An ecosystem consists of a set of species living together in a given area, forming symbiotic relationships: they live together, grow in complementarity and cooperation. All of them contribute to the environment for a common life and receive resources from the environment.

Silvia Teixeiracollaborator PLAN. Art and School Networkand the owner of the project symbiotes, tries to explain the greatness of this form of organization with the metaphor of plantation and forest: “A nursery is the land on which a kind of plant is grown. All these trees together may look like forests, but they are not. Forest is an ecosystem. Inside, in addition to these trees, there are many other species that live together in space and create symbiotic relationships.”

In line with this meaning, a teacher group of the Public Institute of Secondary Education Gerardo Diego de Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madridwanted to explore the possibilities of such a relationship at its center. How to ensure that they are part of organizational and curricular ways of working, such as “thinking of the school as a forest”?, Silvia Texeira used to say. It was necessary to look for other formats, other learning scenarios that would transcend the usual waterproof parts of the operation and facilitate complementarity, interdisciplinary collaboration and hybridization. Change course, re-imagine new futures and try other training configurations. Reinforce the idea and practice of education as a common good.

On the other hand, an approach in line with the guidelines of the latest report of the International Commission. UNESCO Futures of Education, Re-Imagine Our Future Together. A new social contract for education: “The curriculum should emphasize ecological, intercultural and interdisciplinary learning that helps students access and generate knowledge while improving their ability to criticize and apply knowledge.”

An example of this formative logic can be found in the creation of the following short film by Carlota Rosado, a high school student at IES Gerardo Diego, about the role and function that technology can play in an imaginary future:

Although IES Gerardo Diego is a center innovative tradition, the drawn change was very challenging. In its development and potential generalization, common sense, planning, evaluating possibilities and taking manageable and evaluable actions were required.

Walk

encourage the emergence of these concerns. symbiotesa project project, a joint pedagogical initiative between students, teachers and external education agents implemented over the course of a week in the spring of the 2021-22 academic year.

A group of 40 students and 10 teachers from different specialties, citizen lab methodologydiscussed four proposals that bring together artistic, humanist, scientific and technological knowledge aimed at improving the common life. The designs of these proposals have adopted the following names. golden journey, leave a trace, ‘El Gerardo’ takes the music on the road Y From Jersón to Pozuelo: Roman ways of solidarity and meeting of cultures.

The teachers of Technology, Music, Biology, Economics, Greek, Physical Education, and Catholic Religion, external facilitating agents, curriculum topics, times and places were at the service of the best implementation of these four projects that aroused interest and unleashed power. and the joy of learning.

“Based on typical tours of the centre, students identify possible architectural obstacles, take pictures of them and offer possible solutions to save them with their bodies in temporary art,” says Jesús Álvarez Herrera, director and president. leave a trace in project scope symbiotes.

ESO freshman Daría Estefanía Barbu says: “Even though I forced two of my friends to come with me to the project, the three of us agreed that we had a great time. We met new people (…) we are still friends, we learned about classical culture and I loved it. I learned things that I still remember to this day”.

Silvia Texeira, after the center contacted her, went personally to work with the teaching staff on the methodology of citizen laboratories: what they consist of, how they are organized and what they can contribute to the usual way of designing and experiencing teaching. Maria Eugenia LauraGreek teacher and project coordinator symbiotesHe stated that based on the exchange of views, four project calls were prepared at the center and opened to students by taking the starting point of “drifting, path, walking”.

The citizen lab methodology begins by initiating a process of listening and contributing to ideas that enable symbiotic relationships between professionals, curriculum contents of disparate subjects, and creative work processes. “Stop thinking of materials as trees in a row and use the spaces in between to create symbiosis and hybridization. Bring the forest to life,” explains Silvia Texeira. In this way, the project begins its journey by encouraging a call to teachers and students and inviting participation and cooperation.

produce and disseminate basic documentthey offer the common transverse axis that all projects should include: to walk A knowingly obscene idea, a learning practice in contact with the area. The methodology for its design (creating multidisciplinary tandems of teachers of music-mathematics, literature-physics, geography-plastics-biology, etc.) and possible departments to consider.

Projects will be conducted with Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) students willing to participate, united by their interest in the subject and the way they have developed the project, regardless of age, school year or level of knowledge.

an experimental laboratory

This new learning scenario required an agreed and preplanned organizational and curriculum restructuring. María Eugenia Lara says: “The rest of the students and teachers continued their usual duties in their classrooms. We are a faculty of about 55 teachers. We were not all with the students of the project. We were 10 people from the management team with less workload among them. Others took turns attending the usual classes. Along with the teachers there were also external agents of the PLANEA network. Alfredo Miralles and Silvia Teixeira”.

Four projects, what is the idea of ​​your project on the theme ‘walking’? What aspects of the proposal encourage collaboration among students? What are the main lines of art, science, technology and society that intersect in your proposal? What problems, desires or aspirations do you want to respond to? How do you envision the progress of the project and what do you want to happen in the end? How will the process be documented? Your references to other similar projects, based readings on the subject, testimonies from the neighborhood…?

As the main idea, the configuration of the Simbionts project is part of the project. STEAM with Acoordinated by the collective Invisible Pedagogies and by Alfredo Miralles as part of PLANEA. Art and school network.

After the projects were published, some students of the institute TikTok where They released promotional videos to spread the call among students. They also designed posters that were affixed to the center’s walls and visited the classrooms, explaining their meaning and the way forward, then encouraging their participation.

This second call for students placed a mailbox in the center’s secretariat to enroll, and each teacher had open lists to enroll in.

symbiotes it became an educational experiment laboratory that temporarily transforms learning formats and scenarios, allowing the collective development of four projects that combine artistic, scientific, technological and humanistic knowledge within the community.

It remains to explain the meaning of each of the four projects in addition to the educational purposes. We will devote the next chapter to this task.

To be continued.

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