Teachers from La Araucanía reflect on learning generated in Active Teacher towards socio-environmental education

During this year, eight pairs of teachers from La Araucanía were part of various experiences deployed by the programActive Teacher, titled in this versionReconnect to regenerate, whose recent version was titledReconnect to regenerate. Training meetings focused on regeneration, recognition of the territory and its biocultural heritage,as well as the monitoring of various projects on social educationecologic, made up some of the experiences of the program that reached its annual close in October.

The program seeks to generate a community among teachers, who present proposals in pairs. The aim is for trainers to develop skills to create innovative pedagogical initiatives that link art, science and ecology. An initiative that is also aimed atthat there are more diverse and resilient ecosystems to environmental changes in consideration of theinterdependence of which we are part.

“Active Teacher invites us to regenerate and nourish ourselves from the base from which our inspirations emerge, to learn and teach educational practices that reflect the way we relate to ourselves and nature,” said Amparo Irarrázabal, in charge of learning at FMA and program coordinator.

The proposalss that the teaching pairs sent as part of the application to the program this year responded to different problems, such as lack of knowledge of the school communities of the territory, lack of emotional ties with the plant life of the spaces on the part of the students and risk of disasters natural. In these situations, educators developed various strategies and methodologies experienced during the program, which ranged from tallyou are, explprayers in the field, instances of work to enhance socio-emotional training, to the installation of camera traps and the creation of poems about nature.

Regarding the closing day that took place in October, after the development of the projects since May of this year, FMA’s learning director, Manuela Méndez, pointed out that“It was a space to celebrate processes, share learning and inspire us collectively to continue creating transdisciplinary learning experiences that are sensitive to the territory,”and He added that the closing of the program became an instance of listening and valuing the diversity of educational experiences, as well as a moment to reflect on the achievements and adversities experienced by the school communities in La Araucan.was. 

Aesthetic experiences for socio-emotional training

At the Villarrica Polytechnic High School, the pair of teachers formed by Scarleth Rodríguez, of art and technology, and Francisca Marín Pérez, of philosophy, sought to generate rapprochements between the various courses in order to provide spaces for self-knowledge and experiencing the environment.

Rodríguez explained that one of the situations experienced in this school made up of nearly 500 students is the disconnection and lack of awareness about the native forest and the risks of natural disasters in rural areas, where a large part of the community lives.

“We did workshops on self-knowledge and aesthetic experience with tools learned in Active Teaching, which allowed us to generate bridges between students from first to fourth grade, we formed groups of 50 to 70 people,” said the trainer, who added that they were spaces “to get out of the comfort zone and relate to other courses that sometimes have conflicts with each other,” through stories of experiences.

Regarding the experience lived in the program, the teacher expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to learn about new methodologies and also for having shared with teachers from other schools in the region. One of the unique experiences that he had thanks to Active Teacher, he emphasized, was the possibility of “building educational proposals from emotions, something that does not usually have the necessary importance in curricular structures.”

Tenths to experience the territory

Another project promoted within the framework of Active Teacher led to the creation of tenths inspired by the experiences recorded in the environment, a possibility generated thanks to the award of a previous project that consisted of the installation of camera traps by a school community in the near Villarrica National Park. Manuel Calcagni, a history teacher and mediator focused on film and the environment at Colegio Pucón, led the project together with ConstanzaSalas, English teacher and coordinator of environmental projects.

“Ecosystems at risk/ pumas witnessing time/ foxes fleeing by the thousand/ hare tearing away from the rifle/ mother earth faces harsh torments/ at the hands of vile humans,”were some of the verses written by the students of the workshop mediated by the teachers, a creation that “describes the images found in the camera traps, which account for the interaction between native and invasive species, between various natural phenomena observed,”Calcagni recounted, whoIn addition, he has promoted the creation of environmental awareness works – together with his teaching duo – such as theMushroom Rap sung by fourth grade students from the same school. 

Regarding the closing day of Active Teacher, Calcagni pointed out that it was “an instance of self-care and reconnection between everyone,” while he valued the spaces to talk about proposals for improving the program and respect for the different times of student communities. Regarding the projection of this network of teachers, Calcagni stated that it has been “great to learn about projects along the same lines, the idea is to stay in touch, sharing data and ideas” to promote environmental education.

Autonomy and plant links

Julia Gutiérrez, education assistant, along with Gabriela Cervera, arts and language teacher at the Sombra de Arbol Free School in Villarrica, led, for their part, a project that sought to generate links for plant care with a focus on a greenhouse. The community made up of ten students from 6 to 12 years old presented the challenge of raising awareness about the protection of this habitat, whose plant species showed a lack of irrigation and care.

“With the learning generated in Active Teacher we seek to enhance the autonomy of the children and, at the same time, a bond, since there was a lack of knowledge of the plant kingdom, since in practice they did not consider it a living being,” explained Gutiérrez. Thus, they facilitated spaces for research and artistic creation: “We made cartography and sensory activities that helped represent the differences in identity between objects until reaching the problem of the abandoned greenhouse.” Among the changes generated, Gutiérrez added, is the recognition of greenhouse species that even children consume today, such as vinagrillo, he said.

Finally, the trainer expressed her gratitude to the program, as well as to the members of the foundation for their “professionalism and passion, and also for the support they gave us.” The event, he noted, became a moment of reunion with art as a fundamental part of educational processes.

In this line,Amparo Irarrázaval, stated that the 2023 version of Active Teacher sought, precisely, to emphasize the importance of the link between art and ecology through reconnection “with oneself, with another and with the environment to be able to regenerate”, where artistic experimentation is key to promotingthe link and care of the ecosystems of the territories inhabited by the participants. In addition, he revealed that this year’s slogan –on reconnection and regeneration–It is based on awareness and action, through artistic educational experiences that facilitate transdisciplinary education through art with a focus on the care of nature, based on ecological regeneration and restoration, including the ecosystems of our bodies, ecosystems. social and cultural.