Learning by walking: non-formal education as curatorial practice and intervention in public space

Abstract

This case study focuses on Walking Home Carrall Street, a series of walks with youth that took place in the autumn of 2010 on and around Carrall Street in Vancouver, BC. Through participant observations, interviews and analysis of the written reviews submitted by the youth, the purpose of the study is not to provide generalisable insights, but rather to discern with which category or categories of educational programmes it may share certain features. The central question guiding the study, therefore, was: How might Walking Home Carrall Street best be characterised as an educational programme? By drawing out connections to educational, philosophical and geographical literature, I discuss obvious features explicitly mentioned by the programme’s organisers, such as its nonformal and experiential character, as well as less obvious ones, such as the ways in which the programme constitutes an intervention in public space and the ways in which it offers youth opportunities to manifest their intelligence. I also discuss curricular features, such as the deliberate use rather than avoidance of repetition and the relevance of emergent and unplanned curriculum.