**5. Precursors of biocentric education**

Since its foundation, the utopic and liberating dimension of the *ayllu* school caused hatred and fearful responses among the Bolivian society rural oligarchs. During all its 9 years of enlivening operation, the *ayllu* school was under permanent threat. Government resources were withdrawn; farmers conspired and connived to hamperthe school's operation, cutting the water supply and rumoring slander that stimulated fear and hatred. Elizardo Pérez was charged of being a communist at the service of the Soviet socialist regime. In 1940–1941, the *ayllu* school in Warizata was dismembered from its original project and ostracized by Bolivian government. In spite of protests from Bolivian society, school management was handed over to men with corrupted moral character and, most of all, people had no respect for the indigenous. Construction work was halted, and parts were demolished; the roof shingles factory was dismantled and taken to La Paz; crop fields, orchards, and gardens were abandoned; livestock (lambs, pigs, poultry) were killed; tool and material storerooms were emptied; electricity supply was disabled, and the furniture vanished; the *Amauta* Parliament was suppressed, and its members were persecuted; the potable water system was destroyed; the new managers occupied the dormitories as if they were owners; natives were thrown out, and a hunting season began, chasing students

In the popular education field, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire is one of the most acclaimed figures worldwide. His thoughts and works are studied and discussed in many universities, academic conferences, and publications. His literacy-awareness method, conceived in the 1960s, is still used in several countries. All continents welcomed his pedagogical thinking, and

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) was born in the city of Recife, capital of the state of Pernambuco, in the Northeastern region of Brazil, where the most exploited Brazilian population lives. His best-known book—*Pedagogy of the Oppressed* (1968)—was written in Chile, where he sought refuge from the dictatorship that took over Brazil in 1964. He formulated the *Pedagogy of the Oppressed* theory in the context of the Latin-American military dictatorships and the "Cold War" climate, a time of polarization with major geopolitical impacts, where the invention of Eurocentric-nature terms took place: capitalism and socialism; First World, Second World, and Third World; Developed Countries and Underdeveloped Countries. Paradoxically, the very dictatorship that ousted him from his country also created the conditions for Paulo Freire to get to know the world. It was during his exile that he was introduced

According to Paulo Freire, as history unfolds, human groups are subject to humanization and dehumanization. Man's ontological condition is humanization, however within an oppressing society that gets its self-affirmation from injustice, exploitation, violence, and domination, such condition is denied. This creates the need to develop a *Pedagogy of the Oppressed,* making

In order to understand the liberating role of the *Pedagogy of the Oppressed*, Paulo Freire highlights two key points: the oppressors' violence also renders them dehumanized, hence "the major historical and humanistic task of the oppressed ones is to liberate both themselves and the oppressors"; and, in order to carry out this liberating role, the oppressed ones must become aware that they "host the oppressor inside themselves," since "only as they perceive

and parents who were committed to the *ayllu* school's social project [24].

108 New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century - Contributions of Research in Education

many countries set up study and research centers as the Paulo Freire Institute.

to the reality of African and European countries and to the United States.

it possible "to recover the stolen humanization" [1].

As an outcome of the ontological and biological condition of mankind, the human being's vision of the world is "naturally" anthropocentric. However not always, and not in every culture, has man placed himself as a "superior species," relative to nonhuman animals. This is why we consider it important to explicitly trace back the path of such anthropocentrism, and the place this way of thinking occupies in the contemporary process of devastating our planet's environment; at the same time highlighting the new ethical sensitivities, with the intent of overcoming the colonialist dimension of anthropocentric pedagogy.

