflective minds, and social beings. Embodied pedagogy provides a way through which
alternative forms of teaching and learning can be integrated and accepted into the classroom.
A curriculum can span disciplines to make concrete its visions of creating spaces where
learners create personal and social meaning with and in the body. When we have accomplished
this, we have created a holistic curriculum that engages the whole learner.
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