Learning Frameworks + Pedagogy by aloveoflearning

Learning Frameworks + Pedagogy

Introduction

During the first years of the Academy for the Love of Learning’s existence, Founder Aaron Stern designed and launched a core program, later named Leading by Being. A two-year immersion in personal and group process, the course grew to become an interactive testing ground for innovative experiential learning methods, as well as a dynamic vessel for transformative learning and change. While Leading by Being® is not presently being offered, the body of work that resulted from its 15 years of continuous programming infuses and underpins all facets of our work, including the culture of the organization itself. Here we share a few of our key frameworks. In a way, they represent the “DNA” of our approach to working with individuals and groups, underscoring how we approach learning, and its essentiality to human wholeness and liberation. Table of Contents 2 3 6 9 12 20

• Introduction • I/We/It Framework • Aspects of Self • Learning Model + Commentary • Learning Field Indicators • To learn more…

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I/We/It Framework

At the heart of the Academy’s curriculum is a belief that each one of us has an essential uniqueness that we offer to the world through our presence and by our actions. Furthermore, we believe that the practice of learning supports us to know who we are in the deepest sense, why we are here in the world, and what we’re called to do. Concurrent is the recognition that our unique selves are defined in great measure within the context of the communities and the systems of which we are part, and which thereby are part of us. For the past 25 years, this understanding has infused the developing work of the Academy. Within the curriculum, we identify this as an I/We/It Framework – a dynamic perspective in which, when foregrounding and working within any part of the Framework (for example, the “We”), the other two components are always present. Thus, we bring intention to what we choose to center and where to focus our attention, while never losing sight of the other aspects of the Framework. At the nexus of the I/We/It Framework is a single question: What is mine, uniquely, to do in the world? Not only in the course of a lifetime, but day by day, moment by moment. And how can my actions best be informed by awareness, intention, and wellbeing for myself, my community, and the larger world? In other words, how can I bring my best, most authentic self forward? What supports me? And what support can I offer to others in my midst? In our trainings, such as Leading by Being, we engage these three points of inquiry (Who am I? Who are we? and What is it?) as a framework through which to examine ourselves and our impact on each other and within our communities, and to recognize how we are impacted by the communities, structures, and systems within which we exist. The framework is a kind of living matrix that helps us identify and unlearn assumptions, responses, and behaviors that inhibit our individual and shared aliveness and wellbeing. This includes disentangling from habitual, historical, and collective patterns rooted all the way back to the forces of colonialism, and even earlier.

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Again, to be clear, we don’t intend to imply rigid definitions of “I,” “We,” or “It.” In varying ways, each is defined by the other. Nor do we intend to prioritize “I” over “We,” although the powerful force of Euro-American culture leans more strongly towards individualism than holism. We have found that participants in our courses need to do the hard work of coming to know themselves in order fully to open to the complexity of the group. For this reason, we have tended to bring our focus first on “I,” then move to “We,” and then “It”. This is based on a recognition that change begins from within. Yet often it is the group (We) that catalyzes and supports that participant’s learning about self (I). We see it as a hologram in which I/We/It exist concurrently and it then becomes a matter of where we focus our attention as we inquire. Who am I? Who am I? What brings me alive? What is my calling? These questions might seem unimportant or even contrary to contemporary education. However, we believe they ought to be at education’s heart. The Latin word educare means, “To draw out that which lies within.” In other words, to help us come to know the essential uniqueness of who we are. The Academy’s trainings explore personal identity – the “I” – from multiple perspectives: the constructed self; the free or authentic self; and no-self, or what we might call spirit. We sift through the many layers of self we have constructed, unconsciously, over the course of our lives, in response to the impact of forces in our environment, and we come to understand the impediments that block our connection to aliveness and wellbeing. This is a process of identifying and unlearning old patterns, and opening to choices more aligned with integrity, authenticity, and wholeness. As we learn to recognize where we are within ourselves – if we are slipping into a habit or a reactive pattern, for example – we gain the capacity to slow ourselves down and develop new and creative responses to the challenges we experience. And at the center of all this is the living vibrant spirit of learning at work (see Three Aspects of Self). Who are We? What happens when the “I” meets the “We?” And, the “We” meets the “I”? Who are we within our relationships, families, or work teams? How does a group of individuals come to know itself? The Academy curriculum provides an introduction to the complex dynamics of groups and some of the practices and methods that create “field conditions” for group learning and transformation. These practices rely upon a growing understanding of and capacity for personal leadership. They include various approaches towards navigating difference, nonviolent communication, collaborative learning, council practice, creative arts, and storybased processes, as well as shadow work and an examination of scapegoating and how to move beyond it. As groups, we experiment with these practices, increasing our capacity to be in relationship, to collaborate, to identify and dismantle harmful patterns of belief and behavior, to learn – and unlearn – together, and to support each other’s flourishing.

