Although these four elements are described here separately, it is their combination and connections that create dynamic intelligence. Balanced and conscious use of these four portals to knowledge creates an active, living intelligence at the center of our being that serves as a moral rudder when we experience life’s turbid and muddy waters. We may call this “soul force” or our “true and sacred nature.” It lights our way; it wisely guides our life decisions and actions and provides a reliable sanctuary when stress overwhelms us. Its depth of genius senses whenever opportunity presents itself and gives us the courage to venture forward; or conversely, it warns us when danger is near so that we may seek a safe haven. Such is the wisdom of an integrated personality.
Without integration the individual is a many-headed monster whose heads fight each other in the name of security, advantage, and supremacy. Because of the bias of Western culture, mind becomes puffed up and hyperactive, and the other function languishes in the shadow of death.
Awakening to all aspects of our being, highlights our strengths and weaknesses and motivates us to become more complete, more responsible human beings.
Although an unbalanced, precocious development of a single pathway in childhood is often referred to as “genius,” it often manifests at the expense of the other faculties and fades as the child matures. Holistic teaching does not try to further accentuate any imbalance, but to develop the other sides of the self so that personality as a whole can have a grounded and vital center.
New Earth Institute, therefore, tends to have a fluid curriculum rather than a rigid learning process because our first priority is to find ways to nurture and balance the four side of genius. A commitment to that requires that we first respond to the primary need of our students to be whole.
New Earth Institute is holistic in that it sees everything in terms of a holographic vision of life. Everything is a part of something greater, yet all is composed of parts that are, from a different perspective, whole in themselves.
We look for and therefore notice the relationships of all living things, the interconnectedness of all life. We move from a sense of separation and isolation to a sense of belonging and wholeness. We honor the earth, as we honor others and ourselves, as sacred, living beings.
Learning: The Dimension of Body Sensations
The first way the portal of our body enriches and informs our experience through our five senses. Seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, and smelling transmit vital information about our surroundings and allow us to react intelligently to it. To treasure sensations as they occur enables us to meaningfully use them in our lives. Poets like John Keats transformed his sensations into images to create brilliant poetry; novelists and playwrights do the same.
Conscious, rhythmic breathing centers us in the moment so that we may become fully grounded, fully aware of our relationship to mother earth and our immediate environment.
Exercise and physical movement are necessary to maintain wellness in body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Dance and expressive movement reveal a dancer’s mental, emotional or spiritual interpretations of the patterns and the beauty of life.
Life and the experience of life, achievement, beauty, and athletic prowess --- all are dependent on body.
Conscious, rhythmic breathing centers us in the moment so that we may become fully grounded, fully aware of our relationship to mother earth and our immediate environment.
Exercise and physical movement are necessary to maintain wellness in body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Dance and expressive movement reveal a dancer’s mental, emotional or spiritual interpretations of the patterns and the beauty of life.
Life and the experience of life, achievement, beauty, and athletic prowess --- all are dependent on body.
Learning: The Dimension of Intuition
Like an eagle flying over the landscape, intuition (spirit) sees the broader picture of our life. It brings perspective and vision to what often appears chaotic and meaningless in our daily activities.
Intuition lives in our daydreams and nocturnal dreams; it speaks in its own symbolic language rather than in a literal, matter-of-fact way. It is the wisdom behind fairy tales that is intuited by children who have not become too literal-minded. Its messages are disguised in myths, in parables, in works of art lest the rational mind oppose them too stridently, too strenuously.
Spirit is the source of wisdom that can diagnose the ills of body, mind, or emotions and suggest just the right remedy for them.
As a humble beggar, spirit shuns the powerful and mighty and reveals itself to the lowly. It appears not in bright daylight or in the heat of argument, but its tiny voice can be heard in utter silence and solitude.
Many people have a well-developed lie detector or “crap meter.” They simply know when someone is lying or telling the truth.
Intuition, immediate self-knowing, can reveal anything. We will not trust intuition until that part of our mind that is the neutral, detached witness, observes it incredible accuracy.
Only then will we rely on its amazing power.
Intuition lives in our daydreams and nocturnal dreams; it speaks in its own symbolic language rather than in a literal, matter-of-fact way. It is the wisdom behind fairy tales that is intuited by children who have not become too literal-minded. Its messages are disguised in myths, in parables, in works of art lest the rational mind oppose them too stridently, too strenuously.
Spirit is the source of wisdom that can diagnose the ills of body, mind, or emotions and suggest just the right remedy for them.
As a humble beggar, spirit shuns the powerful and mighty and reveals itself to the lowly. It appears not in bright daylight or in the heat of argument, but its tiny voice can be heard in utter silence and solitude.
Many people have a well-developed lie detector or “crap meter.” They simply know when someone is lying or telling the truth.
Intuition, immediate self-knowing, can reveal anything. We will not trust intuition until that part of our mind that is the neutral, detached witness, observes it incredible accuracy.
Only then will we rely on its amazing power.
Learning: The Dimension of Mind
Mind offers the whole personality a horn of plenty: differentiation, judgment, critical analysis, discernment, deciphering, discrimination, sequencing, planning, and providing direction.
Mind is meant to communicate and cooperates with the other natures.
Mind is the master of language. It names and it translates. It names and translates the fleeting and transitory things in our experiences --- our images, our sensations, our emotions, and our intuitions --- into words. Mind is essential in order to communicate our experience to others or to make sense of others’ experiences.
Mind is the function most disconnected from experience. It is the observer more than an actor. It stands back and interprets life according to the assumptions it has already swallowed. It is helpless to do otherwise.
In Western culture rationality is the boss in the household and in the school. It automatically concurs with the rationalizations of authorities, including those anonymous authorities that write textbooks. In most schools, The Curriculum is the gospel, the alpha and omega of what is true and essential at any time for any grade level. Mind is the chosen vehicle for imprinting what the authorities decide students shall ingest. As long as we are taught what to think, we cannot discover how to think independently, for we represent the system, not ourselves.
