WONDER AND (RE)ATTUNING TO THE 'MORE THAN' OF EVERYDAY LIFE
What if regeneration in education involved not only learning something new, but also noticing and responding to the same world differently? Educational experiences often entrain us to attend in particular ways while other ways of sensing, feeling, and responding quietly recede from the foreground of awareness. This interactive seminar begins with the possibility that these capacities have not disappeared but remain subtly available, waiting to be noticed, trusted, and followed once again. Wonder is introduced as different from curiosity and more than a motivational teaching strategy: it is conceptualized here as a quality of pedagogical and methodological attention through which the relational and still-becoming dimensions of everyday life can become newly perceptible.
Through a series of simple experiential practices beginning in participants' immediate surroundings, we will explore how ordinary moments can reveal unexpected depth, relationality, and the "more than" they already carry. Drawing on process-relational philosophy, educational research, and more-than-human perspectives, participants will be invited to linger with the affective, the transitional, and the easily overlooked dimensions of experience where new ways of sensing, relating, and responding may already be stirring. This session does not offer a fixed method; it invites participants to experiment with practices that can be adapted to educational, research, and community contexts. Together, we will consider how noticing, trusting, and responding to these subtle yet vital dimensions of everyday life might contribute to regenerative educational practices rooted in responsiveness, relationality, and care.
Keywords
Wonder, attention, experience, affect
Registration
The REGEN|ED Seminar Series (organized by the REGEN|ED research environment at NMD) brings together educators, researchers, practitioners, students, and community members interested in regenerative education, sustainability, and social-ecological transformation. We warmly welcome anyone curious about these questions to join us in a spirit of curiosity, engagement, and reciprocity as we learn with and from one another across diverse disciplines, contexts, and perspectives.
Registration for the REGEN|ED Seminar Series 2026/2027 is now open, and you can sign up here: Registration REGEN|ED Seminar Series 2026/2027
Christie C. Byers
Adjunct Professor of Teacher Education, College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University, Takoma Park, Maryland, USA