Chapter Nine

Cultivating Ecoliterate Learning Communities

Guidelines for Engaging Colleagues

The people portrayed in this book are community activists, educators, artists, students, and scholars who apply emotionally and socially engaged ecoliteracy to urgent environmental challenges. They embody hope, empathy, and resiliency that can serve as inspiration to us all.

This chapter offers educators ideas for examining the five practices of engaged ecoliteracy described in the book's introduction. Beginning with cultivating ecoliteracy within your community, we share some guidelines that we use at the Center for Ecoliteracy to connect colleagues who are interested in transforming teaching and learning to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The current generation of students has inherited daunting environmental issues and challenges that will require major shifts in conceptual understanding, ways of thinking, and everyday behaviors. Although we are well aware of the overwhelming pressures on educators to cover a myriad of topics with limited time and resources, the Center for Ecoliteracy recognizes that the urgency of our global crises compels the education community to rethink curriculum priorities and to infuse a sustainability perspective into the curriculum.

Of course, that is easier said than done. This chapter offers strategies for getting started at your school and reflects the Center's many years of working with educators to cultivate their emotional, social, and ecological intelligence and, in turn, those of their students, in ways that enliven and enrich education.

Form a Learning Circle

The first step in cultivating ecoliterate learning communities is to seek out like-minded colleagues with whom to work. Although it is possible to apply the practices in this book for individual professional growth, it is well documented that teaching and learning in a school community is enhanced when educators engage with each other. At the Center for Ecoliteracy, we have found that participation with colleagues over time increases the power of sharing wisdom, building trust, and offering support. These engagements can take many forms—two or more full days of intensive professional development, one-hour meetings every other week for a semester, or some other configuration. If possible, it's helpful to involve all potential members of your group in developing the meeting schedule.

We suggest that you experiment with “learning circles.” Learning circles are based on a form of meeting that originated among indigenous people. Because the shape of a circle implies equality and inclusiveness, we suggest that you literally sit in a circle. Learning circles are different from a typical faculty meeting or discussion in that all members share an expectation of thoughtful speaking and attentive listening. Also, the pace of a circle is usually slower, allowing time for members to make sense of what they have heard before hearing or speaking additional thoughts.

We'll use the term “learning circle” throughout this discussion, but our suggestions can be adapted for the format you prefer, naming it by whatever term makes sense.

A learning circle can be as small as two participants or as large as your entire faculty and preferably comprises people who recognize its value. Ideally, participation is voluntary, and all members are enthusiastic about their membership. However, professional development experiences rarely attract the same level of commitment from everyone (and are sometimes mandatory), so inviting input from members for how the learning circle will work will increase its likelihood of success.

Through the Center for Ecoliteracy's work and feedback from educators, we have identified several elements that we incorporate into our professional development gatherings. These elements help create an atmosphere that is intellectually based, yet heartfelt. They may provide food for thought for you and your colleagues to design a learning circle that will work for your group. The first set of elements includes four strategies for cultivating ecoliterate learning communities that can serve as a focal point for your learning circle. The second set of elements identifies some logistical considerations that you and other members will want to consider before the circle begins.

Use Four Strategies for Cultivating Ecoliterate Learning Communities

The four techniques that follow will get you started by increasing your collective knowledge and practices of ecoliteracy and offering ways to apply them both personally and professionally. Although many effective professional development methods can be used along with this book, we highlight these four strategies because they are especially effective for forming a network of relationships, which is essential to becoming ecoliterate. These techniques are also useful when bringing together students, the school community, and the wider community to discuss topics relevant to creating a sustainable and resilient society.

Personal Reflections

Personal reflections help learning circle members clarify their individual values, attitudes, and opinions before “going public” with their thoughts. They are especially useful prior to sharing views on a sensitive or controversial topic. By taking time to think before speaking, strategizing constructive ways to address conflicting ideas, and preparing for emotional self-management, learning circle members practice key competencies of emotional, social, and ecological intelligence.

Consider a topic from this book, discussed in the sidebar “The Rise of School Food Reform” in Chapter Eight. Some people believe that schools need to maintain a single focus on academics and that spending time and money improving school food is inappropriate, especially in the current economic climate. This may be a topic that circle members can reflect on individually, before expressing their thoughts and opinions in the group.

Personal reflection can be encouraged through a variety of approaches. For example, asking participants to jot down their initial ideas and feelings prior to opening up a topic for discussion increases the quality of discussion and also frees everyone to listen deeply instead of mentally crafting their individual responses while others are speaking. Having drawing paper and colored pencils available allows for self-expression in a visual medium, which can be useful for shifting participants' perspective or seeing through a new lens. Creating collages, working with clay, creating maps, and using visualizations are also imaginative ways to explore new ideas from a personal perspective.

