Page 6 - To know things we have to have the world inside us

Underpinnings for the first proposal.

How might we create a shared lived experience as a basis for our process of research?

We know that complex poly-sensory processes combine with individual and group memories, concepts,

language and so forth to create deeper relations and knowings. In our own experimentation we had noticed the
dominance of our visual sense in encountering the world. We have also observed this in the adults with whom
we have worked.

Gregory Bateson believed that the unconscious nature of perceptual processes challenges a common
assumption that our perceptions are an accurate representation of reality. The interpretive nature of sensory
perception is fundamental to a realisation that the ‘thought’ in the mind is NOT the real thing. This may seem
rather obvious but, more often than not, we adults use words to discuss and debate ‘thought’ as if they are the

REAL thing.

From a perspective of a pedagogy of relations where everything is connected, people have a connection to and
are in a relation with things~materials~objects. Rather than understanding things~materials~objects as
separate, passive and inert they can be seen as having agency, having influence on us and other
things~materials~objects. The scuola comunale Salvador Allende describe this relation in these words.

When ideas meet hands,

extraordinary things happen.
Thoughts give shape to the material

and the material remodels the thoughts

and then the things we do
grow along with our own growing.

The time we have with teacher~researchers is limited. How can we expand the research time to include
occasions when we are not physically together? What kind of shared, lived and engaging experience can we
offer to teacher~researchers who we do not yet know? We decided to ‘extend’ the time line of the encounter,

offering proposals before we met together.

Welcome…our first proposal

Choose different man-made and natural found things~objects~materials to bring to the workshop,
documenting the process of choosing these materials in a workbook.

The teacher~researchers arrived, each clutching a paper bag containing their things~materials~objects.
There was a sense of anticipation. “I’m curious to see what everyone else has brought.
”Keep them in the bag; don’t show anyone else just yet. Let them surprise us.”

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