Bio

Trainer, educator, advisor and international speaker, Heike Freire has been giving lectures and workshops all over the world for more than twenty years. Her research on the relationship between health, well-being and learning in nature has made her a world reference in the field of Green Pedagogy, an educational approach that has been developed since the 1990s, reflected in hundreds of articles, as well as two works: Green Education. Ideas to bring children close to nature (Graó, 2011) translated into six languages, and Be quiet and pay attention! Healthier environments to prevent attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (Herder, 2017). With her extensive knowledge, experience and human warmth, Heike accompanies educators, families, professionals, schools and organizations in their process of renaturalization.

Graduated in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Paris X (Nanterre), she has been advisor of the French government, from the Institute of Lifelong Learning in Paris, together with former collaborators of Ivan Illich and Paolo Freire.

Expert in childhood and educational innovation, she is also a journalist and writer. She has edited the magazines Cuadernos de Pedagogía (Wolters Kluwer) and Mente Sana (RBA). She has also coordinated the collective work Infancia y adolescència (Wolters Kluwer, 2012) and currently has two new titles in the press: Bienestar, buentrato y democracia and Patios vivos: una oportunidad para renaturalizar la escuela, both published by Octaedro.

Her commitment to happiness and the full development of the potential of children and young people has led her to become involved as an activist for children’s rights, in particular to defend their right to manage themselves and to be outdoors.

Project

Green pedagogy as an educational approach. Green pedagogy places the connection with nature “outside” and “inside” the human being, at the centre of his/her reflection and practice. It offers a theoretical framework as well as strategies and concrete tools to accompany the development and learning of children outdoors, in living spaces, taking into account their nature. From a holistic approach, serving the authentic needs of learners, educators, mothers and fathers, and integrates the different aspects or “windows” of the human being: sensation, emotion, intuition, imagination, memory and thought.

A proposal for a radical change in the way education is understood, aimed at provoking a transformation in the structure of individual and social consciousness, of the human being, which allows us to move from a “I” (or “we”) separated from the environment, to an authentic ecological conscience.