Structured Conversations

Structured conversations offer provocative questions or themes to explore with colleagues. They help build a learning community while simultaneously expanding the learning circle's understanding of ecoliteracy. Frequently, structured conversation follows personal reflection.

A structured conversation usually starts with an open-ended prompt that sparks thoughtful discussions and uncovers ways to apply new ideas to your school setting. For example, after reading Chapter Two, “Taking a Power Trip,” your circle might choose to discuss this prompt: The Spartanburg teacher took his students to the power plant where coal was burned, helping to make the invisible visible. How could you help reveal what seems invisible to your students, focusing on an issue of local concern?”

When planning a structured conversation, choose techniques to maximize participation and depth of the discussion and generate diverse and creative ideas. This could mean starting out in pairs before opening discussion to the whole circle, passing a talking stick to ensure that each person has an opportunity to speak, or having members move around the room to share thoughts with several people, one-on-one.

Collaborative Lesson Design

Collaborating on lesson design engages educators in practicing their craft together. Lesson design is at the center of the creative process of teaching, and the chance to participate with others can stimulate creativity. Most teachers, however, have few opportunities to explore ways to teach specific concepts or skills collectively.

Collaborative lesson design can be as expansive as imagining how to convey a particular idea across several grade levels. For example, many of the stories in this book illustrate the capacity to persevere as an important element of engaged ecoliteracy. Learning circle members could generate ideas for learning experiences that foster perseverance at various developmental levels and identify some building blocks throughout a span of grade levels that would continuously develop a student's ability to practice perseverance.

Collaboration can also take on a narrower focus, such as learning circle members deciding to plan one particular cooperative teaching project. For example, after reading Chapter Seven, “Changing a Food System, One Seed at a Time,” teachers might decide to take their classes on a joint field trip to a local farm. Learning circle members would use their time together to design lessons for before, during, and after the field trip.

Teaching Rounds

Teaching rounds emulate the professional practice of doctors and therapists, who jointly talk through difficult or intriguing cases or clients. When applied to schools, educators come together in teaching rounds to assess the efficacy of a lesson, a project, or a classroom practice and discuss ways to improve it. Or they can discuss individual students in the context of developing their ecoliteracy.

Most teachers have little time or support to reflect on the success of a particular teaching practice, and the school culture rarely supports a teacher taking time to analyze and improve teaching practices. Instead, teachers usually rely on a gut reaction that indicates whether something they tried went well or didn't go so well. Teaching rounds provide a structured format for thoughtful reflection on ways to improve teaching and learning.

Teaching rounds can also provide time and space for teachers to draw upon their collective insight and experience to address particular issues. For example, some environmental issues—such as climate change—are controversial, and students and their families might hold beliefs and opinions that are at odds with the latest scientific evidence. The introduction to this book, as well as Chapter Six “From Restoration to Resilience,” address some climate change issues that may be of interest to learning circle members.

Teaching rounds offer educators a forum for strategizing how best to address these kinds of conflicts while maintaining respect for diverse ideas and, at the same time, staying committed to evidence-based information.

Design a Learning Circle for Success

Through the Center for Ecoliteracy's many years of working with and seeking feedback from educators, we have identified several elements we incorporate into our professional development gatherings. These elements create an atmosphere that is intellectual, heartfelt, and practical; you may find them useful for your learning circle.

Agree on Leadership

Learning circles can employ a variety of models for planning and facilitating their gatherings. Although learning circles are by definition run by shared leadership, most educators will not have time to plan every circle together. One or two individuals, who may or may not be circle members, can plan and facilitate the circles; a small subset of the membership can share responsibility for planning and facilitating the whole group; or planning and facilitation can rotate among group members. These approaches prove most effective when all circle members have opportunities to provide input to the group's design, format, and selection of leaders.

Establish Norms

The first learning circle meeting is an optimal time to agree on some ways of relating that maximize participation and trust. Members of the circle are the best people to generate their group norms. Here are some examples of common group norms:

It can be difficult to remember a long list of norms. After the group has generated a list, take time to identify five to seven most important items that you all agree are necessary to function as a healthy group.