In authentic education, as opposed to traditional education, mind is not the master or authority that demands deference; it does not unilaterally make decisions for the whole personality about what is true and what is not, or what is fruitful and what leads nowhere. It is only one player who offers its essential analytical and scheduling skills.
Holistic education seeks to validate both intellect and affect, so that both these important resources can contribute to the health of the personality. Unless both are honored, cultivated, and integrated, we are incapable of experiencing the unity and beauty of life. When mind and heart are integrated in action, when reason and love stop arguing and join forces, we can enter into and participate in the creative process of life and the creative process of our own consciousness. When mind ridicules and disenfranchises heart, the personality as a whole becomes dysfunctional and loses its creative capacity.
Every object around us was created by thought (and feeling as well). Nature is the manifestation of the Creator’s million thoughts. Every manufacted thing was first perfected in thought. If not, it is a failure. All features in a house were first thought through, revised until it was time to build. Thought always precedes manifestation. When we view the world, a combination of natural and artificial, you see thoughts manifested.
Mind is meant to communicate and cooperates with the other natures.
Mind is the master of language. It names and it translates. It names and translates the fleeting and transitory things in our experiences --- our images, our sensations, our emotions, and our intuitions --- into words. Mind is essential in order to communicate our experience to others or to make sense of others’ experiences.
Mind is the function most disconnected from experience. It is the observer more than an actor. It stands back and interprets life according to the assumptions it has already swallowed. It is helpless to do otherwise.
In Western culture rationality is the boss in the household and in the school. It automatically concurs with the rationalizations of authorities, including those anonymous authorities that write textbooks. In most schools, The Curriculum is the gospel, the alpha and omega of what is true and essential at any time for any grade level. Mind is the chosen vehicle for imprinting what the authorities decide students shall ingest. As long as we are taught what to think, we cannot discover how to think independently, for we represent the system, not ourselves.
In authentic education, as opposed to traditional education, mind is not the master or authority that demands deference; it does not unilaterally make decisions for the whole personality about what is true and what is not, or what is fruitful and what leads nowhere. It is only one player who offers its essential analytical and scheduling skills.
Holistic education seeks to validate both intellect and affect, so that both these important resources can contribute to the health of the personality. Unless both are honored, cultivated, and integrated, we are incapable of experiencing the unity and beauty of life. When mind and heart are integrated in action, when reason and love stop arguing and join forces, we can enter into and participate in the creative process of life and the creative process of our own consciousness. When mind ridicules and disenfranchises heart, the personality as a whole becomes dysfunctional and loses its creative capacity.
Every object around us was created by thought (and feeling as well). Nature is the manifestation of the Creator’s million thoughts. Every manufacted thing was first perfected in thought. If not, it is a failure. All features in a house were first thought through, revised until it was time to build. Thought always precedes manifestation. When we view the world, a combination of natural and artificial, you see thoughts manifested.
Learning: The Dimension of Emotion
Emotions are our immediate reply to experience. Feelings are the honest, pre-verbal language of soul experience. Before the mind can label what has happened with words, feelings convey our uncensored, individual reaction. They reveal the raw, inner intelligence triggered by our circumstances. When emotions are acknowledged and honored, our inner experience is validated and our integrity and dignity are preserved. Out-front feelings may be considered politically incorrect, but they accord with our essence.
Like water in life systems, feelings are spontaneous movers and shakers of the energy body. If they are not repressed, they carry things from the unconscious mind to conscious mind, back and forth. They transmit and move information and energy around the human system so that all four elements communicate with each other. For example, after intuition sees a vision, a flow of emotion can move the body to act and the mind to evaluate.
Freely flowing emotions heal the body, provide energy, and create consciousness. They allow us to process and integrate new experiences and new information. Feelings create the possibility of balance, flexibility, and growth within the personality because emotions feel their way through what are otherwise insoluble problems and contradictions.
If we focus for a while (say 5 to 30 minutes) on the feeling within the body, even feelings that make us uncomfortable or feel horrible, the emotions spontaneously change and lose their charge as we process them. And we can ride on beautiful feelings like the hawk soars on air.
But whenever feelings are judged and squelched because they are “irrational” or “effeminate” or “frightening,” we become dysfunctional, less than human. Rigidity, death, and disease predominate when there is a lack of emotional flow and vitality; elasticity, resiliency, and health thrive where there are no taboo emotions. Without conscious emotion we are mere robots ripe to be used as pawns in the power schemes of others.
Although motion is squeezed out of most formal education, we at New Earth Institute regard feeling with awe and see it as an essential ingredient in many facets of life. Without emotion there is no creative force and no creation. Without emotion there is no significance or illumination to special life experiences. Without emotion there is no meaning. The sunrise and sunset would lack beauty. Relationships would lose their color. Inspiration would wither.
Without emotion there is no vibrant life.
Like water in life systems, feelings are spontaneous movers and shakers of the energy body. If they are not repressed, they carry things from the unconscious mind to conscious mind, back and forth. They transmit and move information and energy around the human system so that all four elements communicate with each other. For example, after intuition sees a vision, a flow of emotion can move the body to act and the mind to evaluate.
Freely flowing emotions heal the body, provide energy, and create consciousness. They allow us to process and integrate new experiences and new information. Feelings create the possibility of balance, flexibility, and growth within the personality because emotions feel their way through what are otherwise insoluble problems and contradictions.
If we focus for a while (say 5 to 30 minutes) on the feeling within the body, even feelings that make us uncomfortable or feel horrible, the emotions spontaneously change and lose their charge as we process them. And we can ride on beautiful feelings like the hawk soars on air.
But whenever feelings are judged and squelched because they are “irrational” or “effeminate” or “frightening,” we become dysfunctional, less than human. Rigidity, death, and disease predominate when there is a lack of emotional flow and vitality; elasticity, resiliency, and health thrive where there are no taboo emotions. Without conscious emotion we are mere robots ripe to be used as pawns in the power schemes of others.