Both anthropocentrism and speciesism are ideologies that justify and legitimate the human species' violence and domination relative to all other nonhuman life forms on our planet. Modern society's "evolution" was paved by speciesism and anthropocentrism. In the ancient Greco-Roman tradition, some philosophers expressed their vision of the world without bestowing a superior position on humans. These ancient philosophers—Pythagoras, Seneca,

and Porphyry among others—conceived men within a "web of life," shared by all live beings. Had the Western humanity followed Pythagoras' ethical conception, the tyranny that has been established ever since, to the present day, regarding other live beings would not have found its place morally in the cultural upbringing. However, "our moral format endorses the Aristotelic, anthropocentric, and hierarchic concept, typical of the slavocratic rationale" [26]. In the Western cultural upbringing, the Aristotelic conception has been taught by the anthropocentric pedagogy.

observer"; live beings live like autopoietic systems "in a systemic molecular dynamic that continuously produces its self." The primitive condition for mankind to exist followed the line *Homo sapiens-amans amans*, a condition where shared well-being relationships prevailed. This is "the founding and fundamental line in our evolutionary history, and it is still predominates in our biological-cultural present," coexisting with the *Homo sapiens-amans agressans* and *Homo sapiens-amans arrogans* trends. So, contrary to what positivist, liberal and Marxist fundamental theories say, "we, human beings, are loving mammals, bipedal primates belonging to a culturally evolutionary history centered in the Biology of Loving, coexisting in sharing and collaborating, not only in competing or attacking," since "if our biological basis were not amatory, if the human baby were not born on the implicit confidence of bringing love within,

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The "Biology of Loving" may be the most controversial among Maturana's theories and also the most liberating them. It is through this theoretical point of view that Maturana and his research partners refute the idea that "competition" is an essential component of life. The "biology of loving" is a vital component of the biological structure of live beings, since every live being is born in a natural or cultural environment that requires loving care and the acceptance of coexisting with other live beings. In the human beings' realm, "love, or, if such an intense word is undesirable, **the acceptance of the other together with us** [our emphasis here] in coexistence, is the biological basis of the social phenomenon." Without love and without the acceptance of the other with us, the authors point out, "there is no socialization, and without it there is no humanity." For this reason, "anything that voids or constrains acceptance from the other, from competition to ownership of the truth, to ideological certainty, voids or constrains the occurrence of the social phenomenon." Thus "it also voids the human being, as it eliminates the biological process that makes it exist." Maturana and Varela (p. 268–269) make it clear that they have no intent of moralizing, much less making an apology to love. Their intent is to demonstrate "the fact that, biologically, without love, without acceptance of the other, there is no social phenomenon"; and that "if coexistence so survives, life is hypocritical in indifference or active denial" [28]. What educational paradigm do Maturana's theories suggest? An education based on the principles of acceptance and respect to ourselves and others, living and coexisting in a way to build knowledge, developing life and the world. This calls for rethinking the school curriculum idea, the way to conceive mistakes and the role of reassessment, the relationship between teachers, students, and school managers, consciously integrated to our respective communities for good living and to "compete" for a job in the

Rolando Toro (1924–2010) developed his theory from dancing activities with patients in the Santiago Psychiatric Hospital, in Chile, while he was a professor at the Medical Anthropology study center in the School of Medicine of the University of Chile in 1965. Initially, the therapy was defined as psychodance, and a decade later, Toro attempted to transcend the anthropocentric vision toward a biocentric vision, creating an epistemological framework for the "biocentric education" paradigm, which began to widespread in the 1980s. Toro [30] defines the biocentric principle as the way of feeling and thinking in the existential living and coexisting of live beings. His epistemological assumption is the idea that "the universe exists because there is life"; and that all components of the universe, from the physical elements and live

the concern of one for the other's well-being would not be possible" [29].

marketplace.

Biocentric education, therefore, is a pedagogical proposal built from the criticism to eco-colonialist anthropocentrism. This is why we consider it relevant to introduce the theoretical contributions from two Chilean educators, biologist Humberto Maturana, creator of the *autopoiesis* theory and the *biology of knowledge*, in partnership with his former pupil Francisco Varela, theories developed since the 1960s; and the professor, psychologist, and poet Rolando Toro (1924–2010), creator of the Biodance Pedagogy, a theory also developed from the 1960s. The *autopoiesis* theory states and claims that live beings are biologically autonomous, i.e., they are self-sufficient in producing their own vital components while living and coexisting in interaction with their life ecosystem. In their research and philosophical interactions, Maturana and Varela [28] developed two other conceptual breakthroughs: the biology of knowledge and the biology of love (currently biology of loving). The first milestone in this new epistemological outlook is very simple: "life is a knowledge acquisition process," which is why knowledge is the condition for a live being to be alive, and the condition of living is the condition to be building a world that is in a permanent process of change.

