We Need More Embodied Education! A Conversation with Arawana Hayashi, Prof Guy Claxton, Dr Akhil K. Singh, Emily Poel and Caroline Williams

Future Learning Design Podcast

This week we're exploring embodiment science in education with some of the worlds leading embodiment practitioners and cognitive scientists! We believe that this is one of the most important shifts happening in education globally, which is simultaneously so simple, and yet so hard to budge given the depths of the tendencies towards disembodiment, especially in the Western tradition, that we explore. Joining Tim in this fantastic conversation are:

Arawana Hayashi heads the creation of Social Presencing Theater (SPT) for the Presencing Institute. Working with Otto Scharmer and colleagues, she brings her background in the arts, meditation, and social justice to creating “social presencing” that makes visible both current reality and emerging future possibilities for individuals and groups. She is currently on the core faculty of the Presencing Institute.

Links: https://arawanahayashi.com/

https://www.u-school.org/

Book: Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making a True Move - https://presencing.market/collections/frontpage/products/social-presencing-theater-the-art-of-making-a-true-move

Prof. Guy Claxton is a cognitive scientist, education thought leader and prolific author interested in expanding human intelligence through research, writing and education. He has spent most of his working life based in a variety of UK universities including Oxford, Bristol, King’s College London and Winchester.

Links: https://www.guyclaxton.net/

Recent Deans Lecture Series, University of Melbourne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGFEswKBnMw

Book: Co-authored with Emily Poel, Bodies of Learning: How Embodiment Science Transforms Education will be released soon from Routledge.

Dr. Akhil Kumar Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Policy at MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences. Akhil works at the intersection of Philosophy, Psychology and education, emphasizing the creation of educational policies and innovative curricula based on embodied approaches that drive systemic change.

Links: https://akhilksingh.in/

https://www.msruas.ac.in/faculty-staff/akhil-kumar

Book, Education for the Embodied Human: A Contemporary Understanding on Human Nature for Holistic Education - https://brill.com/display/title/71864

Emily Poel has been teaching embodiment in Berlin for over fifteen years. Originally from Michigan and with a degree in contemporary dance performance and history, she's worked internationally as a performer, choreographer and creative advisor. In 2004 she shifted her focus to embodiment training and hasn’t stopped since. Over the last ten years she's developed a large collection of activities using physical awareness tools and movement training to better understand how creativity, learning and thinking actually work. Emily is the co-author with Guy, of the forthcoming book, Bodies of Learning: How Embodiment Science Transforms Education.

Links: https://embodimentatwork.co/

Move4Schools - https://move4schools.com/

Caroline Williams is a UK-based science writer with 20 years’ experience in magazine and radio journalism. She writes regularly for New Scientist magazine. Her work has also appeared in the Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, BBC Future, BBC Earth and the Boston Globe. ​She is the author of three books: Inner Sense: How the New Science of Interoception Can Transfrom Your Health (2025), Move! The New Science of Body Over Mind (2021) and Override (published as My Plastic Brain in the US, 2018), and the editor of two of New Scientist’s Instant Expert Guides: How Your Brain Works: Inside the most complicated object in the known universe (2017) and Your Conscious Mind: Unravelling the greatest mystery of the human brain (2017).

Links: https://www.carolinewilliams.net/

Caroline's latest book - https://profilebooks.com/work/inner-sense/

Move4Schools - https://move4schools.com/