Although motion is squeezed out of most formal education, we at New Earth Institute regard feeling with awe and see it as an essential ingredient in many facets of life. Without emotion there is no creative force and no creation. Without emotion there is no significance or illumination to special life experiences. Without emotion there is no meaning. The sunrise and sunset would lack beauty. Relationships would lose their color. Inspiration would wither.
Without emotion there is no vibrant life.
Life Enhancing Principles
Most gardeners have the sense to give plants what they need in order to flourish. Azaleas require acidic soil; oregano requires alkaline conditions. In the natural world, to insist on a standard regime for the entire garden would be insane because you cannot, even if your rationalizations are clever, force nature to obey your will.
Better than teaching nature to conform to your requirements is accepting nature as your teacher. If students use their own intelligence and experiment and observe the consequences, they don’t even need to depend on authorities. People who tenaciously defy the experts and trust in their own intelligence are often called brilliant scientists, creative poets, or innovative entrepreneurs.
Because all living things reveal their intelligent design to a sensitive, patient observer, the act of simply witnessing the life process (in oneself, in others, or in any living thing) creates a field of intelligence. Our school teaches students to get in touch with their own intelligence and rely on their own instinct and intuition. It guides them to honor life, to cooperate with life and other human beings, and trust in their own self-knowledge.
We will never understand others unless we use power of love that lies within our being. Without love, without sympathy, understanding of oneself or of others is impossible. Ignorance, blame, denial, isolation, and aggression are natural consequences of a failure to apply the life-enhancing principle of compassion to whoever or whatever life brings to us.
The simple process of conscious breathing connects us with our inner being. To focus on the nature of natural process is meditation. To align with our inner nature and natural world connects us to living genius.
The acorn will transform to the oak, the larva will become the butterfly if life-sustaining conditions prevail. Youngsters will become fully empowered and fully integrated human beings if the conditions for transmutation are met. It is all according to nature’s plan.
An “education” at any level that shapes children for specific ends forfeits human potential and possibility by enslaving the individual to the system. Our commitment is to awaken students to discover their own individual path and become fully empowered.
The mission we embrace at NEI it to provide the conditions for integrated growth and unlimited human development. We subscribe to creating and sustaining a community based on love, inclusion, truth, and beauty because we believe that such an environment provides the conditions for optimal human growth and personal transformation.
Better than teaching nature to conform to your requirements is accepting nature as your teacher. If students use their own intelligence and experiment and observe the consequences, they don’t even need to depend on authorities. People who tenaciously defy the experts and trust in their own intelligence are often called brilliant scientists, creative poets, or innovative entrepreneurs.
Because all living things reveal their intelligent design to a sensitive, patient observer, the act of simply witnessing the life process (in oneself, in others, or in any living thing) creates a field of intelligence. Our school teaches students to get in touch with their own intelligence and rely on their own instinct and intuition. It guides them to honor life, to cooperate with life and other human beings, and trust in their own self-knowledge.
We will never understand others unless we use power of love that lies within our being. Without love, without sympathy, understanding of oneself or of others is impossible. Ignorance, blame, denial, isolation, and aggression are natural consequences of a failure to apply the life-enhancing principle of compassion to whoever or whatever life brings to us.
The simple process of conscious breathing connects us with our inner being. To focus on the nature of natural process is meditation. To align with our inner nature and natural world connects us to living genius.
The acorn will transform to the oak, the larva will become the butterfly if life-sustaining conditions prevail. Youngsters will become fully empowered and fully integrated human beings if the conditions for transmutation are met. It is all according to nature’s plan.
An “education” at any level that shapes children for specific ends forfeits human potential and possibility by enslaving the individual to the system. Our commitment is to awaken students to discover their own individual path and become fully empowered.
The mission we embrace at NEI it to provide the conditions for integrated growth and unlimited human development. We subscribe to creating and sustaining a community based on love, inclusion, truth, and beauty because we believe that such an environment provides the conditions for optimal human growth and personal transformation.
The Challenge: Accept Students as they Are
The purpose of authentic education is to help students awaken to their own innate intelligence and purpose so that they can become integrated human beings. This is only possible when both teachers and students focus on “what is now” rather than how students must gain abstract knowledge now in order to be prepared for the future. By openly dealing with what one experiences in the present moment, students penetrate their own nature and wake up to their own intelligence.
`“Compulsory education” that attempts to mold children to some preconceived ideal form has no interest in understanding students as they are, except to label or categorize them in order to allow the system to more efficiently and effectively fix them. Because of its assumption that children are dumb wax waiting to be molded according to the will of the society, this “education” is blind to the possibility that all children possess innate genius. Even a lowly acorn possesses within itself the intelligence to become a magnificent tree if is not compelled to become an efficient toaster.
Whenever children are forced to conform to a system, the system is supreme and the individuality of children is deemed irrelevant, even dangerous. Systems, methods, fixed curricula, ideologies --- all are extremely effective ways to produce conformity. But all are inimical to individual intelligence and deadly to the process of creating healthy, integrated people who can think and act independently out of their own understanding.
The word “compulsory” is illuminating because it reveals the system is based on intimidation and control. Anything “compulsory” is about conditioning and mind control, not educating. Compulsory education is like labeling a class in canine obedience “dog education.” Compulsory education that trains children to pass tests, whether they be tests in simple arithmetic or the heralded college boards, has more in common with circus acts of lions jumping through flaming hoops than with intelligent, independent thinking.
For significant learning to take place we must give up our preconceived ideas about manipulating children to be what we want them to be, and accept them as they are, warts, idiosyncrasies, intelligence and all.
`“Compulsory education” that attempts to mold children to some preconceived ideal form has no interest in understanding students as they are, except to label or categorize them in order to allow the system to more efficiently and effectively fix them. Because of its assumption that children are dumb wax waiting to be molded according to the will of the society, this “education” is blind to the possibility that all children possess innate genius. Even a lowly acorn possesses within itself the intelligence to become a magnificent tree if is not compelled to become an efficient toaster.
