Background

Growing up in diverse cultural settings, Emma was always observing and reflecting on the world around her.

She often struggled with traditional learning methods, especially those based on repetition and memorization, which felt too static and one-dimensional. Inspired by the ideas of Maria Montessori, as well as insights from anthropologists, educators, and psychologists, Emma realized that true learning isn’t just about facts — it’s also about emotions and self-reflection.

This understanding became the driving force behind her Action Project, Othering Ourselves, where she works to bring emotional intelligence and decolonial frameworks into educational practices. Drawing on cultural anthropology, Emma also undertakes a personal reflection on her own positionality while creating this action project.

“We can better understand others through understanding and being empathetic to ourselves and our own emotions.”

Approach and Methodology

Emma’s project Othering Ourselves invites educators to rethink what they teach — and reflect on what often gets left out. This helps them tackle complex social and global issues with their students, whilst building toward more inclusive, connected classrooms. 

Through workshops rooted in care, collaboration, and open dialogue, teachers explore how their perspectives are shaped. Participants expressed that the workshop helped them reflect on how their own biases and positions of power influence their interactions with students and the learning environment they create.

Impact

Emma first tested the Othering Ourselves workshop in December 2024 with 40 teachers from across Europe at a conference in Madeira, using their feedback to refine her approach. In April 2025, she shared her methodology with 20 researchers at the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam. 

The workshops focused on how emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and bias shape the way we create knowledge. Most attendees shared that the workshop helped them recognize their own biases and the ways their positions of power influence their teaching, integrating emotionally aware academic practices.

New Steps

Looking ahead, Othering Ourselves will focus on the following goals. First, creating visual materials to express the emotional depth of the workshop, emphasizing the role of art in decolonial learning. Second, reaching out to schools, cultural institutions, and grassroots organizations to adapt the workshop to diverse educational settings. Third, sharing outcomes through visual, written, audio, and musical content to broaden its reach and invite ongoing public reflection.