Introduction

In October we started a Study Group at the KABK on the topic of Safe & Engaging Learning Environment. A lot was being done on this topic on the policy side of things but it was not easy to access in-depth knowledge that would speak to the pedagogic aspects of the topic. This was problematic because the site where we struggle with safety in education is first a pedagogic one, in the classroom. So any conversation about safety and engagement should also be centred around pedagogy. This was the basic intention of such a Study Group. To have those conversations and build the local vocabulary and knowledge needed to also hold that discourse within the broader institute. With this text I put down some of the outcomes of our study from my own perspective, as the facilitator of this Study Group. This is also to say that while the text is currently authored by me, the ideas expressed within it have come about thanks to a rich collective process.

Safe & Engaging Learning Environment

If we only prioritise safety, we should close the shop and go home. Risk is inherently part of education, so the question becomes hot to see it, acknowledge it, work with it instead of against it. Traditions, rituals and pedagogies need to be developed to turn safety from something that looms over education as a factor which limits, regulates and prohibits to something that enables, facilitates and open possibility. Safety, not as opposed to engagement, but safety in fact as engagement. By doing so, we can avoid education becoming boring, sterile and clinical and instead facilitate an environment which is vibrant, vivid and visceral. This requires a new kind of care and support towards eachother as well as a constant and conscious affection for our learning environment. Such an approach in fact demands this affection from everyone involved. Nobody can really get a way with being a passive participant. In this vision, the learning environment is dependent upon being held by everyone together.