Whenever children are forced to conform to a system, the system is supreme and the individuality of children is deemed irrelevant, even dangerous. Systems, methods, fixed curricula, ideologies --- all are extremely effective ways to produce conformity. But all are inimical to individual intelligence and deadly to the process of creating healthy, integrated people who can think and act independently out of their own understanding.
The word “compulsory” is illuminating because it reveals the system is based on intimidation and control. Anything “compulsory” is about conditioning and mind control, not educating. Compulsory education is like labeling a class in canine obedience “dog education.” Compulsory education that trains children to pass tests, whether they be tests in simple arithmetic or the heralded college boards, has more in common with circus acts of lions jumping through flaming hoops than with intelligent, independent thinking.
For significant learning to take place we must give up our preconceived ideas about manipulating children to be what we want them to be, and accept them as they are, warts, idiosyncrasies, intelligence and all.
1. Holistic Education; Awakening Inate Intelligence
The goal of holistic education is not to shape people, but to awaken the innate intelligence that lies dormant in all individuals. Intelligence is not information; it does not come from teachers or books and is not measured by tests: it does not arise from cultivating the mind or from the acquisition of knowledge. Intelligence is the gift to comprehend life as it is. Intelligence is the talent to separate the essential from the traditional. Intelligence is direct knowing --- the capacity to distinguish the real from the illusory, the aptitude to discriminate what is life giving from what is toxic, what is universally true from what is just culturally accepted.
What separates “what truly is” from artificial systems of knowledge, from clever techniques, and elaborate belief systems, is intelligence. Intelligence is the process of sifting the opinions of one’s society through the sieve of inner experience to discover personal truth.
Change is a fact of life. If we are not developing and transforming, we are not truly alive; if we’re not expanding conscious, we’re losing it. Nothing stays the same. The consciousness of students, parents, and teachers is always shifting. It’s the nature of the world we live in.
For this reason our school is experimental. We periodically re-evaluate the results of our program in order to determine what shifts in emphasis are needed to restore balance in the school as a whole. Like an airplane pilot that often adjusts his course in order to arrive at his destination point, we revise our teaching plans whenever we collectively note an imbalance in our school. Although perfect balance is never achieved, the process of consciously seeking it guides our actions. For example, if we see a lot of rudeness or arrogance in student behavior, we do something that brings awareness to what feelings and thoughts lay behind the insolence and what anguish this behavior has triggered in others.
The purpose of authentic education is to help students awaken to their own innate intelligence and purpose so that they can become integrated human beings. This is only possible when both teachers and students focus on “what is now” rather than how students must gain abstract knowledge now in order to be prepared for the future. By openly dealing with what one experiences in the present moment, students penetrate their own nature and wake up to their own intelligence.
A holistic school gives priority to self-knowledge and freedom. It appeals to students have a strong need to discover for themselves the life path they wish to blaze. These pioneers have a spirit of inquiry that searches for personal truth They have an urgent sense of discontent with ways of life based on comfort, luxury, and safety; they have little interest in secure jobs, convenient marriages, or power trips. Pathfinders know that it is possible for an individual to control their own destinies if they break through their own psychological needs to conform, --- the need to always meet the expectations of others and the need to always concur with the opinions of authorities.
The premise of a holistic school is that each student finds meaning and purpose in life by making a series of connections: connecting to individuals within a community that is based on equality and love, connecting to the sanctity of nature and the natural world, and connecting to such spiritual values as truth, beauty, and compassion. An environment that honors these vital relationships exposes students to new possibilities and encourages them to try on alternative identities; such a community is likely to transform a student’s sense of self.
An expanded identity arises from underas mirrors revealing one’s own standing relationships (with others, with nature, and with oneself) as mirrors revealing the texture and composition of one’s own being. A slight switch in identity makes it possible to create new relationships with everything and everybody. The Well’s task is, therefore, to help students connect with their intelligence so that they can expand their ability to develop meaningful relationships of every kind. Our intent is the awaken students to the wonder of life.
Holistic education links living and learning. Its model of life is the entire network of nature; its model of learning is observing and tuning into the visible and invisible facets of the cycles of life.
Holism is transformative. It changes students by calling forth, developing, and making conscious aspects of their innate intelligence. It is not accomplished through an academic curriculum that divides and reduces the world into instructional packages, but by addressing and observing whole life processes and the many mutual relationships involved in the ecology of nature.
Awakening to the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the individual psyche provides a parallel, microcosmic experience of one’s inner life, revealing the ecology of the soul. Transmutation moves us into another landscape in which freedom, the significance of life, and inner authority are visible landmarks.
The nature of holistic education may be further clarified by contrasting it with mainstream education. While traditional education depends on the transmission of fixed, cultural knowledge from teacher to student, holistic education is based on a student’s direct observation and reflection about life, on personal experience and inquiry.
While standardized education values the compliant student, authentic education prizes the unique talents and idiosyncrasies that all children exhibit. For it is through our unique compulsions that we are driven to find our right place in the world; necessity both drives us into the wilderness and leads us to know ourselves.
New Earth Institute is holistic in that it recognizes and addresses all four ways people naturally interface with life. All humans are capable of experiencing life through these four conduits: through our feelings, through our minds, through our intuition, and through our body. Because The Well honors intelligence, it brings all these portals into consciousness. The Well educational program honors and provides for the development of each of these pathways. Since we see body, mind, feelings, and intuitions as every person’s natural and sacred inheritance, we celebrate the expression of all four faculties in and out of the classroom. By helping students to become aware of the treasures they possess, we foster the acceptance and conscious integration of the four ways of learning and knowing.
What separates “what truly is” from artificial systems of knowledge, from clever techniques, and elaborate belief systems, is intelligence. Intelligence is the process of sifting the opinions of one’s society through the sieve of inner experience to discover personal truth.
