Learning with the body: a pedagogical project with refugee children combining elements of cooperative learning and theatre techniques

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Published: Nov 20, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/edth.37665
Keywords:
refugee children libertarian pedagogy cooperative learning Theatre of the Oppressed social exclusion embodied learning
Sofia Vlachou
Abstract

In this article, I will present a pedagogical project of embodied-experiential learning that I developed during my collaboration with refugee teenagers at their accommodation centre in Filippiada, Preveza in the 2020–21 fall/winter semester. This project arose
from the children’s own imperative need to express to a familiar person who would be interested in listening to them the pain they experienced from being exposed to racist underestimation and rejection in their various daily interactions with local community
members. Through the collaboration that followed, their initial narratives evolved into small theatrical acts, parts of an original "performance text" of public protest, that made this aspect of their reality visible to their wider social environment in a penetrating way. Emphasising once again the importance of theatre education for the learning and psychosocial enhancement of all students, without exception, I set as an ultimate goal of this article the initiation of a discussion on the development of creative methodologies and innovative tools of embodied learning. Such methodologies and tools could make great use of arts subjects and/or a more creative application of physical education in the frame of cross-curricular teaching in order to promote the inclusion of refugee children in their respective school environment.

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Author Biography
Sofia Vlachou

Sofia (Sonia) Vlachou is a graduate of the Department
of English Language and Literature of the Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki and has completed postgraduate
studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Institute
of Ethnology in the University of Hamburg in Germany.
She has worked as an English teacher (permanent
staff) in various types of schools in primary and secondary
education and is a PhD candidate at the Department of
Sociology of the Panteion University of Social and Political
Sciences in Athens. For the last five years, she has been
working as a Refugee Education Coordinator in the prefecture
of Preveza. She has also participated with original
presentations in numerous international Social Studies
conferences and has contributed to scientific publications.
She has been a member of the European Sociological
Association since 2015. Her broader scientific interests
include youth anthropology, sociolinguistics, sociology of
education, childhood studies, theatre pedagogy, gender
studies and refugee studies.

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