Abstract
‘Human, Animal and Planetary Wellness in Practice’ (BASC3300) is a course offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences that aims to problematize, address and advocate for ‘wellness’ from cross-disciplinary perspectives and through embodied experiences. We explore theories of wellbeing through a pedagogy of care model, incorporating many personal and collective activities which resemble psychological interventions used in counselling and therapeutic work. One intervention and its positive effects is the task of drawing ‘characters’ or animals, to allow students to externalize their own challenges and reflect on how a fixed mindset versus a flexible mindset leads to different outcomes. Another specific intervention is a collective storytelling activity, which encourages self-efficacy, peer support and pro-social relationships among students. Every week, these in-class interactions and discussions help students foster active listening skills, interpersonal communication capacities, compassionate mindsets, and perspective-taking. Much of the content is co-created as well, thus leading to higher psychological ownership of class material and overall directions.
From an educator’s point of view, we also reflect on how preparing field trips, activities and unconventional teaching approaches requires time, effort, budget, flexibility, and the professional capacity-building of the teacher themselves. However, we posit that psychological theory should be merged with pedagogical theory to help educators achieve better learning outcomes. In a class on social and environmental wellbeing particularly, students should be able to position themselves (and their own lives) within academic/scientific frameworks, and learn more about ways to alleviate stress, deal with difficult emotions, and become conscious of their own cognitive/social/emotional processes. This meta-cognition serves the dual purpose of educating them, while also promoting their own wellness (thus having a cascading positive effect on their learning in other courses and settings). Beyond field trips, assignments and lecture content, we hope to see more future interventions that embrace a psychologically-informed pedagogy of care, compassion and community-building.