Using Circles to Cultivate Deep Listening
Lucy, Victoria, George, and Vernard—a group of New Orleans students—interviewed Jane Wholey about how she uses learning circles to inspire all students to share their voices. Wholey is founder and executive director of the Rethinkers: Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools. Here is an excerpt from their conversation1:
Victoria: What does “circle” mean to you?
Jane: Well, it means a different way of holding a meeting. In school, teachers usually sit behind a desk facing students who sit behind their desks, too. When you take away the desks and put everyone in a circle, they suddenly become equals—even the teacher.
Lucy: OK, cool. So how does a circle work?
Jane: I ask the group a question. Instead of a few kids raising their hands and giving answers, we go around the circle and everyone speaks. Sometimes the person talking uses a ‘talking piece,’ and passes it to the next person when they're done. There are a few important circle rules. The first is that when a person speaks, everyone listens. The second is that if you don't want to speak, you can pass. The third is that only one person speaks at a time!
George: What goes on in the circle?
Jane: Conversations…about pretty much anything. Everyone's voice is respected. No one laughs at anyone, and each person has an equal chance to say what they think and feel. You might say that the circle is a sacred space. One way we make the circle feel like a sacred space is to add a ‘celebration table’ in the middle. We put all sorts of cool things on this table, like pictures of loved ones, candles, and objects that are important to us.
Vernard: Why is the circle important?
Jane: In most meetings I go to, a few people speak a lot and most people speak very little. There's a power thing going on when someone takes up all the space in the room. At Rethink, as you know, we believe in ‘power among’ not ‘power over.’ Without embarrassing anyone, the circle makes some people step up and others step back. So everyone gets to practice a new skill—either controlling yourself or overcoming your shyness. When shy people speak, you hear some amazing things.
Lucy: So what do you think the circle teaches?
Jane : More than anything else, the circle teaches equality and the art of deep listening. When you learn those things, you can make the world a wiser, gentler place.

Create Clear Agendas

If you ask a teacher to name the biggest barrier in their profession, they will most likely say “time.” Too often, professional development meetings feel like an enormous waste of precious time. Designing an experience that is worthy of attendance requires tuning into the time pressures of the learning circle members.

Most teachers appreciate a clear agenda that is followed in the meeting. At the same time, many teachers also appreciate built-in flexibility for addressing issues that emerge from the group, even if they are not on the agenda. Sometimes it is difficult to know when to stick with the agenda and when to address an unexpected but important issue. This decision is often best made by the group, although they may prefer to leave those decisions to the circle leader.

Make Use of Rituals

Establishing group rituals can create a sense of community within the group. Rituals often emerge within long-standing groups. For example, the Center for Ecoliteracy worked with an elementary school faculty that occasionally and spontaneously began singing together. This evolved into a ritual marking the beginning and ending of faculty meetings and other gatherings.

Beginning rituals serve simply as a signal that the group members are present and willing to focus on the issues before them. At the Center for Ecoliteracy, for example, each seminar begins by ringing a simple gong or pleasant-sounding bell, followed by a few seconds of silence; then the person who has come from the farthest distance away lights a candle. This is sufficient for invoking a collective presence. Similarly, a closing ritual honors the focus that has been given by the group and signals that their collective work for that session is complete.

Design the Physical Space

It is widely accepted that people learn best when they have an overall sense of comfort and security. Similar to the Reggio Emilia2 approach to education, the Center for Ecoliteracy believes in every person's right to well-being, and we place that right in the foreground of planning professional development experiences. Starting with the physical space, we try to secure meeting space with natural lighting and fresh air, which lets the outside in as much as possible.

Within your space, you can optimize comfort by using flexible furniture arrangements that will help nurture relationships as well as make room for personal reflection. Create physical “white space” by eliminating clutter and other unattractive elements and keeping ambient noise to a minimum. Applying the theory that “less is more,” try to limit sensory inputs to those that are necessary, beautiful, and inspiring.

Transformation in the Classroom
“Really good teachers know it is not the one-hour lecture that will resonate,” says Aaron Wolf. “It's creating a setting where teachers can draw the energy out in the room and students can come to insights for themselves.”
In his own effort to do this with geography students at Oregon State University, Wolf applies the “Four Worlds frame”—reflecting on the physical, emotional, knowing, and spiritual needs of his students—one lens at a time.
“The first thing I do,” he says, “is look at the physical setting of the classroom and think about, Are the chairs organized in a way that facilitates discussion, or is it set up for a lecture? Is there natural light? Is there fresh air? Then I think about the physical comfort of the students themselves. Do they know it's okay to bring food and drink into the classroom, and to get up and go to the restroom if they have to?
“Then I think about where everyone is at emotionally,” he adds. “Have I given them a moment of transition? Am I encouraging them to be present? Is there discord because of other bigger issues?” In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, for example, Wolf observed that students were distracted and nervous. But because the tragedy didn't already fit in with their preplanned curriculum, students didn't have the opportunity to discuss their anxiety with teachers—even though it was getting in the way of their learning. So he dedicated a few classes to allowing students to share their concerns before resuming the planned curriculum.
Wolf next moves to the third lens, which is “where all the fun—and most of the work—comes in”: knowing. He routinely asks himself such questions as, “Are intellectual connections being made? Are students contributing to the making of those connections?”
Finally, with respect to taking a spiritual view on teaching and learning, Wolf says that he does not mean a “religious” perspective, but rather a sense of transformation rooted in a strong feeling of connection with the rest of the universe. And this, he suggests, is the “on fire” experience that can develop after the first three needs have been addressed in the classroom.
In short, he adds, “There's not much difference between education and facilitation [of conflict resolution]. We're all just trying to heal the world.”

