Community College Curriculum Brunch

Open spaces for education and their limits

With Lotte Kreissler

How should models of education and curricula be structured to take a stance against discrimination? Which hidden curricula come into effect in the art space? What do we actually learn when entering a space that claims to be a space of education? And how can such spaces be created to counteract structural exclusions? Together with guests and during a small brunch, these and other questions will be discussed on four Sundays.

The Community College Curriculum Brunches discuss framework conditions and structural levels of education and schooling. Together with Lotte Kreissler we will particularly look at what can be understood by "open" educational spaces and where their boundaries are set. Lotte Kreissler is going to share her many years of experience with - and in - so-called democratic schools and chair our discussion about their basic philosophies and attitudes. One of these is the conception of freedom from coercion and force, and the students' participation and self-governance when building their own learning processes. Which ways of interaction have been developed in such projects when aggression and past experiences of violence become evident, also interrelated with inequality or other lines of social conflict?

These issues lead us to realize that positioning education within a social context and understanding the related political agenda is essential for any further step to be taken.

Lotte Kreissler, cross-border commuter, active since 30 years as alternative educator (formerly Freie Gesamtschule Hofmühlgasse) in the educational field dialectically linking theory and practice, as teacher, trainer, coach, seeker and learner. Trainer for Intercultural Conflict Transformation, Trauma Counselor. Current focus on democratic education and working with young refugees.