THE LIVING LEARNING COLLABORATIVE

The Living Learning Collaborative at Four Winds Farm is a pioneering educational initiative in Great Barrington, MA.  It's focus is to provide a dynamic and responsive atmosphere of cooperative and experiential learning for adolescents, adults and teachers. We invite you to discover which programs suit your interests. Please call 413-528-4262

Current Offerings

• Tools for Change is a program of individual consultation and group playshops that utilizes the principles of EFT and Brain Gym as well as research in psycho-neuro biology and other brain research as it pertains to learning.  Check out www.emofree.com  and www.braingym.org  Experience the freedom from self limiting beliefs in all domains of life, from poor academic results to finances and health.

• Living Foods course gives students  comprehensive knowledge and experience about the food we eat and how to grow it, prepare it and plan healthy meals for true Wellness. Food connects us intimately with the world in myriad ways.  When we understand our food we will become champions of the Earth and her denizens, since together it means LIFE.
• Independent service work and research projects for area high school students and others who want to explore learning in a deeper way.
• Science Education is the ultimate hands on learning opportunity. Much of today's learning is merely with paper and pencil. Explore what a phenomenological approach to understanding the world will yield.  This is learning in the tradition of Goethe and may just turn some long held views upside down!!!

• Grow Your Own!!!   Hands on learning to start your own home/school grown food garden

• Independent day program for middle and high school age students Place based education for students wishing a full or part time program of studies. Includes mentoring, research, community service and communication and academic skills development. Typical subject areas included using innovative approaches.

• Visiting students and schools program providing a customized experiential learning opportunity at Four Winds Farm property. A wide range of artistic and scientific activities offers teachers and students time for hands-on inquiry that deepens learning.

Background

Living Learning is a term coined to describe a process of engaging with the world in a dynamic and natural way that supports an individual's inherent drive to make meaning, while recognizing that there is no "end" to this learning, just an unfolding of the truth in ever widening and deepening aspects.  It requires a collaborative and dialogic approach and an open inquisitiveness that fosters "right relationship" with the world around us. 

The idea for a Living Learning Collaborative grew from the observation that the education we provide our young can perpetuate the conditions that are present and contributing to the world crises that we are experiencing.  It is important to be accountable for how we all have contributed to "the system" and not blame, but resolve to pursue more life-affirming ways of living and learning.  The Living Learning Collaborative is a response to a world of materialism that depends on a "dominator" way of life.  Rather than focusing on small definitions of success like test scores, it is preferred to expand the definition of success to be one of "becoming all that one is capable of" in other words, to find one's greatness in the fullest sense possible and then, SHARE THAT WITH THE WORLD.   This requires a shift to a "partnership model", one that celebrates and values life and learning in all of its diversities and interconnections.  Additional thoughts are contained in the GATE document.

Real Learning = Student Engagement

We believe that a hands-on approach to learning offers a meaningful educational experience for all learners.  Our programs are designed to engage the head, heart and hands for an integrated and purposeful education. The programs are reflective of the developmental needs of students-- be they youth or adult, and the needs of the community, locally and globally.  We are also ever mindful of what Nature has to teach us.

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NOTICE OF NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY 

The Living Learning Collaborative at Four Winds Farm admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students in the Collaborative.  It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other collaborative-administered programs