Change is a fact of life. If we are not developing and transforming, we are not truly alive; if we’re not expanding conscious, we’re losing it. Nothing stays the same. The consciousness of students, parents, and teachers is always shifting. It’s the nature of the world we live in.
For this reason our school is experimental. We periodically re-evaluate the results of our program in order to determine what shifts in emphasis are needed to restore balance in the school as a whole. Like an airplane pilot that often adjusts his course in order to arrive at his destination point, we revise our teaching plans whenever we collectively note an imbalance in our school. Although perfect balance is never achieved, the process of consciously seeking it guides our actions. For example, if we see a lot of rudeness or arrogance in student behavior, we do something that brings awareness to what feelings and thoughts lay behind the insolence and what anguish this behavior has triggered in others.
The purpose of authentic education is to help students awaken to their own innate intelligence and purpose so that they can become integrated human beings. This is only possible when both teachers and students focus on “what is now” rather than how students must gain abstract knowledge now in order to be prepared for the future. By openly dealing with what one experiences in the present moment, students penetrate their own nature and wake up to their own intelligence.
A holistic school gives priority to self-knowledge and freedom. It appeals to students have a strong need to discover for themselves the life path they wish to blaze. These pioneers have a spirit of inquiry that searches for personal truth They have an urgent sense of discontent with ways of life based on comfort, luxury, and safety; they have little interest in secure jobs, convenient marriages, or power trips. Pathfinders know that it is possible for an individual to control their own destinies if they break through their own psychological needs to conform, --- the need to always meet the expectations of others and the need to always concur with the opinions of authorities.
The premise of a holistic school is that each student finds meaning and purpose in life by making a series of connections: connecting to individuals within a community that is based on equality and love, connecting to the sanctity of nature and the natural world, and connecting to such spiritual values as truth, beauty, and compassion. An environment that honors these vital relationships exposes students to new possibilities and encourages them to try on alternative identities; such a community is likely to transform a student’s sense of self.
An expanded identity arises from underas mirrors revealing one’s own standing relationships (with others, with nature, and with oneself) as mirrors revealing the texture and composition of one’s own being. A slight switch in identity makes it possible to create new relationships with everything and everybody. The Well’s task is, therefore, to help students connect with their intelligence so that they can expand their ability to develop meaningful relationships of every kind. Our intent is the awaken students to the wonder of life.
Holistic education links living and learning. Its model of life is the entire network of nature; its model of learning is observing and tuning into the visible and invisible facets of the cycles of life.
Holism is transformative. It changes students by calling forth, developing, and making conscious aspects of their innate intelligence. It is not accomplished through an academic curriculum that divides and reduces the world into instructional packages, but by addressing and observing whole life processes and the many mutual relationships involved in the ecology of nature.
Awakening to the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the individual psyche provides a parallel, microcosmic experience of one’s inner life, revealing the ecology of the soul. Transmutation moves us into another landscape in which freedom, the significance of life, and inner authority are visible landmarks.
The nature of holistic education may be further clarified by contrasting it with mainstream education. While traditional education depends on the transmission of fixed, cultural knowledge from teacher to student, holistic education is based on a student’s direct observation and reflection about life, on personal experience and inquiry.
While standardized education values the compliant student, authentic education prizes the unique talents and idiosyncrasies that all children exhibit. For it is through our unique compulsions that we are driven to find our right place in the world; necessity both drives us into the wilderness and leads us to know ourselves.
New Earth Institute is holistic in that it recognizes and addresses all four ways people naturally interface with life. All humans are capable of experiencing life through these four conduits: through our feelings, through our minds, through our intuition, and through our body. Because The Well honors intelligence, it brings all these portals into consciousness. The Well educational program honors and provides for the development of each of these pathways. Since we see body, mind, feelings, and intuitions as every person’s natural and sacred inheritance, we celebrate the expression of all four faculties in and out of the classroom. By helping students to become aware of the treasures they possess, we foster the acceptance and conscious integration of the four ways of learning and knowing.
Holistic Education
¨ A Holistic School
The goal of holistic education is not to shape people, but to awaken the innate intelligence that lies dormant in all individuals. Intelligence is not information; it does not come from teachers or books and is not measured by tests: it does not arise from cultivating the mind or from the acquisition of knowledge. Intelligence is the gift to comprehend life as it is. Intelligence is the talent to separate the essential from the traditional. Intelligence is direct knowing --- the capacity to distinguish the real from the illusory, the aptitude to discriminate what is life giving from what is toxic, what is universally true from what is just culturally accepted.
What separates “what truly is” from artificial systems of knowledge, from clever techniques, and elaborate belief systems, is intelligence. Intelligence is the process of sifting the opinions of one’s society through the sieve of inner experience to discover personal truth.
Change is a fact of life. If we are not developing and transforming, we are not truly alive; if we’re not expanding conscious, we’re losing it. Nothing stays the same. The consciousness of students, parents, and teachers is always shifting. It’s the nature of the world we live in.
For this reason our school is experimental. We periodically re-evaluate the results of our program in order to determine what shifts in emphasis are needed to restore balance in the school as a whole. Like an airplane pilot that often adjusts his course in order to arrive at his destination point, we revise our teaching plans whenever we collectively note an imbalance in our school. Although perfect balance is never achieved, the process of consciously seeking it guides our actions. For example, if we see a lot of rudeness or arrogance in student behavior, we do something that brings awareness to what feelings and thoughts lay behind the insolence and what anguish this behavior has triggered in others.
The purpose of authentic education is to help students awaken to their own innate intelligence and purpose so that they can become integrated human beings. This is only possible when both teachers and students focus on “what is now” rather than how students must gain abstract knowledge now in order to be prepared for the future. By openly dealing with what one experiences in the present moment, students penetrate their own nature and wake up to their own intelligence.