Maturana and Varella undermine the modern rationale that became dominant since the West European Renaissance. These Chilean biologists challenge the idea that there is an "objective reality" independent from the beholder, a reality that supposedly could be known and manipulated. According to such rationale, Humberto Mariotti explains, "our brain passively receives finished information from outside," like data are fed to a computer. Thus, "when the way it occurs is scrutinized (i.e., by cognitive science), objectivity is privileged, and subjectivity is discarded as something that could compromise scientific accuracy." This way of seeing and getting to know the world is named representationsm, says Mariotti, and "its main tenet is that knowledge is a phenomenon based on the mental representations we make of the world." Therefore, "the mind would mirror nature" and "the world would contain information, our task being to extract it through cognition." In Maturana and Varela's theory, however, "the world does not precede our experience." According to the research and experiments carried out by the Chilean biologists, "our life path leads us to build our knowledge of the world – however it also builds its own knowledge about us." Therefore, "albeit we fail to notice it immediately, we are always influenced and modified by what we see and feel" [27].

Summarizing, the basic assumptions posed by Maturana and Varela are the following: *a priori*, there is no reality to be discovered or known, there is a world under construction in the condition of getting to know, living, and coexisting of live beings; "living is getting to know—living is an actual action in existing as a live being [28]"; and "Everything that is said, is said by one observer to another, which might be him or her self," i.e., "the observer is a live human being, and anything said about live beings or human beings, or generally organisms, applies to the observer"; live beings live like autopoietic systems "in a systemic molecular dynamic that continuously produces its self." The primitive condition for mankind to exist followed the line *Homo sapiens-amans amans*, a condition where shared well-being relationships prevailed. This is "the founding and fundamental line in our evolutionary history, and it is still predominates in our biological-cultural present," coexisting with the *Homo sapiens-amans agressans* and *Homo sapiens-amans arrogans* trends. So, contrary to what positivist, liberal and Marxist fundamental theories say, "we, human beings, are loving mammals, bipedal primates belonging to a culturally evolutionary history centered in the Biology of Loving, coexisting in sharing and collaborating, not only in competing or attacking," since "if our biological basis were not amatory, if the human baby were not born on the implicit confidence of bringing love within, the concern of one for the other's well-being would not be possible" [29].

and Porphyry among others—conceived men within a "web of life," shared by all live beings. Had the Western humanity followed Pythagoras' ethical conception, the tyranny that has been established ever since, to the present day, regarding other live beings would not have found its place morally in the cultural upbringing. However, "our moral format endorses the Aristotelic, anthropocentric, and hierarchic concept, typical of the slavocratic rationale" [26]. In the Western cultural upbringing, the Aristotelic conception has been taught by the

110 New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century - Contributions of Research in Education

Biocentric education, therefore, is a pedagogical proposal built from the criticism to eco-colonialist anthropocentrism. This is why we consider it relevant to introduce the theoretical contributions from two Chilean educators, biologist Humberto Maturana, creator of the *autopoiesis* theory and the *biology of knowledge*, in partnership with his former pupil Francisco Varela, theories developed since the 1960s; and the professor, psychologist, and poet Rolando Toro (1924–2010), creator of the Biodance Pedagogy, a theory also developed from the 1960s. The *autopoiesis* theory states and claims that live beings are biologically autonomous, i.e., they are self-sufficient in producing their own vital components while living and coexisting in interaction with their life ecosystem. In their research and philosophical interactions, Maturana and Varela [28] developed two other conceptual breakthroughs: the biology of knowledge and the biology of love (currently biology of loving). The first milestone in this new epistemological outlook is very simple: "life is a knowledge acquisition process," which is why knowledge is the condition for a live being to be alive, and the condition of living is the condition to be building a world that is in a permanent process

