身体与学习:具身认知及其对传统教育观的挑战

The Body and Learning:Embodied Cognition and Its Impact on Traditional View of Education

自古希腊开始,身体在教育与教学过程中就受到贬抑或忽略。教育与教学效果体现在"脖颈"以上,与"脖颈"以下的身体无关。在这种教育模式里,身体要么是通向真理的障碍,要么仅仅是一个把心智带到课堂的"载体"或"容器"。学习被视为一种可以"离身"的精神训练。但是具身认知挑战了这种教育观念。具身认知的中心观点是:认知、思维、记忆、学习、情感和态度等是身体作用于环境的活动塑造出来的。从根本上讲,心智是一种身体经验,身体的物理体验制约了心智活动的性质和特征。心智基于身体、源于身体。具身认知挑战了以身心二元论为基础的教育与教学观,将从本体论、认识论和方法论三个层面对传统教育观形成挑战。

Since the time of ancient Greece, the body has always been in a repressed or forgotten position in the processes of learning and teaching. From the point of view of traditional education, either the body is an obstacle in the way of knowledge and truth, or a carrier that gets the mind to the classroom. Learning is regarded as a process that can be disembodied. Embodied cognition movement, which is rising in cognitive science, has challenged the view of the disembodied education. Embodied cognition is based on the idea that the cognition, thinking, memory, learning, emotion and attitude, et al. are all shaped by the interaction between the body and environment. The mind is based on the body and originated from the body. To accept the ideas of embodied cognition is to question many of the beliefs traditionally held by educational world. It will pose serious challenges on traditional education from the levels of ontology, epistemology, and methodology.