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Z Academy for Boomers: A Project on Inverted Education for Mental Health and Eco-Social Justice in Vallecas (ES) and San Siro (IT)
Published: February 7, 2025
The Escuelita para Boomers is an initiative focused on inverted education, aiming to foster awareness of eco-social justice and mental health. It provides learning tools and methodologies for those working with young people and offers strategies to empower adolescents in addressing contemporary issues.
This pedagogical project transforms traditional learning approaches through community-based workshops that integrate artistic education and other disciplines. The goal is to understand how young people confront the eco-social crisis and how they can be supported more consciously.
A key feature of Escuelita para Boomers is the reversal of the teacher-student roles. Here, adolescents define the content and methodologies that adults will follow, thus shaping the academic curriculum. The program is structured in two phases:
- A group of adolescent volunteers, supported by a mediation team, designs an educational program for adults.
- Adults (educators and youth workers) participate in the program created by the adolescents.
The first edition, held in 2024, explored how young people reflect on climate change and the existential anxiety or displacement caused by the eco-social crisis. Conducted in public schools in Spain and Italy, teenagers from Puente de Vallecas (Madrid) and San Siro (Milan) created an educational program for adults, using art and culture as tools to analyze and address these urgent topics.
This publication presents the Escuelita para Boomers project, offering methodological tools derived from work with adolescents. It includes the educational programs they developed and the tarot and shelter-design devices created by the participants. Additionally, it features contributions from workshop facilitators—artists, researchers, educators, and activists—who specialize in cultural mediation through artistic practice. They have shared their experiences to activate key themes of the program.
Key Resources Available in the Publication:
Pedagogical Tools:
- This Tarot is an Escuelita para Boomers – A pedagogical resource by Locus*
- Futuro era ora! #3 – A discussion between KinLab, Locus*, and Hamaca on intergenerational inverted education
Texts on Artistic Mediation and Education:
- Speculative Fictions, Random Images, Dialectical Assemblages: A Tarot for This End of the World – By Pablo Martínez
- Anant, que venen donant – By Clara López (Mesa Camilla)
- When the River Sounds, It’s Because Stones Are Moving – By Lucía Egaña Rojas
- Navigating the Virus – By Desmusea (Clara Harguindey & Daniel Pecharromán)
- Security/Glimmer – By Gad Yola
- Counter-Spells to Hack the Virus: Crazy Archives to Imagine Sensitive Futures – By Milagros Valerio Tello
- Poema del corpo esausto / Poema del cos exhaust – By students of Liceo Boccioni
Annexes:
- The Tarot: Printable Deck
- How to Build a Shelter: A User’s Manual
Publication Coordination and Contributors:
- Coordination & Editing: Hamaca
- Texts by: Hamaca, Locus (Ana CSC & Francesca Alessandro), KinLab/Landscape Choreography (Emanuele Braga, Zineb Massini), Pablo Martínez, Clara López, Lucía Egaña, Desmusea, Gad Yola, Milagros Valerio
- Translation: Nicole Copello
- Design & Layout: Diego Calvo Cubero
This publication is the outcome of the Z Academy for Boomers project, a collaboration between Hamaca and KinLab/Landscape Choreography.