Maturana and Varella undermine the modern rationale that became dominant since the West European Renaissance. These Chilean biologists challenge the idea that there is an "objective reality" independent from the beholder, a reality that supposedly could be known and manipulated. According to such rationale, Humberto Mariotti explains, "our brain passively receives finished information from outside," like data are fed to a computer. Thus, "when the way it occurs is scrutinized (i.e., by cognitive science), objectivity is privileged, and subjectivity is discarded as something that could compromise scientific accuracy." This way of seeing and getting to know the world is named representationsm, says Mariotti, and "its main tenet is that knowledge is a phenomenon based on the mental representations we make of the world." Therefore, "the mind would mirror nature" and "the world would contain information, our task being to extract it through cognition." In Maturana and Varela's theory, however, "the world does not precede our experience." According to the research and experiments carried out by the Chilean biologists, "our life path leads us to build our knowledge of the world – however it also builds its own knowledge about us." Therefore, "albeit we fail to notice it immediately, we are always influenced and modified by what we see and feel" [27].

Summarizing, the basic assumptions posed by Maturana and Varela are the following: *a priori*, there is no reality to be discovered or known, there is a world under construction in the condition of getting to know, living, and coexisting of live beings; "living is getting to know—living is an actual action in existing as a live being [28]"; and "Everything that is said, is said by one observer to another, which might be him or her self," i.e., "the observer is a live human being, and anything said about live beings or human beings, or generally organisms, applies to the

anthropocentric pedagogy.

of change.

The "Biology of Loving" may be the most controversial among Maturana's theories and also the most liberating them. It is through this theoretical point of view that Maturana and his research partners refute the idea that "competition" is an essential component of life. The "biology of loving" is a vital component of the biological structure of live beings, since every live being is born in a natural or cultural environment that requires loving care and the acceptance of coexisting with other live beings. In the human beings' realm, "love, or, if such an intense word is undesirable, **the acceptance of the other together with us** [our emphasis here] in coexistence, is the biological basis of the social phenomenon." Without love and without the acceptance of the other with us, the authors point out, "there is no socialization, and without it there is no humanity." For this reason, "anything that voids or constrains acceptance from the other, from competition to ownership of the truth, to ideological certainty, voids or constrains the occurrence of the social phenomenon." Thus "it also voids the human being, as it eliminates the biological process that makes it exist." Maturana and Varela (p. 268–269) make it clear that they have no intent of moralizing, much less making an apology to love. Their intent is to demonstrate "the fact that, biologically, without love, without acceptance of the other, there is no social phenomenon"; and that "if coexistence so survives, life is hypocritical in indifference or active denial" [28]. What educational paradigm do Maturana's theories suggest? An education based on the principles of acceptance and respect to ourselves and others, living and coexisting in a way to build knowledge, developing life and the world. This calls for rethinking the school curriculum idea, the way to conceive mistakes and the role of reassessment, the relationship between teachers, students, and school managers, consciously integrated to our respective communities for good living and to "compete" for a job in the marketplace.

Rolando Toro (1924–2010) developed his theory from dancing activities with patients in the Santiago Psychiatric Hospital, in Chile, while he was a professor at the Medical Anthropology study center in the School of Medicine of the University of Chile in 1965. Initially, the therapy was defined as psychodance, and a decade later, Toro attempted to transcend the anthropocentric vision toward a biocentric vision, creating an epistemological framework for the "biocentric education" paradigm, which began to widespread in the 1980s. Toro [30] defines the biocentric principle as the way of feeling and thinking in the existential living and coexisting of live beings. His epistemological assumption is the idea that "the universe exists because there is life"; and that all components of the universe, from the physical elements and live beings, are part of a larger living system that gets organized to generate life. For the Chilean educator, education is the darkest expression of the crisis of Euro-Western civilization:

body may teach what a spirit without a body doesn't know: the grandeur and beauty of the act when man is not apart from his self, but wholly present in what he does"; it is through the dance of life that a man develops his admiration for the sea, the clouds, the fire, or for love, because "love, like dance, preceded man in blossoming," since "among insects, birds, and many other species, dance is part of the love act." For this reason, "dance is not merely the expression and celebration of the organic continuity between man and nature; it is also an

