(Re)imagining Pedagogy:
The Cyborg Classroom Manifesto
Knowledge, Power, and orientation
In an age of information pollution,
where endless digital stimuli fragment attention rather than deepen knowledge,
we are practicing skills of curation by attending to knowledge with care, mindfulness, responsibility and intentionality in how we engage with information.
We hope to develop navigational skills by mapping possibilities in uncharted domains, creating stable orientation in uncertain domains.
The digital classroom is not merely a space for consumption,
but a site for critical exploration through information landscapes.
We seek not just access, but meaningful engagement.
Paradoxically, artificial intelligence can allow us to become more human,
more curious in our questioning, and more courageous in our journey,
by serving as both mirror and window - reflecting our own thinking back to us while opening views into new perspectives and ways of understanding.
Crossing Boundaries
We recognize the intersectional nature of our identities:
Languages intermingling (Arabic, Hebrew, English) that reflect our Jerusalem context, where we live and learn together across differences and similarities,
identities converging across digital and physical realms,
class positions that shape different relationships to educational access and technology,
socioeconomic realities that influence learning opportunities and digital literacy,
educational privileges and barriers that reflect broader social inequalities,
and neurodiversities (Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism and other cognitive variations) offering unique ways of learning and processing.
Embracing the Cyborg
Following Haraway, we embrace the cyborg as metaphor and reality—
not a transcendence of humanity, but an acknowledgment of our always-already technological existence.
For Haraway, hybridity means the breakdown of traditional boundaries: human/machine, nature/culture, self/other.
We are already cyborgs, intimately connected to our technological extensions, and this blurring of boundaries opens new possibilities for learning and being.
In the classroom, this cyborg perspective transforms how we understand teaching and learning.
We are not separate from our technologies—our phones, laptops, AI tools, and digital platforms are extensions of our thinking and being.
The cyborg classroom tries to engage with this reality, using it to enhance rather than replace human connection, curiosity, and critical thinking.
Education as Liberation Practice
With bell hooks, we understand that
the classroom remains the most radical space of possibility,
that education is not neutral but always political,
and that education engages the whole person, not just the mind.
We seek pedagogies that acknowledge power differentials while creating spaces
where transformation becomes possible for
first-generation students, multilingual learners,
and those historically marginalized by traditional educational structures.
Learning Through Play
We recognize play as a form of embodied theory—where abstract concepts transform into lived experience,
where complex conversations become possible within safe spaces, where curiosity replaces automatic assumptions.
Following this understanding, we create spaces where learning happens through doing,
where games become vehicles for exploring difficult terrain—trauma, identity, power—without retreating into binary thinking.
Through play, we practice intellectual humility and emotional resilience, developing awareness of our emotional repertoires,
learning to handle complexity without demanding simple answers, and seeking understanding across lines of difference.
Play creates spaces where mistakes are not only welcome but valuable, where we can express vulnerability knowing all participants are held safely,
where each person can take small steps or bold leaps in reimagining and reconstructing how we think and create knowledge together.
In this atmosphere of generous experimentation, whether in physical classrooms or digital spaces,
learning can become a playful shared discovery rather than isolated conformity.
Digital Communities and Solidarity
Inspired by Benedict Anderson's concept of imagined communities,
where shared imagination creates powerful possibilities,
and Victor Turner's communitas, where transformative moments emerge in liminal spaces,
we (re)imagine how our digital/physical environments can foster meaningful educational exchange.
Just as Anderson recognized that social formations beyond direct experience require active imagination to exist,
our Cyborg Classroom invites the creative
(re)imagination of educational spaces beyond traditional boundaries and limitations.
Following contemporary digital activists,
we question who controls knowledge and how it circulates.
We ask not just what technology can do,
but who it serves and who it silences.
Theoretical Frameworks
Not to find definitive answers,
but to ask better questions about how we might learn,
live together and apply in a dynamic way, ways of seeing through theory.
Our Commitments
We commit to:
Curation over consumption: Developing skills to navigate information abundance
Embracing Hybridity: Celebrating the encounters of languages, religions, cultures, and ways of knowing
Sharing with critical awareness: Mapping access to knowledge while examining the politics and ethics of digital distribution
Community through difference: Building solidarity without erasing particularity
Ongoing questioning: Maintaining a critical stance toward our own assumptions
The Cyborg Classroom is a continuous process of (re)imagining of what learning might become when we engage thoughtfully with each other across and through our technological extensions.
Our Vision
The "Cyborg Classroom" manifesto presents an approach to education in the digital age, advocating for knowledge curation and critical navigation instead of passive consumption and careless use of ai generative capabilities. It emphasizes embracing hybridity—the integration of languages, identities, and learning differences—and views education as a liberating practice, enabling transformation for diverse students.
We encourage learning through play as a method for deep exploration and empowerment of imagination, as well as constructing digital-physical communities that cultivate solidarity while asking critical questions about power and knowledge, all from a foundational perspective that seeks to bridge gaps between different populations experiencing inequality. We aspire to an ongoing process of reimagining learning, through continuous examination of fundamental assumptions and collaboration.
SAHAYA and the Cyborg Classroom 31/03/2025 and 30/06/2025
in Jerusalem القدس ירושלים