Tracing the Past to Imagine the Future Rediscovering Da Vinci’s Principles through Intechgrative Learning
Colette Mazzucelli
In the early 21st century, learning is increasingly configured by technology. The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) creates new ethical challenges as well as creative opportunities to imbue course design with scenarios that foster critical thinking and strategic forecasting. The goal of Burton’s “provention” to focus on systemic, institutional, and policy-level changes, thereby removing sources of conflict before they arise, is more relevant than ever.
Reflections on priorities in transnational and global affairs lead educators to concentrate our attention by identifying a focal task, namely, to address migration, involuntary and voluntary, of peoples across state borders. The process of acquiring knowledge from pre-school to graduate education to lifelong learning is undergoing a profound transformation. This reality motivates learners to envisage tracing the past for inspiration to fulfill a moral imperative that utilizes “thinking with no box” to imagine society’s future.
Learning that is intechgrative, a term coined by Mazzucelli, embraces all forms of technological ingenuity. This experience underlines practical ways to invent novel approaches that rely on empathy to grasp local needs, particularly those basic human needs of the most vulnerable in society from whom there is much to glean in our everyday lives. In this context, we recognize a fundamental shift towards messages and models of hope to transform education together with learners in the developing world.
We recognize teachers in the Global South who speak the languages of the peoples rooted there. Intechgrative learning has at its core to break a conspiracy of silence that denies voice to the local in favor of a colonized education that prolongs dependency and inhibits liberation. The pedagogy that speaks to intechgrative learning is Freirean in nature. Its starting point is the life experiences of the learner, which animate dialogue and discussion to solve problems critically at their point of origin.
The essence of Paolo Freire’s philosophy to empower students as they become change agents on their native soil is the bridge in the present to connect tracing the past to imagining the future. In this context, we must ask what it means to teach for survival. This skill is as meaningful for those learners whose definition of cerebral sovereignty is local as for those climate refugees who, in the face of natural disasters, must flee in search of safety.
In either scenario, one guiding principle underscores the intechgrative learning experience. This principle is articulated most effectively and efficiently as follows. “Very early on, I had the instinct, which became my rule of conduct, that reflection cannot be separated from action” – a sentence that articulates the essence of Jean Monnet’s vision of integration traced to its applications in postwar Europe and imagined as still relevant to the world of tomorrow.
Such an approach, which relies on creative pragmatism as well as purposeful determination, translates the Freirean concept of praxis. For those educators who aspire to create bridges in time from tracing to imagining as well as space from Global South to Deconstructed North, rediscovering the principles that embody da Vinci’s philosophy of life may prove instructive as a guide to intechgrative learning.
The most fundamental principle is curiosità, which translates intellectually and culturally as “an insatiable curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.” In the intechgrative experience, the impulse to search for concepts that spark innovative actions is ever present. A corollary to curiosity is in the motivation to experiment, which may be understood as dimonstrazione or “a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.” Intechgrative learning encourages the experience of trial and error guided by the idea that one may learn more from one’s failures than continuous success over time. The key principle to personal development in the intechgrative space is sfumato, which in translation means “literally ‘going up in smoke,’ a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.” The impact of AI on learning in daily life as this century evolves is yet to be fully grasped, which leaves space for those learners who are eager and ready to venture into the unknown and to apply the knowledge they acquire in specific contexts, which are complex and contradictory at times.
A fourth principle, known as arte/scienza, encourages “the development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination, ‘whole brain’ thinking.” This principle speaks to the reliance in intechgrative learning on an interdisciplinary approach, which challenges silos that separate fields of study in traditional academic environments. A fifth principle that we may reference in intechgrative learning is connessione, which translates into “a recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena, systems thinking.” This awareness speaks to an accelerating connectivity, which the integration of AI has the potential to introduce into daily life across the world depending on the developments in network infrastructure within specific areas. Once again, there is a call for local attention to be focused on bridging significant gaps in the communications architecture, thereby avoiding disparities in access to AI that may hinder expanded possibilities in learning for billions of peoples in developing countries. This call reinforces the fundamental idea in education, introduced by Mazzucelli in the UN Chronicle at the start of the millennium, of “freedom from exclusion” as a human right.[i]
Intechgrative learning ushers in new pathways for students of all ages to discover and to actualize, in the Aristotelian tradition, their potential as agents of change who aspire to make a difference in the world. The planet, our common home, faces unprecedented challenges of climate, conflict, and cooperation, which urge citizens to cultivate a creative consciousness. Tracing the past to begin developing qualities of engaged citizenship relies on observational skills. Educators think critically about possibilities to imagine the future in ways that address resource disparities. At its core, intechgrative learning is a direct experience that aims to address systemic inequality.
[i] Colette Mazzucelli, “Education and the Freedom from Exclusion,” UN Chronicle, No. 2, 2001, pp. 47-50.; Colette Mazzucelli and A. Nicholas Fargnoli, “Ethics and International Relations in Today’s Classrooms without Borders,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/explore-engage/classroom-resources/ethics-101/0004.