Daniel Bryan: Re-Defining Education Through the Lens of Pachaysana
“We have to get away from this idea of objectifying learning, of externalizing everything and feeling as if you learn about a mountain, you learn about a river, you learn about climate change. We need to learn with the space we are in, but also to realize that leaves are not just leaves, these leaves are also representative of stories, of cycles”
—Daniel Bryan
Picture taken by Karen Kinslow at the fieldsite of her Cane Run Restoration Project in Kentucky.
From a young age we do our best to understand what we don’t know, as curiosity and our vulnerability to our environment pushes us to learn about ourselves and others. As we grow up, we are expected to follow an education system that objectifies learning. However everyones reality is different and complex, so our education should reflect these alternatives. We come to know ourselves through the spaces we share, and today, it is ever more important that our way of learning is in balance with Nature.
On the 27th of November, 2022, the Youth Visionary Collective (YVC) at Roots and Routes had the opportunity to meet Daniel Bryan, an educator, artist, and activist based in Ecuador. Daniel works in collaboration with Participatory Action Research as an active scholar-practitioner. He specializes in alternative ways of teaching, ones that are arts-based and promotes co-generating knowledge between communities. One of his techniques is participatory theater as a means of conflict transformation and education. Daniel is also the Executive Director of the educational organization Pachaysana:
“Pachaysana is a collective of people who are really trying to create new ways of doing education that respond to different realities, especially those polarized realities of the global and the local, and find ways to bring those together; basically creatively transform our world”
The word Pachaysana is two Kichwa words fused together—Pacha means world (Earth, or the continuum of time & pace) and Aysana means balance, and the term signifies a balanced world. Daniel describes Pachaysana as something that is more than an NGO. It is a collective of artists, activists, educators, and community organizers coming together to create new ways of crafting education. Their focus is to conceive an approach to teaching that applies to and considers multiple realities. Daniel epitomizes their mission as the complete and utter transformation of education in our world as we know it.
Daniel underlined his view of how our current education systems are colonial, extractive and exploitative. In wanting to transform this harmful way of learning, Daniel was led to Pachaysana, where he learned that education and development were akin. Pachaysana develops mediums of education that honors local knowledge while working alongside traditional Western academic rigor. Most of all, it makes known the importance of moving away from a colonial education and modes of development, while shifting the focus to education that promotes authentic community-based practices that are co-created.
There was a pivotal moment for Daniel that changed his perspective of learning towards being centered on the environment. He explains that for so long we have been learning about our environment instead of from it. By shifting this perception, we can adopt an alternative lens, one that embraces the intertwined knowledge of our Earth and its ancestral histories. He shares his experience of doing workshops at Ohio State University during fall. Because of the cold they could not go outside, so instead, he brought nature indoors, in the form of fallen leaves. This action signified an importance to learning from the space you are in, as Daniel puts it:
Daniel expressed his deep value for lifelong learning using the world around us as teachers, which he says is typically lost in the traditional education system. Despite being surrounded by life in Los Angeles, California, he did not get to engage with the systems of life there. He attended a high level arts school, where he noticed patterns of oppression in his education. In hopes of “breaking” the artist, the education system created a bubble from artists experiencing life. Daniel felt that the break from a local scene into a spot of fame would be at the cost of authenticity.
During our meeting Daniel reflected on his previous experiences with the Peace Corps, which he said was a formative experience. He remembers choosing to go to Ecuador because he was fascinated with the nation’s rich history, Indigenous traditions, dynamic cultures, and biological diversity. His time in the South American country brought him to new approaches of knowledge and learning, an experience he recounts fondly. This connection to nature and learning from the mountains, the waterfalls, and the streams gradually thrust him into the historical center of Quito, Ecuador.
It was there that he realized that the stories, the legends, the myths of Ecuador—so rich and so symbolically important— make way for the exploration of identity. Soon enough, with a nudge from acquaintances to start some theater and social change work with the youth in the historical center, Pachaysana’s collaboration with another NGO, Quito Eterno, was established. Daniel shared that “there is often a tendency of objectifying learning, of externalizing everything,” explaining that a greater focus on vulnerability can be of great importance in education, that it is not just about “who you learn from but even more importantly who you learn with.”
Daniel demystifies colonialism today, stating that history books, paintings, and museums help us understand colonialism, which is defined as the occupation of land and the subjugation of original peoples on that land. To understand practical implications within our social structure, he proposes the use of metaphors to symbolize its gravity. He advocates for the use of metaphors because they are tools for understanding the social dynamics and power relations that shape our modern society. He likens the problem of systemic injustices to breaking down walls. Hacking away at these walls, that we are perhaps too small or don’t have the knowledge to break down ourselves, is not the solution. Instead:
At the end of our discussion, the YVC felt inspired by Daniel’s words of wisdom and insight, especially because many of us are students ourselves. The conversation facilitated the space for us as young adults to reflect on our own perception of education, and what alternative routes can look like. Listening to Daniel speak about his work it was evident that he is passionate about his work and its mission. He challenged the audience to observe their positionality from a different context, one that values community and knowledge through a nontraditional lens. In sum, Daniel left the YVC pensive on what it means to live and contribute in a balanced world, or as we know it now, Pachaysana. So we present you with a similar final remark, what does it mean for you to live in a balanced world? And how can you contribute towards a more balanced world?