Paper short abstract:

This paper shares experiences of alternative learning methods. specifically details a module recently offered to level 4 anthropology students It evaluates the worth of rejecting lectures in favour of experiential learning that enables students to discover what it means to be human through doing.

Paper long abstract:

This paper details the experiences of teaching an anthropology class that supported students to be influenced and led by the materials they were engaging with. Entitled 'Interactions with the Environment', the class was grounded in the growing literature that can loosely be called 'materialities' theories - ideas that call to give materials a voice in a bid to dethrone the human. Taking an approach that assumes being human, at root, emerges as a result of interacting substances, the students were given time in the Lab to engage with a series of substances. Students were asked to 'hear' the substances and were afforded time to become-with water, clay, paint, soap, light, wind, plastic and so on in a bid to experience what it means to be human specifically through interacting with these substances.

Many events were student-led and all were interactive. Student evaluation and performance in other classes indicated that moving away from the classroom and into spontaneous 'life-experiments' may hold great value for anthropology.