Advocated by educators and philosophers as diverse as Dewey, Montessori, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, embodied learning in contemporary discourse is used interchangeably with action learning, kinaesthetic learning and embodied cognition.
Generally speaking, it is learning that is augmented by the learner’s physical movement
(Johnson-Glenberg, 2014, p.280)
2. Relevant Information
Professor Terry Hyland – University of Bolton –
hylandterry@ymail.com
Presentation at the Journal of Vocational Education
and Training Conference; Keble College,
University of Oxford, June 28-30, 2019; based on:
Hyland, T.(2019). Embodied Learning in Vocational
Education and Training. Journal of Vocational
Education and Training, 71; forthcoming
Available for free download at:
https://bolton.academia.edu/TerryHyland;
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Terry_Hyland
3. Embodied Learning
Advocated by educators and philosophers as
diverse as Dewey, Montessori, Sartre and
Merleau-Ponty, embodied learning in
contemporary discourse is used interchangeably
with action learning, kinaesthetic learning and
embodied cognition.
Generally speaking, it is learning that is
augmented by the learner’s physical
movement
(Johnson-Glenberg, 2014, p.280)
4.
5. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
(Bloom, 1956; Krathwohl, Bloom &
Masia,1964)
Cognitive Domain
1. Knowledge – specifics, facts, terminology, conventions, categories, criteria, methodology, principles, theories, etc.
2. Comprehension – translation, interpretation, extrapolation, etc.
3. Application – general ideas, rules of procedure, abstraction, etc.
4. Analysis – elements, relationships, organizing principles, forms, patterns, general techniques, etc.
5. Synthesis – production of communication, plans, classification of abstract relations, formulation of hypotheses, etc
6. Evaluation – judgments in terms of internal evidence, judgments in terms of external criteria, etc.
Affective Domain
1. Receiving (attending) – awareness, willingness to receive, control and selection of attention, etc.
2. Responding – acquiescence of response, willingness, satisfaction in response, etc.
3. Valuing – acceptance of a value, preference for a value, commitment to a value, etc.
4. Organisation – conceptualisation of a value, organization of a value system, formulation of a philosophy of life, etc.
5. Characterisation by a Value Set or Value Complex – generalised set of internally consistent values, openness to
revision of judgments, development of a value system which encompasses all aspects of life, etc.
Psychomotor Domain
1. Gross Bodily Movements – throwing, catching, running, swimming, dancing, gymnastics, etc.
2. Finely Coordinated Movements – hand-finger movements, hand-eye coordination, hand-eye-foot movements, etc.
3. Non-verbal Communication – facial expressions, gestures, body language, etc.
4. Speech Behaviours – sound production, sound-word formation, sound projection, sound-gesture coordination, etc.
6. Neglect of the Psychomotor Domain
Somerville and Lloyd (2006) observed:
Few researchers in adult and workplace
education have focused on the body and even
fewer on questions of bodies and spatiality. This
is possibly due to the devaluing of anything
associated with the body compared to the mind,
noted by feminist and other researchers in terms
of the mind-body Cartesian dualism in which
mind is privileged over body (280-281).
7. False Dualisms
John Dewey sought to break down the ‘antithesis of
vocational and cultural education’ based on the false
oppositions of ‘labour and leisure, theory and practice,
body and mind’ (1966: 301). Dewey saw the roots of these
false dualisms in the intellectualist strands of classical
education which assigned high preferential value to mental
faculties and resulted in an education system which was
‘highly specialized, one-sided and narrow’. It was an
education:
dominated almost entirely by the medieval conception of
learning ...something which appeals for the most part to
the intellectualist aspect of our natures...not to our
impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create, to
produce, whether in the form of utility or art (1965:26).
8. Origins of Divisions
Schofield (1972) locates the original source of these
divisions in the emergence of the idea of a liberal education
in Ancient Greece. This form of education came to be
associated with ‘freeing the mind from error’ in Plato’s
distinction between ‘genuine’ knowledge (based on the
rational reflection of logic and mathematics) and mere
‘opinion’, that is, applied knowledge used for specific
purposes (pp.151-152). The former conception,
disinterested and theoretical knowledge, came to be
thought of as superior and intrinsically valuable, whereas
the latter, instrumental or applied knowledge, came to be
associated with more practical and less valued vocational
pursuits (Lewis, 1991).
9. Intellectual Elitism and Social Class
Moreover, such hierarchical divisions were from the outset
inextricably linked to social class stratification and an
axiology of relative values about educational activities. In
the Republic, the relative value accorded to the 'Forms' of
knowledge by Plato are fully realised in the various kinds of
education provided for rulers, guardians and workers in the
ideal state (in addition to the distinctions between
'banausic' knowledge, suited to slaves, and knowledge
worthy of free citizens). The 'foundation myth' of the ideal
state suggests that God 'added gold to the composition of
those of you who are qualified to be rulers...he put silver
in the auxiliaries, and iron and bronze in the farmers and
the rest' (1965 edn, p.160).