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What is It? Through the process of self- and group-inquiry, we have to consider how we are shaped and influenced by social systems and structures. The question, “What is It?” calls us to examine the beliefs, biases, and world views that underly these social systems, and to understand how they live unconsciously in us, individually and as a group. As we become aware of how our identity and unconscious beliefs have been shaped by the “Its”, patterns from the constructed self frequently will reinstate themselves, and again we inquire, “Who am I?” Thus, the question, “What is It?” introduces a new level of complexity and continually reveals deeper layers to the ongoing individual and group inquiry. In the end, the I/We/It framework helps us to experience and understand more fully the sovereignty and liberation we seek, and what selfcare truly means. Through direct experience, we come to recognize that selfcare and community wellbeing are naturally linked, interdependent, and needn’t be at odds. Grounded in these understandings, we can turn toward the work of reshaping the systems of which we are part such that they are designed better to support individual and community wellbeing.

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Aspects of Self

Three Aspects of Self When a person is truly awake to their own love of learning, it is our view that they are, in and of themselves, a profound source of wisdom. Touched and transformed by life and experience, they transmit naturally, through their very essence, the transformative potential of the learning spirit. As they embody the spirit of learning, what or how they communicate becomes secondary to who they are: the quality of their being or essential nature, their presence, self-awareness, and capacity. This view is central to understanding the work of the Academy for the Love of Learning and its vision and mission. The first question we ask of ourselves and of participants in our programs is, therefore: Who Am I? And the first work we ask of ourselves and of each other is to look inside – using tools from psychotherapy, spiritual and shamanic practices, the arts, transformative and transpersonal learning, somatic expression, as well as our own emergent wisdom – to come to know ourselves more clearly, and to identify ways in which we may have become disconnected from our innate wholeness and integrity. We attend to those parts of ourselves that cause us to contract, react, or otherwise draw away from the experience of being fully present and in contact with ourselves or another. Through gentle, yet persistent, forms of inquiry, we become aware of habitual reactions. We learn our way into and through those difficult, avoided parts of ourselves that, once understood, often bring insight and transformation. We do this in order to soften the boundaries of identity and deepen our understanding of self as a fluid, expansive capacity within which we reside as we move through life, and through which we connect and respond towards others and to what life brings. To support this inquiry, we look at three ways of experiencing and recognizing self. These are not intended as definitions; they are more in the spirit of pointing towards qualities of being that cannot fully be captured in language but that come and go, shifting from background to foreground and back again, as we encounter and are impacted by our lives. By learning about these aspects of ourselves and becoming aware of shifts as they happen within us, we gain increasing freedom.

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1. Constructed/Adaptive Self This is the self with which we often most identify. The Constructed Self grows out of our personal history, originating in early childhood. It is what we have come to believe about ourselves through our relationship with others and our environment. We can think of the Constructed Self as an intricate structure or pattern that exists in the psyche, and the body. It is created of both what we recognize about ourselves and what we overlook – what we hold in consciousness and what is hidden in the unconscious. Constructed Self is, in a way, the story that we have created about ourselves and the world in which we live, and that we narrate to ourselves over and over again. One way to think of this constructed version of ourselves is, in actuality, that it is what we are not! Rather, it is an adaptation that has arisen from the core of our beings in an effort to navigate and survive what we experience, to some degree, as a world hostile to our expression of innate intelligence and self-hood. There is a basic wisdom and positive intention in the construction of this aspect of self. It originates as a spontaneous, creative response to our circumstances as infants and children and is at some level vital to our survival. This capacity, to develop protective structures of self, enabled most of us to maintain a fundamental intactness throughout our early development. While this is true, over time we can become stuck within these adaptive patterns of thoughts, assumptions, feelings, and physical impulses. Even so, many of us have an awareness of our own entrapment, sensing that there is something more, longing to experience a more authentic quality of being. It is this knowing that we call the soul’s urge to learn and transform. For many of us, this begins a learning journey. 2. Free Self As we sift through the many layers of self we have constructed unconsciously, over the course of our lives, in response to the impact of forces in our environment, we can come to understand the impediments that block our connection to aliveness and wellbeing. This is a process of identifying and unlearning old patterns, and opening to choices more aligned with integrity, authenticity, and wholeness. As we learn to sense where we are within ourselves – if we are slipping into a reactive pattern, for example – we gain the capacity to slow ourselves down and develop new and creative responses to the challenges we experience. We recognize when we get caught in the Constructed Self and have the inner and outer resources necessary to regain a sense of balance. In other words, we act from a position of increasing freedom and authenticity.

