Information and Communication Technologies in Education

Amantes (Lovers): Investigating autonomy, autopoiesis, and polyrhythm with horses

“…In his analysis of the rhythms of dressage, Henri Lefebvre (2004) compares the breaking in of horses, through repetition, duration, punishments and rewards, with the altered, educated rhythms of the child. Maturana and Cabezon (2001) envisage the future school as an autonomous learning space, which allows relational behaviours of trust and mutual acceptance to be triggered at the level of the whole body and nervous system. Their expectations of enhanced enthusiasm, creative learning, responsibility and self-assessment resonate with my recent experience of the Welsh education system where Professor Graham Donaldson (2015) found strong evidence of desire for more autonomy among teachers and pupils.…”

“…Maturana has increasingly applied autopoietic theory to the fields of education and child development with interdisciplinary colleagues. (Maturana & Cabezon, 2001;Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 2008;Maturana et al, 2016), and autopoiesis is central to Maureen L. Leyland's (1988) analysis of the change and stability paradox in non-hierarchical models of family therapy. These non-Western and educational perspectives provide a critical framework for my wider investigation of coadaptation emerging from the interface between cognitive creativity (autonomy) and dominant narratives of improvement.…”