Abstract
In this chapter, we posit the thesis that learning is not just in the head or in social-cultural contexts, but very much also in the body. In this sense, the adaptivity in the body as it struggles to reconcile to the mind and the social others surrounding the individual. While bodily adaptations can be connoted to habits, we recognise that these individual dispositions are intricately woven with the social habitus. We describe and discuss how learning is a struggling process towards stability based on expectations in performance. Through this struggling process, habits of bodily sensing are developed, beliefs, and values are formed based on experience in doing and thinking, and these, in turn, are influenced by the social habitus. As this coupling relationship between individual habits and social habitus is co-evolving, disequilibrium or some form of struggling is necessary before reaching stability – both cognitively and bodily. Hence learning is not always fun. We use sports activities within schools contexts as cases because they are rich in cognitive and bodily actions at both the individuals and social levels.
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Hung, D., Shaari, I., Lee, D., Lee, SS. (2014). Developing a Habitude: When Learning Isn’t Always Fun. In: Hung, D., Lim, K., Lee, SS. (eds) Adaptivity as a Transformative Disposition. Education Innovation Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-17-7_7
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