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Overall, we found that Latin America reached the end of the twentieth century having accomplished a significant part of the educational ideals proposed and claimed by the generation of educators born and graduated in the first half of that same century. All countries implemented a national public education system "for all." Literacy includes the wide majority of the population. Elementary education has become an obligation of the family and a duty of the state. There are school buildings implemented in all regions, cities, and small villages. Each country has developed its university-level teacher qualification policy. New universities came up, as well as a new breed of educators-researchers. Science and scientific knowledge have been absorbed by the school culture. "Liberal democracy" has become the dominant (and practically only) paradigm of a State, with the exception of Cuba and occasional "Coup" attempts, which are still a political practice fostered and validated by conservative sections of

Many conquests and few victories—The metrics of violence against the poor, Afrodescendant, and indigenous populations are ingrained in what is known as the "banality of evil." Social disparity between the rich and the poor is shamefully staggering. The national educational system has made significant improvements to the living conditions of many families; however, it is a bureaucratic system that perpetuates the "banking education" rationale and develops a schooled population deprived of intellectual autonomy and critical thinking, as intended by the educators who dreamed about and believed in the transforming role of modern education. Elementary school teachers' working conditions and compensation are still in indigenous and

From either left or right, Latin America has adopted the developmentalist model from the West European modernity. The educational system and professional training for teachers were both adjusted to match this model. The inter-ethnical plurality of national States only began to be acknowledged in fact during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Some states dignified the rights of their autochthonous people; however, in most, their situation

Eurocentrism still dominates the curricular structure of national education systems at all levels. Most scientists and educators in Latin America have not yet noticed or acknowledged the effects of the epistemological domain of Eurocentrism in its way of seeing "problems" and "solutions" for Latin America. However, a new generation of educators has undertaken the

accomplishment of the living community of men" [31].

Latin-American countries and imperialistic Northern governments.

demotivating situation in most countries.

entails hostility, violence, and exclusion.

**6. Final thoughts**


Rolando Toro mentions 15 assumptions of the biocentric theory, including the following: biodance is oriented by "an ecological concept of human and cosmic relationships"; biodance postulates a prophylactic action that transcends the borders of conventional therapy, attempting to prevent diseases to manifest; it postulates a community-centered social change system and not client focused; biodance is a theory based on Human Sciences (Anthropology, Etiology, Biology, Medicine, Psychology, and Sociology), and "does not stem from any special ideological, religious, or psychological system"; "biodance is an evolutionary—not revolutionary—system" [30].

Why biodance? Rolando Toro was born in the territory that, before 1492, was occupied by a wide diversity of indigenous people having (and they still have) dance as an existential practice to connect with the natural and spiritual world. Furthermore, Toro lived through the crisis of social, political, and epistemological paradigms that would get expressed in a more striking manner in the rebellions of youngsters, in several countries through the 1960s, against the materialistic, destructive, and consumerist rationale of West European modernity; a rationale that fosters competition, war, and deaths. Biodance theory is hence a theory aspiring to promote life and the peaceful and respectful coexistence of humans and nonhumans alike; it is an approach proposing a new educational/upbringing paradigm for subjects that are capable of feeling, coexisting, and connecting to the life beings community, be it at local level or in any other living environment in the universe; it is a systemic and holistic vision of the world, based on a dialogical interaction between the tradition, wisdom, and knowledge produced by contemporary science.

Rolando Toro says that the "biodance" concept gets close to the idea of *Dancing Your Life*, from the French philosopher Roger Garaudy, who expressed his dance philosophy as one of the vital components of live beings, humans included; to live and interact with nature dancing for life. Dance, according to Garaudy, "is a complete way of living the world; it is knowledge, art, and religion, all at once." So dance "shows us that what is sacred is carnal as well, and the

body may teach what a spirit without a body doesn't know: the grandeur and beauty of the act when man is not apart from his self, but wholly present in what he does"; it is through the dance of life that a man develops his admiration for the sea, the clouds, the fire, or for love, because "love, like dance, preceded man in blossoming," since "among insects, birds, and many other species, dance is part of the love act." For this reason, "dance is not merely the expression and celebration of the organic continuity between man and nature; it is also an accomplishment of the living community of men" [31].