10. Theory/Practice Prejudices
In the Politics, Aristotle (1962 edn, p. 301) asserted
that:
We therefore call degrading those occupations
which have a deleterious effect on the body’s
condition and all work that is paid for. For these
make the mind preoccupied and unable to rise
above menial things...It is proper for a free man
to do something for himself or for his friends,
but he that does the same action on others’
account may on occasion be regarded as doing
something paid for or servile”.
11. Entrenched Prejudice
As Schofield (1972) explains:
The passing of time merely emphasised the
distinctions which Plato made. Studies which were
valuable in themselves, especially the Classics,
became associated with the privileged class or elite
in society. They were directly related to the concept
of a courtier, a gentleman, a man of affairs, and later
the public schools. Liberal education always carried
with it a suggestion of privilege and privileged
position, of not needing to work for one's living
(pp.151-2).
12. Class Prejudice
Utilising Polyani’s concept of tacit knowledge
which casts doubt on the distinction between
‘higher’ and ‘lower’ human faculties, Ainley (1993)
argues that:
the elevation of mental over manual labour is
merely a social preference for the skilful
manipulation of symbols as a more
respectable activity than the manipulation of
objects. Moreover, it can be seen that the most
skills are required by those who combine what
is conventionally known as mental and manual
labour in their work (p.8).
13. Bringing Bodies Back
The ‘intellectualist’ trends criticised by Dewey have failed to
‘celebrate the epistemological potential of our corporeal selves’
according to Benjamin (2018). She goes on to argue that
‘knowledge has always originated in the body, starting with
those sense receptors in the skin that mediate our relationship
to the external world’(126). Thus, when Lakoff and Johnson (1999)
observe that the ‘mind is inherently embodied’ (3) they are stating
no more than the commonsense idea that minds are developed
through the mechanism of the body and its senses. The so-called
‘bodily turn’ (Ostern 2015:144) in educational theory over the last
few decades simply recognises the failure of educational
programmes to take a number of brute facts about physical learning
into account in the design of curricula and pedagogy.
14. Body and Mind
It seems to me that bringing bodies back into
the picture has been crucial for education. As
teachers, educational theorists and the like,
we need to direct our attention to the
realities of bodies in discursively constituted
settings. Western philosophy can be seen as
the history of successive periods of Western
humanity's cultivation of its own "mind”.
(O’Loughlin, 1995,p.5).
15. Philosophical Justification
Sartre conceived the essence of human existence – the
notion of ‘being for-itself’ as he understood it – in terms of
the human body, its actions in relation to material objects,
and its relationships with other embodied beings. His
argument that ‘the very nature of the for-itself demands
that it be body’ (1943/1969: 309) influenced Merleau-
Ponty’s idea that ‘our bodily experience of
movement...provides us with a way of access to the
world...which has to be recognised as original and perhaps
as primary' (1968:140). Applying these conceptions to
education, Whitehead (1990) observes that ‘our body and
its motility can be seen to have an equal claim for
attention in education alongside our other attributes
which give life meaning (3)
16. Physics and Learning By Doing
Our physical actions in the world are indispensable to learning and
the development of knowledge, understanding and capability in all
domains. Indeed, according the Bohr’s philosophy-physics –
described as ’agential realism’ by Barad (2011) – it is not meaningful
to claim knowledge of anything until we have physically arranged,
observed and measured some aspect of it. As she expresses this
interpretation of Bohr’s position:
The causal relationship between the apparatuses of bodily
production and the phenomena produced is one of agential intra-
action...For example, the notion of position cannot be presumed
to be a well-defined abstract object...position only has meaning
when an apparatus with an appropriate set of fixed parts is used
(Kindle edn., loc.2781).
17. VET Research and The Physical
A phenomenological study of nurses’ experience of manual
handling conducted by Bernoth (2001) found that they had
an absence of self-body awareness. While they performed
the most intimate acts of daily care on bodies, and their
learning included anatomy and physiology of the human
body, they ‘were aware only of other bodies and not their
own’ (280). Their focus was on time and task, not on
themselves. This had profound consequences for their
ability to learn and practise safety and – according to
Somerville and Lloyd – such findings indicated that
‘learning safety was not simply a matter of acquiring a set
of skills but involved the embodied subjectivity of the
worker in profound and fundamental ways’ (ibid).
18. Bodily Research
Inspired by the work of Cheville (2005) in relation to
‘embodied cognition’ which incorporated the notions that
physical space ‘produces habits of body from which
attitudinal dispositions emerge’, and that ‘embodiment in
any cultural space is a product of historicized technologies
that inscribe, surveil, discipline’ (91), Somerville and Lloyd
conclude that:
In each of the workplaces we have researched, in aged
care, building construction, coal mining and the Fire
Service, workers have reported that they learn to work
safely from embodied experiences in the physical
environment of the workplace and interactions with more
experienced workers (2006: 287).
19. Further Research
Similar notions of the crucial place of embodied
learning – drawing on Bourdieu’s notions of
habitus and bodily hexus – were foregrounded in
the work of Stevenson, Yashin-Shaw and Howard
(2007) in helping homeless people into return to
learning programmes. Participants in the
humanities courses reported ‘bodily changes’
which were conceptualised by the researchers as
‘reclaiming body dispositions and, with this,
finding ways to start to move beyond the body’s
continually being captured by the past’ (p.431).
