Andreea Gâtman

Host University: Vanderbilt University – Peabody College
Field: Educational Administration, Planning and Policy

How Space Makes Learning Possible

The Humphrey Fellowship at Vanderbilt University – seen as a process of conveying messages, new ways, people, and spaces of learning where sensing the future is possible.
What made the transition to the host context easy? Instinctively, I always answer: the trees. The university is an Arboretum, and the city, along with the many different state parks throughout neighboring states, is part of the Appalachian Region. It is sometimes unimaginable to fully grasp all that was experienced during the 10-month fellowship. To understand the process of being changed by different events and happenings, one needs to adopt a more “kairos” approach to time, as a purely chronological approach will not do it justice.

Learning by Doing: Trust and Engagement

As part of a professional fellowship, I knew I was approaching “learning by doing” —applying, trying, and iterating, rather than passively receiving pre-packaged knowledge and simply copying it to the European and Romanian context. My Professional Affiliation for four months at Wond’ry (Vanderbilt’s Center for Innovation), working with Jackie Hansom, Program Coordinator for Social Innovation, offered the opportunity to engage with the local community of students, professors, and community partners, building on student-led initiatives and their agency. Additionally, the Learning, Diversity, and Urban Studies Program, coordinated by Prof. Christina da Silva, along with the community of students and teachers, provided another platform for expanding my ability to interact with and support local action.

Experience Based Learning

My family, including my two daughters aged 11 and 14, and my partner, were part of an accelerated process of understanding the changes needed at both professional and human levels in education to bridge different realities, so we can all move collectively towards our vision of what education and 21st-century work should look like. We visited and met educators, researchers, social activists, climate justice facilitators, “Coolness and American Identity” professors, farmers, and community builders from 14 different states, often while camping. What helped us in these 10 months, which felt like years of experience and worlds visited? A safe closeness to nature and a genuine sense of curiosity.

Planting Seeds of Local Action with Global Support – Future Seeds

We are working on a project from Vanderbilt University’s outreach STEM lab for high school students, under the inspiration of Prof. Chris Vanags, who, through many dialogues, walks, and meetings, extended ideas that will support a sensing (STEAM) network for students from different cultures and systems to practice critical thinking about the problems around them.
Last but not least, my friend and dear researcher and ecology expert, Dr. Carol Williams from Wisconsin University, opened to us her amazing woodland farm in Kentucky. There, we reflected and got as specific as possible with the next generation of programs to support teachers and students learning during climate change. Special thanks to Susan Williams, Librarian/Archivist at the Septima Clark Learning Center at Highlander Higher Ed, who generously opened this 90-year-old higher education center focused on peace curriculum through social and climate justice to our visiting group, letting us dream that it is possible. As a prototype from the Humphrey Fellowship, the work is part of Oddience2030, a project in its first year financed by Erasmus Funds, involving high schools from India, France, Finland, Portugal, and Romania.