The education of senses: a experiental journey
“Admittedly there are other ways of making the world’s acquaintance.
But the traveller is a slave to his senses;
his grasp of a fact can only be complete
when reinforced by sensory evidence;
he can know the world, in fact, only when he sees, hears, and smells it.”
First Russia, Then Tibet
(A Rich Personal Evocation of Russia, India and Tibet in the 1930s) – Robert Byron
What if someone taught us, through structured but simple lessons, to manage our senses in everyday life?
Like we are going to learn a new language, one word at a time, one sentence at a time, and then get to a fluent speech .. so we will have to approach the senses and educate them from childhood.
There have been, and still are, some interesting projects that mix school education with sensory education.
Sometimes they are taken from the teaching of Maria Montessori who put (puts) the child at the center of the world, involving him in respect of his needs: in this perspective, the first form of learning develops through the five senses – touch, sight , hearing, smell and taste. They are part of educational projects that go from kindergarten to primary school.
And then?
I always focus on taste and smell: I have previously explained that touch, sight and hearing are always active senses.
Smell and Taste are called chemical senses, because the environmental stimuli that affect them are chemical molecules: they come into action when they perceive a stimulus that should attract or alarm us.
How can we educate them or recover them in adulthood to make us live the fullness of this wonderful sensory experiential journey?