20. Craftworking and the Physical
Noting the fact that ‘craft, crafting and crafted
are commonly employed to describe or praise
ideas well-conceived, activities well-executed,
or things well made’, Marchand (2016)
describes the craftwork domain as ‘one that is
ethical, guided by high standards of quality,
and characterised by direct, unmediated
connections between mind, body, materials,
and the environment’ (p.3).
21. Physicality and Knowledge
Crawford (2009) in concerned to emphasize the
‘cognitive demands of manual work’ and, within the
context of craftwork, explains that:
Skilled manual labour entails a systematic encounter
with the material world, precisely the kind of
encounter that gives rise to natural science. From its
earliest practice, craft knowledge has entailed
knowledge of the “ways” of materials – that is,
knowledge of their nature, acquired through
disciplined perception. At the beginning of the
Western tradition, sophia (wisdom) meant “skill” for
Homer: the technical skill of a carpenter, for example
(21).
22. Psychomotor Objectives
An early attempt to construct a psychomotor
classification for VET – specifically and interestingly for
the present discussion applied to craft education –
was published by Sumner (1968) in The Vocational
Aspect of Secondary and Further Education. Aiming
to complete Bloom’s project in the absence of a
system for the psychomotor domain, Sumner
explained that it was thought that this domain ‘could
be left until educators concerned with physical aspects
felt the need for its organisation’ (p.137). On the basis
that the craft teacher would be concerned primarily
with ‘motor-manipulative skills’ (p.141), he
suggested a finely detailed taxonomy for the domain of
physical activity
23. Motor Manipulative Skills
Sumner advocates ‘control of the body’ by envisioning tools
of any kind as ‘an extension of the body-mind in the
process of hand and eye kinaesthesis’
• Mode: egs. twisting, pulling, lowering, releasing, bracing,
pressing, balancing, lifting, etc.
• Style: egs. jerky, smooth, co-ordinated, compensatory,
discriminating, etc.
• Cue: hand, eye, sound
• Tools: egs. single-handed, double-handed, machine tools
• Craft operations: egs. sawing, milling, planning, threading,
stitching, turning, drilling
Sumner (1968, pp.144-5)
24. Vocational Pedagogy
Physical materials (for example, bricklaying, plumbing, hairdressing,
professional make-up)
People (for example, financial advice, nursing, hospitality, retail, and care
industries)
Symbols (words, numbers and images; for example, accountancy,
journalism, software development, graphic design) (3.2).
However, in spite of incorporating a separate section on craft and
craftsmanship (inspired by Crawford mentioned earlier) – and
highlighting the idea of ‘role modelling by vocational teachers’ (ibid:
4.3.2), there is too little attention paid to the need for teachers to embody
psychomotor dispositions in transmitting the values of craftwork.
How To Teach Vocational Education: A Theory of Vocational
Pedagogy (2012) London: City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development
26. Craft in Apprenticeships
Recent research by Karen Vaughan (2017) with
carpentry apprentices described the importance
of body/mind integrations. As she observes:
Their vocational thresholds were based on
getting to grips with an increasingly
sophisticated interplay between their minds,
bodies, cross-trade interactions, and their
physical environment of climate, tools and
materials (p.547).
27. Embodied Knowledge and
Performance
Roger Kneebone, Professor of Surgical Education
and Engagement Science at Imperial St. Mary’s
Hospital, employs the notion of ‘embodied
knowledge’ which highlights the way the body
‘learns to do things and how this can contribute
to expert performance in its broadest sense’
(Welford 2018,p.17). As part of this process,
Kneebone has established ‘serendipitous
encounters between craftspeople, musicians,
artists and surgical teams’ (ibid.).
28. Body/Mind Interdependence
Without the body, our minds would
be vulnerable, immobile, naked, no
more than brains in jars...without
the body we are not only unable to
live, we are in fact unable to be
(Benjamin, 2018, pp.128-129).
29. References
Ainley, P. 1993. Class and Skill. London: Cassell
Aristotle (1962 edn). The Politics (Harmondsworth, Penguin) trans. T.A. Sinclair
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Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (London, Duke University Press)
Benjamin, M. 2018. “Fleshy Stuff”. New Philosopher, Issue 18, Nov 2017-Jan
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Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 18(1): 85-107
Crawford, Matthew B. 2009. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value
of Work. New York: Penguin Press
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Dewey, J. 1965. The School and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago
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31. References (3)
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1968. Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge & Kegan
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problem of safety training” Studies in Continuing Education. 28(3):279-289
Stevenson, J. ,Yashin-Shaw, I. & Howard, P. 2007. “Reclaiming bodily dispositions
through the humanities: homeless people learning”. Journal of Vocational Education
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32. References (4)
Sumner, R. 1968. “The objectives of craft education”.
The Vocational Aspect of Secondary and Further
Education 20 (3): 137-149
Vaughan, K. 2017. “The Role of Apprenticeship in the
Cultivation of Soft Skills and Dispositions”. Journal of
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Welford, M. 2018. “The Performing Brain”. Imperial/44.
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