Provide Nourishment

Encouraging a sense of well-being can also involve offering access to nourishing food. Not only does food add a welcoming sense of shared community, it is also essential for sustaining mental energy. The kinds of foods the Center for Ecoliteracy provides reinforce our teachings about sustainable living. Food that is simple and seasonal embodies a way of provisioning ourselves that nurtures health and minimizes our impact on other living things, the soil, and other elements of the environment.

Seek Wisdom from Outside

In our seminars, we have found that most teachers desire engagement with provocative and motivating ideas that acknowledge their intellect and feed their minds. After all, most education professionals went into teaching because of a passion for learning. The voices of phenomenal “thought leaders,” such as those featured in this book, can lift teachers out of the everyday routine of schooling and inspire them to explore what is possible collectively. Through exposure to stimulating visionaries who foresee a future where all members of society are ecoliterate, educators are reinvigorated to participate in transforming their schools. In addition, hearing firsthand from local leaders who are involved in environmental and social justice issues can help connect these issues to the school community.

Seek Wisdom from Inside

Although wisdom from people outside the group can stimulate educators to think in innovative ways, uncovering the wisdom within the group galvanizes their collective resolve. Structuring frequent opportunities for participants to share their insights, accomplishments, and dilemmas generates a kinship that can help sustain their individual efforts beyond the professional development experience. In this book, the four strategies for cultivating ecoliterate learning communities, as well as the professional development activities described in the next chapter, offer a variety of ways for eliciting wisdom from within. Of course, many other methods can be used to uncover inner wisdom, such as meditation, slowing down to observe without judgment, and journal writing. Your circle members may choose to use these techniques as well.

Enjoy Yourself

Although most of this book addresses serious subjects, learning circles can be enjoyable gatherings, with room for humor, playfulness, and connection. When participants expect an atmosphere that appreciates humor, they will look forward to attending and see value in the lighter side of serious issues. Once you start learning about issues such as offshore oil drilling or water shortages, you will see that these current topics can often be addressed in the world of comedy. Encourage circle members to bring in related cartoons, YouTube segments, or jokes that might resonate with members.

Singing, dancing, or listening to music can add levity, a deeper connection to an issue, and inspiration to take action. As with humor, making room for music can add pleasure to the circle experience. Countless songs deal with nature and the environment. (For examples, see the Songs for Teaching website at http://www.songsforteaching.com/index.html.)

Teaching requires a lot of mental and physical energy, so taking a few moments to recharge is usually a good idea. Such a change of pace could consist of something as simple as a five-minute stretch or meditation, or participating in a team-building game. Group rejuvenation can occur at any time during the circle and can be especially appreciated when it's spontaneous.

Making simple food together can be an effective way for circle members to get to know each other in a relaxing context. Preparing something as simple as a fruit salad or a plate of cheeses and breads doesn't require much time but can add an informal, communal element that strengthens relationships within the circle.

Revisit the Five Practices

All of these ideas for coming together with colleagues to cultivate your ecoliterate learning community reflect the five practices of emotionally and socially engaged ecoliteracy. These ideas offer you opportunities to develop empathy for each other and for other forms of life; they encourage you to view sustainable living as a community practice; they help you better understand how nature sustains life; they offer ways to uncover what blocks us from seeing the impacts of our behavior by making the invisible visible; and they provide practice with anticipating the unintended consequences of our actions. Although you will choose ideas and processes that will work for your learning circle, keep these five practices in mind as guides for your professional development journey.

 

 

Notes

1 From “Circle: A Place Where All Voices Are Equal,” in Feet to the Fire: The Rethinkers’ Guide to Changing Your School (Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools, 2011, http://www.therethinkers.com/spring-2011/).

2 Reggio Emilia is a model of early childhood education developed in Italy. It views the child as an active participant in learning; the physical environment of the school as key to stimulating learning; teachers, parents, and students as collaborators in learning; and the importance of making learning visible through the display of student work. For more information, visit http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/index.htm.