A holistic school gives priority to self-knowledge and freedom. It appeals to students have a strong need to discover for themselves the life path they wish to blaze. These pioneers have a spirit of inquiry that searches for personal truth They have an urgent sense of discontent with ways of life based on comfort, luxury, and safety; they have little interest in secure jobs, convenient marriages, or power trips. Pathfinders know that it is possible for an individual to control their own destinies if they break through their own psychological needs to conform, --- the need to always meet the expectations of others and the need to always concur with the opinions of authorities.
The premise of a holistic school is that each student finds meaning and purpose in life by making a series of connections: connecting to individuals within a community that is based on equality and love, connecting to the sanctity of nature and the natural world, and connecting to such spiritual values as truth, beauty, and compassion. An environment that honors these vital relationships exposes students to new possibilities and encourages them to try on alternative identities; such a community is likely to transform a student’s sense of self.
An expanded identity arises from underas mirrors revealing one’s own standing relationships (with others, with nature, and with oneself) as mirrors revealing the texture and composition of one’s own being. A slight switch in identity makes it possible to create new relationships with everything and everybody. The Well’s task is, therefore, to help students connect with their intelligence so that they can expand their ability to develop meaningful relationships of every kind. Our intent is the awaken students to the wonder of life.
Holistic education links living and learning. Its model of life is the entire network of nature; its model of learning is observing and tuning into the visible and invisible facets of the cycles of life.
Holism is transformative. It changes students by calling forth, developing, and making conscious aspects of their innate intelligence. It is not accomplished through an academic curriculum that divides and reduces the world into instructional packages, but by addressing and observing whole life processes and the many mutual relationships involved in the ecology of nature.
Awakening to the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the individual psyche provides a parallel, microcosmic experience of one’s inner life, revealing the ecology of the soul. Transmutation moves us into another landscape in which freedom, the significance of life, and inner authority are visible landmarks.
The nature of holistic education may be further clarified by contrasting it with mainstream education. While traditional education depends on the transmission of fixed, cultural knowledge from teacher to student, holistic education is based on a student’s direct observation and reflection about life, on personal experience and inquiry.
While standardized education values the compliant student, authentic education prizes the unique talents and idiosyncrasies that all children exhibit. For it is through our unique compulsions that we are driven to find our right place in the world; necessity both drives us into the wilderness and leads us to know ourselves.
New Earth Institute is holistic in that it recognizes and addresses all four ways people naturally interface with life. All humans are capable of experiencing life through these four conduits: through our feelings, through our minds, through our intuition, and through our body. Because The Well honors intelligence, it brings all these portals into consciousness. The Well educational program honors and provides for the development of each of these pathways. Since we see body, mind, feelings, and intuitions as every person’s natural and sacred inheritance, we celebrate the expression of all four faculties in and out of the classroom. By helping students to become aware of the treasures they possess, we foster the acceptance and conscious integration of the four ways of learning and knowing.
The goal of holistic education is not to shape people, but to awaken the innate intelligence that lies dormant in all individuals. Intelligence is not information; it does not come from teachers or books and is not measured by tests: it does not arise from cultivating the mind or from the acquisition of knowledge. Intelligence is the gift to comprehend life as it is. Intelligence is the talent to separate the essential from the traditional. Intelligence is direct knowing --- the capacity to distinguish the real from the illusory, the aptitude to discriminate what is life giving from what is toxic, what is universally true from what is just culturally accepted.
What separates “what truly is” from artificial systems of knowledge, from clever techniques, and elaborate belief systems, is intelligence. Intelligence is the process of sifting the opinions of one’s society through the sieve of inner experience to discover personal truth.
Change is a fact of life. If we are not developing and transforming, we are not truly alive; if we’re not expanding conscious, we’re losing it. Nothing stays the same. The consciousness of students, parents, and teachers is always shifting. It’s the nature of the world we live in.
For this reason our school is experimental. We periodically re-evaluate the results of our program in order to determine what shifts in emphasis are needed to restore balance in the school as a whole. Like an airplane pilot that often adjusts his course in order to arrive at his destination point, we revise our teaching plans whenever we collectively note an imbalance in our school. Although perfect balance is never achieved, the process of consciously seeking it guides our actions. For example, if we see a lot of rudeness or arrogance in student behavior, we do something that brings awareness to what feelings and thoughts lay behind the insolence and what anguish this behavior has triggered in others.
The purpose of authentic education is to help students awaken to their own innate intelligence and purpose so that they can become integrated human beings. This is only possible when both teachers and students focus on “what is now” rather than how students must gain abstract knowledge now in order to be prepared for the future. By openly dealing with what one experiences in the present moment, students penetrate their own nature and wake up to their own intelligence.
A holistic school gives priority to self-knowledge and freedom. It appeals to students have a strong need to discover for themselves the life path they wish to blaze. These pioneers have a spirit of inquiry that searches for personal truth They have an urgent sense of discontent with ways of life based on comfort, luxury, and safety; they have little interest in secure jobs, convenient marriages, or power trips. Pathfinders know that it is possible for an individual to control their own destinies if they break through their own psychological needs to conform, --- the need to always meet the expectations of others and the need to always concur with the opinions of authorities.
The premise of a holistic school is that each student finds meaning and purpose in life by making a series of connections: connecting to individuals within a community that is based on equality and love, connecting to the sanctity of nature and the natural world, and connecting to such spiritual values as truth, beauty, and compassion. An environment that honors these vital relationships exposes students to new possibilities and encourages them to try on alternative identities; such a community is likely to transform a student’s sense of self.
An expanded identity arises from underas mirrors revealing one’s own standing relationships (with others, with nature, and with oneself) as mirrors revealing the texture and composition of one’s own being. A slight switch in identity makes it possible to create new relationships with everything and everybody. The Well’s task is, therefore, to help students connect with their intelligence so that they can expand their ability to develop meaningful relationships of every kind. Our intent is the awaken students to the wonder of life.
