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
- 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. WE REALLY LIKE
THE PRINCIPLES FOUND IN THE WESTON A PRICE FOUNDATION APPROACH
TO NUTRITION -- WITH ONE CAVEAT, ANIMAL PRODUCTS, IF CONSUMED
, OUGHT TO BE FROM HUMANE SOURCES--FOR THE WELLBEING OF ALL.
- JourneyYear is our exciting concept to make
learning real -- imagine meeting life on your own terms
and finding out what is important to you, how to make a difference,
what matters, how to live creatively and make yourself happy...
these and other possible ways to engage are the foundation for
a learning adventure. Not just any learning and not just
any adventure, but one that inspires you to grab life and make
the most of it while recognizing your unique capacities to make
a difference, to contribute, to be daring and break the mold!
- 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.
"Emphasizing
hands-on real world learning experiences, this approach to
education increases academic achievement, helps students develop
stronger ties to the community, enhances students' appreciation
for the natural world, and creates a heightened commitment
to serving as active, contributing citizens."
from Place-Based Education by David
Sobel,
Director of Teacher Certification program at
Antioch New England Graduate School.
Part of the Nature Literacy
Series from The Orion
Society |
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.
"The inquiry method is not designed to do what older
environments try to do. It works you over in entirely
different ways. It activates different senses, attitudes,
and perceptions; it generates a different, bolder, and more
potent kind of intelligence… it will cause everything
about education to change." -
---Neil Postman
and Charles Weingartner |
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.
L
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 |