The Free Self is a continually developing potential, fully connected to our unique impulses towards learning and transformation. We are aware of our own wholeness and presence, and we remain rooted in the present moment, even when reflecting on the past or anticipating the future. There is a sense of empathy and compassion towards others, and also towards oneself. We become more openly curious, reflecting upon ways in which we are touched by life, and finding many ways in which to express creatively life’s impact. We come to understand the complexity of human existence, recognizing the limitations of belief systems, world views, and social constructs, and have the capacity to navigate the disorientation

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that accompanies inevitably such profound shifts. And we gain that sense of meaning and purpose, fundamental and intrinsic to this Free Self, described by choreographer Martha Graham: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And, if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” 3. Beyond Self There are moments when, individually or as a group, we feel an expansiveness that is larger than our individual sense of self. We may experience a numinous quality, a feeling of wonder, that infuses us, and our surroundings. Often these are moments of deepening silence, or they may be evoked through music or poetry, a powerful experience in a group, or walking in nature. At these times, the self becomes porous, and we are aware of ourselves as part of something greater – inter-connected with, and inseparable from, the others around us and the world in which we exist. In this field, contact between self and other is, in the language of Martin Buber, the meeting of “I and Thou.” Sometimes, the “I” simply disappears. These moments may be fleeting, but we can attend to them, reflect upon them, and center them in our awareness through many kinds of contemplative practice. As we appreciate their mysterious potency, they may bring deepening insight, as well as confidence and support for our learning journey. As the Academy enters the third decade of its work, we continue to ask ourselves: • What becomes possible as we gain an increasing capacity to know when we are caught up in an adaptive pattern? What could we learn about unlearning? • How might the recognition and establishment of a pathway to Free Self, support the relaxation of the Constructed/Adaptive Self? • When we are present and grounded in Free Self, what is the experience of learning? How is it different when we are centered in Constructed/Adaptive Self? • How might the experience of Beyond Self, support our journey to becoming whole, in the fullest sense, individually – and also collectively?

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Notes on the Academy’s Learning Model While we must remember that the map is not the territory, it is useful at times to have a visual model to support the process of transformational learning. The model that we have developed draws upon other experiential learning models but has made adaptations in a couple of significant ways. The emphasis in the Academy model is on the experiential cycle, which we represent as a spiral of practice that grows and expands through ongoing learning and aims for transformation. Reflection, in the Academy model, is a non-linear process involving not only intellectual, but also emotional and somatic awareness. And, while existing theory and knowledge may support the learner in finding meaning, it does not preempt their own insight and experience. We recognize that we’re constantly immersed in all kinds of experiences. Growing the capacity to take on learning as a practice helps us discern and open to experiences that offer the potential for deep learning and change.

AC A D E MY Learning Model Learning Model (Incorporating the work of Dewey, Kolb, Argyris, Mezirow, Stern and others) (Incorpor ating the work of D ewey, Kolb , Argyris, Mezirow , Stern and others)

Existing Theory Experience

Application

Conceptualization Meaning Making

Application Critical Inquiry Discernment

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Experience We are in experience constantly as we move through our lives. However, at times an experience may cause us to pause, or evokes an emotional response, or we might find ourselves knocked off balance and disoriented. Often there is a quality of discomfort accompanying such moments. What might we learn from these experiences if, rather than overlooking them or pushing them away, we turn towards them? Perhaps the very fact that we are impacted by them is an invitation for us to take time and consider what is here for us to learn. It’s as if we hear a knock on the door. Reflection Intentionally slowing down and reflecting on an experience creates space to immerse in our internal world. We notice our response while we’re in the experience, what is familiar about the situation, what memories are evoked. This becomes a practice of engaged awareness, essential to the reflective process. Reflection is iterative and deeply personal. However, along the way, recognizing how we have been impacted by the experience, and expressing that impact in contact with supportive others, often through some form of creative expression such as physical movement, dance, art, poetry or other modes of poetic expression, can reconnect us freshly with our own aliveness, and communicates to the world – and to ourselves - what we have learned. This symbolic expression can be seen as consolidating impact into a poetic form, and we consider it an essential and liberating aspect of the reflective process, opening us to learning and moving us towards understanding and integration. As we deepen into reflection and turn towards finding meaning, we may seek external sources of information (existing theory) or turn to others who understand the inner territory through which we have been moving. The point here is that we have come to know and recognize our own experience and to use discernment as we look for other knowledge or guidance. In other words, our unique experience is informed, but not subsumed. It is this centering ourselves in the primacy of experience that is the hallmark of the Academy’s view of learning and its learning practices are designed to support this. At some point, reflection ripens into learning and insight, and even wisdom. While this finding of meaning is not necessarily a singular moment, there will be a cumulative sense of completion, and a readiness to incorporate our new understandings into our lives. Integration In experiential learning models, this phase is sometimes referred to as ‘concrete conceptualization.’ Emerging from the largely internal process of reflection, we recognize the insights and learnings that have come from our experience, and in our particular take on things, how they may relate to the discoveries of others. Now we can attend to their integration into our sense of self – psychologically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We begin to live into what we have learned, and the learning lives into us.