Holistic education links living and learning. Its model of life is the entire network of nature; its model of learning is observing and tuning into the visible and invisible facets of the cycles of life.
Holism is transformative. It changes students by calling forth, developing, and making conscious aspects of their innate intelligence. It is not accomplished through an academic curriculum that divides and reduces the world into instructional packages, but by addressing and observing whole life processes and the many mutual relationships involved in the ecology of nature.
Awakening to the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the individual psyche provides a parallel, microcosmic experience of one’s inner life, revealing the ecology of the soul. Transmutation moves us into another landscape in which freedom, the significance of life, and inner authority are visible landmarks.
The nature of holistic education may be further clarified by contrasting it with mainstream education. While traditional education depends on the transmission of fixed, cultural knowledge from teacher to student, holistic education is based on a student’s direct observation and reflection about life, on personal experience and inquiry.
While standardized education values the compliant student, authentic education prizes the unique talents and idiosyncrasies that all children exhibit. For it is through our unique compulsions that we are driven to find our right place in the world; necessity both drives us into the wilderness and leads us to know ourselves.
New Earth Institute is holistic in that it recognizes and addresses all four ways people naturally interface with life. All humans are capable of experiencing life through these four conduits: through our feelings, through our minds, through our intuition, and through our body. Because The Well honors intelligence, it brings all these portals into consciousness. The Well educational program honors and provides for the development of each of these pathways. Since we see body, mind, feelings, and intuitions as every person’s natural and sacred inheritance, we celebrate the expression of all four faculties in and out of the classroom. By helping students to become aware of the treasures they possess, we foster the acceptance and conscious integration of the four ways of learning and knowing.
The Dimension of Emotions
Emotions are our immediate reply to experience. Feelings are the honest, pre-verbal language of soul experience. Before the mind can label what has happened with words, feelings convey our uncensored, individual reaction. They reveal the raw, inner intelligence triggered by our circumstances. When emotions are acknowledged and honored, our inner experience is validated and our integrity and dignity are preserved. Out-front feelings may be considered politically incorrect, but they accord with our essence.
Like water in life systems, feelings are spontaneous movers and shakers of the energy body. If they are not repressed, they carry things from the unconscious mind to conscious mind, back and forth. They transmit and move information and energy around the human system so that all four elements communicate with each other. For example, after intuition sees a vision, a flow of emotion can move the body to act and the mind to evaluate.
Freely flowing emotions heal the body, provide energy, and create consciousness. They allow us to process and integrate new experiences and new information. Feelings create the possibility of balance, flexibility, and growth within the personality because emotions feel their way through what are otherwise insoluble problems and contradictions.
If we focus for a while (say 15 to 30 minutes) on the feeling within the body, even feelings that make us uncomfortable or feel horrible, the emotions spontaneously change and lose their charge as we process them.
But whenever feelings are judged and squelched because they are “irrational” or “effeminate” or “frightening,” we become dysfunctional, less than human. Rigidity, death, and disease predominate when there is a lack of emotional flow and vitality; elasticity, resiliency, and health thrive where there are no taboo emotions. Without conscious emotion we are mere robots ripe to be used as pawns in the power schemes of others.
Like water in life systems, feelings are spontaneous movers and shakers of the energy body. If they are not repressed, they carry things from the unconscious mind to conscious mind, back and forth. They transmit and move information and energy around the human system so that all four elements communicate with each other. For example, after intuition sees a vision, a flow of emotion can move the body to act and the mind to evaluate.
Freely flowing emotions heal the body, provide energy, and create consciousness. They allow us to process and integrate new experiences and new information. Feelings create the possibility of balance, flexibility, and growth within the personality because emotions feel their way through what are otherwise insoluble problems and contradictions.
If we focus for a while (say 15 to 30 minutes) on the feeling within the body, even feelings that make us uncomfortable or feel horrible, the emotions spontaneously change and lose their charge as we process them.
But whenever feelings are judged and squelched because they are “irrational” or “effeminate” or “frightening,” we become dysfunctional, less than human. Rigidity, death, and disease predominate when there is a lack of emotional flow and vitality; elasticity, resiliency, and health thrive where there are no taboo emotions. Without conscious emotion we are mere robots ripe to be used as pawns in the power schemes of others.
Conscious Communication vs. Hypocrisy
The depth and richness of our relationships depend on our ability to communicate, to articulate our needs, our thoughts and feelings, and to listen compassionately to others in turn. Most of the world’s problems stem from an inability to express our deepest needs in a way that invites a calm, honest response from others.
There is little danger that words of appreciation or affection engender conflict, but those loaded with vitriol and blame, poison the atmosphere for everybody and indicate the presence of shadow energy. Shadow energy forms whenever we censor ourselves believing our thoughts are unacceptable or evil. It is characterized by the presence of guilt, shame, fear, and a general sense of worthless when brought to consciousness.
Authentic communication is both memorable and transformative. We know when we experience it even if we cannot define it. Usually it involves emotional release, sharing sensitive information about the past, forgiveness, revelations, regrets, affection, inspirations, and/or aspirations. In the end it feels good. For many it is a rare occurrence.
Why is clear, honest communication so difficult, even for highly educated people who try to be good communicators? Some psychological schools of thought teach us that mankind is naturally hypocritical; it is human nature to take credit for the positive aspects of one’s personality, to cover up what is considered negative, to project onto others what we deny in ourselves, and in the end to blame “them” for all “their” faults. People eagerly take credit for their good qualities, yet project their shadows on a target of their choosing, making them wrong, bad, unacceptable, or evil.
Attempts at communication can easily degenerate into arguments about who is right and who is wrong, or into gossip that find faults with others who are not present. This self-serving, unconscious shadow boxing is divisive and polarizing. Self-righteous, competitive thought sabotages true communication. Words can be the devil. The universal desire to become loved and accepted by yourself, your family, and your acquaintances often undermines genuine verbal exchanges.
