Embodying Earth: A Case Study in Blurring the Boundaries of the Classroom
Participants gather in Núi Tượng, Vietnam, for a moment of shared reflection and connection as part of Embodying Earth.
In a small rural village in Núi Tượng, Vietnam, something remarkable unfolds. Thirty young people from twelve countries gather in July at a riverside community center for Embodying Earth: Leadership for a Regenerative Future. And for the nine days that follow, they will explore a different way of learning — one not confined by classrooms or textbooks, but rooted in community, ecology, and personal transformation.
This innovative collaboration was led by Sam Jeong through his organization Education for Good, designed with the vision of experiential educator Will Shan, and supported by Inspire Citizens’ own Ivy Yan as a co-facilitator along with three other co-facilitators and one additional course coordinator. Together, the trio invited participants to step into an experience where the boundaries between human and nature, teacher and student, personal and collective, blurred into something new.
Origins: A Call Toward Ecocentric Learning
For Will, the seeds of this work were planted long ago. “I realized I wanted my work to be in service of more than just human beings,” he reflects. ‘I envisioned something ecocentric, in service of planetary healing.”
With four days of online-preparation ahead of a nine-day immersive experience, Embodying Earth sought to answer the question: "What lies at the root of the ecological crisis and how can we be of service?"
For Sam, the journey was deeply personal. Having lived between cultures and faced his own struggles with belonging and identity, he felt a profound sense of gratitude to the community in Vietnam that had uplifted him during a challenging time. His vision was to create opportunities for young people to experience belonging, healing, and transformation.
And for Ivy, the program echoed her formative time at Schumacher College, where she experienced learning that connected human identity to the wider web of life: “Once I woke up to it, I couldn’t unsee it,” she recalls. “Education, for me, became a way to give back — through community-based, earth-based experiences that expand hearts and consciousness.”
Participants, Not Students
One of the first shifts in Embodying Earth was language. Rather than “students,” the young people were called participants. Facilitators, too, were learners. The hierarchy dissolved.
Council of All Beings. One Vietnamese student chose to speak on behalf of bamboo, an important local plant and national symbol.
There were no slides and no rigid lectures. Instead, days unfolded with mindfulness practices, storytelling, ecological exploration, and creative expression. Activities like the Council of All Beings asked participants to speak on behalf of trees, rivers, or amphibians — giving voice to the more-than-human world.
At times, nature itself became the teacher. When heavy rains drowned out instructions, the group simply observed the trees and water, noticing how beings responded to one another. Even the mosquitoes offered their lessons.
As Ivy recalls, “All beings are teaching with us. That recognition lifted the pressure from facilitators. Learning was everywhere, if we only remembered to see it.”
The Power of Remembering
Perhaps the most moving reflections came from the participants themselves: “I applied to the course looking for an answer,” reflects Laurie, a teenage participant. “Instead, I received so much more than I ever imagined… things I didn’t even know I needed.”
Brother Tenzin led a mindful walk during a “day of mindfulness”
In carefully crafted words, Tony, also a participant, reflects, “I remembered that I am nature… that grief and joy can dance together, that a forest can become a family. Sometimes the most powerful way to change the world is simply to love it fiercely.”
The emphasis was not on adding more knowledge, but on remembering what is already known: connection, care, and belonging. As one of the guest facilitators, Buddhist monk and rainforest ecologist Brother Tenzin, reminded the group, “Mindfulness simply means to remember.”
Wisdom… and an Invitation for Educators
While Embodying Earth was a youth short course, its lessons ripple outward to all educators:
Sam’s wisdom: Trust the process. “You don’t need to know the way, because the way knows the way.”
Will’s wisdom: Relationships are the learning. “Don’t let school get in the way of education. Learning is life.”
Ivy’s wisdom: Education is remembering. “We invite all beings — people, trees, rivers — to be our teachers.”
For international educators, this is an invitation to reimagine what’s possible as we move into the 2025/2026 school year and beyond. Perhaps it is possible to move beyond the walls of the classroom, to design learning experiences that honor both human and more-than-human life, and to embrace education as a space of transformation.
Ripples of Change
At the close of the program, one participant handed Ivy a leaf with three simple words written on it: “You are beautiful.” She still carries it with her.
The full Embodying Earth cohort and team
This gesture captures the essence of Embodying Earth. Education, at its best, reminds us of our inherent worth, our connection to one another, and our responsibility to the planet that sustains us. Those who give their lives to the task of raising our next generation see their rewards in the hearts and actions of the youth we encounter.
Sam likens the experience of creating the course to observing strands of cotton candy spun one after another. These small acts — a conversation, a song, a circle of belonging — weave together into something more tangible than any one strand. And just as importantly, we are urged, as educators, to ask: How might we blur the boundaries of our own classrooms, to invite community, nature, and spirit as co-teachers, and to nurture spaces of educational transformation?
Hear students describe the impact of their experiences in this video