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AC A D EMY Learning Model Learning Model (Incorporating the work of Dewey, Kolb, Argyris, Mezirow, Stern and others) (Incorpor ating the work of D ewey, Kolb , Argyris, Mezirow , Stern and others)

Existing Theory Experience

Application

Conceptualization Meaning Making

Application Critical Inquiry Discernment

Application Almost inevitably, life will present us with new situations carrying an echo of previous challenging experiences. Or we might consider that our soul’s urge to learn takes us towards these experiences in order to continue our learning. These are moments to practice slowing down, staying in contact with ourselves and the understandings we have integrated, and applying what we have learned. We call this engaged awareness in action. In this model, experience becomes not only the entry point to learning, but also the sharpening stone against which we’re honed as we learn. As our practice of learning engages us deeply with experience, we’re changed, and even transformed. We open our hearts, and step into our wisdom. By bringing learning back to experience, we can find new pathways to becoming better at being human. In the words of John Bennett: “…we can be free from the past only when we have so changed ourselves as to be no longer the same person who performed the action. A dishonest [person] does not become honest simply by ceasing to act dishonestly, but by an inward change that makes it impossible for [them] to act dishonestly.”

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The Learning Field

conditions for deep, transformative learning Faculty of the Academy for the Love of Learning comprise artists, teachers, consultants, theorists, facilitators, and researchers. Above all, we are learners. Through exploring and coming to understand ourselves and those with whom we work as learners, we have identified certain conditions that constitute what we call a Learning Field. When a Learning Field is truly present, we are immersed in a shared impulse – the Learning Spirit – that moves us dynamically towards individual and collective growth, including transpersonal qualities of insight and being, and it is towards this end that all our work is aimed. What follows are the key characteristics of Learning Fields that we first identified two decades ago and have continued to explore since. Over this time, our understanding of these characteristics has grown and deepened, fundamentally informing our curriculum and underlying theory as well as our comprehensive approach to depth facilitation. When these characteristics are present, the likelihood for transformative learning is enhanced. During 2017, we entered into a body of work with a select group of scientists and administrators from the Center for Healthy Minds, at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (CHM) with the goal of establishing an evidence base for our work. The Academy’s Learning Field characteristics proved fertile ground from which to establish the theoretical framework of transformational learning capacities, subsequently described in an article we wrote in collaboration with CHM (The Poetry of Learning). © 2004 Academy for the Love of Learning, Inc. | rev. 1/22

field conditions

equanimity

individuality to wholeness Learning is a dance between me, we, it, and all. For example, by learning who I am – what shapes and forms my way of being in the world – and by embracing my deepest longings, I develop a deepening appreciation and understanding for others and the longings that live in them. A connection is made. My capacity increases. I bring a fullness of being to relationships of all kinds and to the activity of learning itself. Within a learning group or community, as shared awareness develops, so does the collective capacity to engage more fully in all aspects of our inner and outer worlds..

integral For us to feel truly whole, learning must be integral, involving body, mind, emotions, and spirit. When we overlook, or banish, aspects of our selves we literally compromise our own integrity and that of the work we bring into the world. Contemplation, art, and movement; psychological and philosophical; experience, imaginal; intellectual and intuitive; physical, sensual, or transcendent – all are facets of our wholeness. A generative learning environment invites us to know our own complexity and supports us in expressing and integrating parts of ourselves that we may have shunned.

relationship Learning is a relational process. Whether with other people or with an object such as a work of art, music, or with the non-human natural world, we gain deep and lasting insights through attending to the inner and outer dynamics between self and other. In southern African countries, the Zulu word, ubuntu means that it is through other people that a person is a person or, as is it is more frequently translated: “I am because you are”.

unlearning

mystery which is not-yet-known. Sometimes, we have to cultivate emptiness and un-knowing, letting go of any or ‘evidence’ and simply wait receptively for whatever will reveal itself. We approach the mystery of learning with a spirit of invitation, opening ourselves to the ever-changing ambiguity of known and unknown – form and formlessness.

To Learn More To understand more deeply the Academy’s vision for learning, click on the article titles below to be redirected to each article. “The Art and Practice of Learning” gives a short introduction to what we mean by learning, how we distinguish learning from education, and learning as a transformational practice. “The Poetry of Learning”: a research framework that takes a deeper dive into the Academy’s philosophy and practice of learning, including a look at capacities that can be cultivated to support learning. This article grew out of a body of work that we did with the Center for Healthy Minds, and is co-written by Aaron and faculty colleague, Marianne Murray, along with lead researchers, Richard Davidson, Founder of the Center for Healthy Minds and Healthy Minds Initiatives at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Robin Goldman who Directs the Center’s Research Support Core.

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