Casa Lila: A place where all belongs and that belongs to all. A radical new vision of schooling

• In Event: Highlighted Session: The Power of Contemplative Learning for Integrating our Body, Heart, Mind and Spirit, and for Radical Re-envisioning of Education

Proposal

Being in a place where you feel you belong, where you feel you are responsible for it, is what I was inspired to create after I took the contemplative inquiry and holistic education class in the Summer of 2022. This presentation will lay out the process that allowed me to create this education center and the plans for this radical way to see schooling in a country of tremendous social and economic oppression and inequalities. The plan is very personal to me. It started a long time ago when I was 9 or 10 years old but the dream only came to fruition on the pages of my final project where I was given permission to embrace body, mind, heart, and spirit in my pursuit of a better and more equitable education.

Socioeconomic inequalities and deep poverty have been part of my upbringing. I was born in the northeast of Brazil, in the state called Ceara, one of Brazil's poorest states (ranking 23 out of 26 states by GDP). In one corner, we can see apartment buildings that look like ivory tower castles with armed security; on the other, we see slums with barefoot children running around open sewers unsupervised. I lived in these ivory towers. I was born and raised next door to the most vulnerable people; so close, yet, so distant. Through formal, non-formal, and informal education, the discourse I heard every day was a very colonizing one. I was taught that the poor were unfortunate people who needed help, who were hungry, who were suffering, who were unskilled, ignorant, and violent with nothing worthwhile to offer society. Even though poverty seemed to me like an ordinary and natural occurrence of life, I always had the urge to help change their circumstances into a dignifying life.

In my final project, I let my imagination fly and my heart’s desire to guide me. I envisioned an inclusive place called Casa Lila when those raised in poverty can live a dignified life. Founded on the principles of interconnectivity and interbeing, Casa Lila will be a space where the visible (physical, material world) and the invisible (our inner and spiritual world) are cherished; a place where feelings and things are part of the same world.

Everyone at Casa Lila is part of this creativity and divinity. We are all divine, full of light! In this light we find playfulness as our main source. Practices that include meditation, mindfulness, Aikido, reflective journaling, and the arts such as spontaneous dance and singing will promote an education for a more organic pace, a slower pace, and an inner peace towards a more dignifying and equitable world. This presentation will encompass these aspects of learning: 1) the rationale behind the project, 2) the location, 3) the space, 4) goals of education, 5) our beliefs, 6) the curriculum, 7) the outcome. I will conclude by offering a Day at Casa Lila.

Author

• Virginia C. Gomes, University of Maryland, College Park