In April 2012 my university college received two visitors from University of Valladolid in Spain, Lucio and Fátima. Lucio Martinez-Alvarez teaches Physical Education at the Palencia School of Education. His main interest is the presence of body and movement through the whole curriculum. At Vestfold University College Lucio lectured at the teacher education program and for the international students of Outdoor Education and Experiential Learning. Lucio’s lectures resembled his passion to promote the importance of embodiment in education in general, not only in physical education, and awareness of how the school neglects the nature of human body; Through exclusion and instrumentalization of the body, the school in a sense also delimits students’ development. As Lucio sais, all teachers and all students have bodies – all the time! But how do we meet this unavoidable fact in education?
Fátima Cruz is Ph.D. Social Psychologist, professor at Department of Psychology at College of Education and at Faculty of Labour Science at the University of Valladolid. She teaches Psychology of work, Organizational Psychology, Community Development and Socio-Educational Intervention with Families. Fatima’s teaching and research interests are related to: gender perspective and women collective empowerment; gender and social issues in territorial development; social sustainability and community development projects; equity and study of social discrimination and social exclusion process; community development and social issues on sustainable forestry management; and qualitative methods and case study research.
Fátima gave a lecture to students of Social Science and Outdoor Education and Experiential Education students. The lecture dealt with many interviewing themes related to how we view sustainable development. She spoke about relations between diverse human factors, how people view each other, landscape and what it can offer, transport, gender, traditions and so on. Her lecture made me think about how connected everything is and how we humans mutually influence each other in such complex ways. It amazes me how Fátima manages to be attentive to so many dimensions in her trans-disciplinary, qualitative approach to understanding of such complex processes.
Besides meeting Fátima and Lucio professionally, I was fortunate to have them as guests in my home so that we had time for many interesting conversation, game-playing with my son, making food together, visiting places, taking pictures, walking the dog… And we became friends - though it seems that Fatima and I were meant to be friends all since we met for the first time in Urbana, Illinois at Robert Stake’s house. To start a conversation, I told Fatima that an old friend of mine had moved to Spain, I did not know exactly where, but Fatima did know because she happened to know my friend! – Isn’t that strange? When I later went to Spain to visit my friend, Fatima and I arranged to meet. And in October 2011, I spent a week as ERASMUS-exchange-teacher at University of Valladolid in Palencia. When our schools have now established ERASMUS agreements, and more of my colleagues are interested in Fatima’s and Lucio’s research, we have no reason for stop meeting each other and nurturing our friendship.
In April 2012 my university college received two visitors from University of Valladolid in Spain, Lucio and Fátima. Lucio Martinez-Alvarez teaches Physical Education at the Palencia School of Education. His main interest is the presence of body and movement through the whole curriculum. At Vestfold University College Lucio lectured at the teacher education program and for the international students of Outdoor Education and Experiential Learning. Lucio’s lectures resembled his passion to promote the importance of embodiment in education in general, not only in physical education, and awareness of how the school neglects the nature of human body; Through exclusion and instrumentalization of the body, the school in a sense also delimits students’ development. As Lucio sais, all teachers and all students have bodies – all the time! But how do we meet this unavoidable fact in education?
Fátima Cruz is Ph.D. Social Psychologist, professor at Department of Psychology at College of Education and at Faculty of Labour Science at the University of Valladolid. She teaches Psychology of work, Organizational Psychology, Community Development and Socio-Educational Intervention with Families. Fatima’s teaching and research interests are related to: gender perspective and women collective empowerment; gender and social issues in territorial development; social sustainability and community development projects; equity and study of social discrimination and social exclusion process; community development and social issues on sustainable forestry management; and qualitative methods and case study research.
Besides meeting Fátima and Lucio professionally, I was fortunate to have them as guests in my home so that we had time for many interesting conversation, game-playing with my son, making food together, visiting places, taking pictures, walking the dog… And we became friends - though it seems that Fatima and I were meant to be friends all since we met for the first time in Urbana, Illinois at Robert Stake’s house. To start a conversation, I told Fatima that an old friend of mine had moved to Spain, I did not know exactly where, but Fatima did know because she happened to know my friend! – Isn’t that strange? When I later went to Spain to visit my friend, Fatima and I arranged to meet. And in October 2011, I spent a week as ERASMUS-exchange-teacher at University of Valladolid in Palencia. When our schools have now established ERASMUS agreements, and more of my colleagues are interested in Fatima’s and Lucio’s research, we have no reason for stop meeting each other and nurturing our friendship.