The human dilemma concerning light and dark, good and evil is illuminated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” This story illustrates the fall or polarization of mankind into good and bad, the deceptive, cover-up process we each experience and conveniently deny, converting us from truth tellers into hypocrites at an early age. The good, reputable doctor Dr. Jekyll disowns his “evil” shadow qualities, represented by the psychopath, Mr. Hyde. Often what is denied grows in strength and intensity, threatening to reveal its true nature. Jekyll’s friends eventually discover the evil murderer Hyde to be none other than the good Dr. Jekyll.
To appear good to ourselves and impress others, we split our psyche in two (Jekyll and Hyde); thereafter we either pretend to be only the shining, successful one, or the bad, unsuccessful one. This is process of dis-integration or splitting prevents us from being aware of our true nature. What we are left with is just a caricature of our former self.
Seeking praise and acceptance, each individual pretends to be (identifies with) what he perceives as his goodness, in order to become a model of socially acceptable thoughts, actions, and traits, while denying his shadow self, projecting his dark energies and thoughts onto others. Conversely those who consciously identify with badness, squelch their good quality. Either way, to reverse the dis-integrating process, we must re-integrate light and shadow, good and evil. By accepting and identifying with our shadow as well as our light, we become whole again, re-gaining integrity.
Shadows have compelling force, especially among people who assume that some people are good and worthy while others are bad and worthless. We-are-good-and-they-are-bad or us-versus-them is a ubiquitous game of group deception where we become consciously convinced of our virtue and our superiority. Subconsciously however, our shadow gains power; subconsciously we are unable forgive ourselves and others and judge ourselves as being unworthy and unlovable, despite all our conscious efforts to be good
Paradoxically, learning to work consciously with shadow energy can spontaneously incite empowerment, transformation, and self-acceptance, both for an individual and for a community. Carl Jung, a luminary among psychologists, proved in his practice that the element in the human psyche with the greatest potential to transform hypocrites into loving, compassionate people is the shadow. But only if shadow, like a frog in a fairy tale, is kissed by the power of love and acceptance; when we embraces shadow, we become whole. Jung observed that the inhumanity of hypocritical people (mostly men) compulsively and unconsciously promulgates the atrocities of mass murder and war. “Weapons of mass destruction,” random violence, military adventures, large prison populations proliferate in “good“ societies that deny their shadows.
A spiritually based education must arise from free choice. Compulsory education that denies spirit and soul, and the legitimacy of feelings, intuitions, inspirations; that chains students to desks for most of the day away from fresh air and sunlight; that values conformity and obedience to authority figures above everything else, that strictly segregates according to age and grade; that excludes parents from participation in their child’s education; that is unresponsive to student’s desires and interests; that bars students from nature; that unnaturally regulates students behavior (requires permission to pee, to talk, to move away from one’s desk, etc.) is a sorry failure of man’s imagination.
There is little danger that words of appreciation or affection engender conflict, but those loaded with vitriol and blame, poison the atmosphere for everybody and indicate the presence of shadow energy. Shadow energy forms whenever we censor ourselves believing our thoughts are unacceptable or evil. It is characterized by the presence of guilt, shame, fear, and a general sense of worthless when brought to consciousness.
Authentic communication is both memorable and transformative. We know when we experience it even if we cannot define it. Usually it involves emotional release, sharing sensitive information about the past, forgiveness, revelations, regrets, affection, inspirations, and/or aspirations. In the end it feels good. For many it is a rare occurrence.
Why is clear, honest communication so difficult, even for highly educated people who try to be good communicators? Some psychological schools of thought teach us that mankind is naturally hypocritical; it is human nature to take credit for the positive aspects of one’s personality, to cover up what is considered negative, to project onto others what we deny in ourselves, and in the end to blame “them” for all “their” faults. People eagerly take credit for their good qualities, yet project their shadows on a target of their choosing, making them wrong, bad, unacceptable, or evil.
Attempts at communication can easily degenerate into arguments about who is right and who is wrong, or into gossip that find faults with others who are not present. This self-serving, unconscious shadow boxing is divisive and polarizing. Self-righteous, competitive thought sabotages true communication. Words can be the devil. The universal desire to become loved and accepted by yourself, your family, and your acquaintances often undermines genuine verbal exchanges.
The human dilemma concerning light and dark, good and evil is illuminated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” This story illustrates the fall or polarization of mankind into good and bad, the deceptive, cover-up process we each experience and conveniently deny, converting us from truth tellers into hypocrites at an early age. The good, reputable doctor Dr. Jekyll disowns his “evil” shadow qualities, represented by the psychopath, Mr. Hyde. Often what is denied grows in strength and intensity, threatening to reveal its true nature. Jekyll’s friends eventually discover the evil murderer Hyde to be none other than the good Dr. Jekyll.
To appear good to ourselves and impress others, we split our psyche in two (Jekyll and Hyde); thereafter we either pretend to be only the shining, successful one, or the bad, unsuccessful one. This is process of dis-integration or splitting prevents us from being aware of our true nature. What we are left with is just a caricature of our former self.
Seeking praise and acceptance, each individual pretends to be (identifies with) what he perceives as his goodness, in order to become a model of socially acceptable thoughts, actions, and traits, while denying his shadow self, projecting his dark energies and thoughts onto others. Conversely those who consciously identify with badness, squelch their good quality. Either way, to reverse the dis-integrating process, we must re-integrate light and shadow, good and evil. By accepting and identifying with our shadow as well as our light, we become whole again, re-gaining integrity.
Shadows have compelling force, especially among people who assume that some people are good and worthy while others are bad and worthless. We-are-good-and-they-are-bad or us-versus-them is a ubiquitous game of group deception where we become consciously convinced of our virtue and our superiority. Subconsciously however, our shadow gains power; subconsciously we are unable forgive ourselves and others and judge ourselves as being unworthy and unlovable, despite all our conscious efforts to be good
Paradoxically, learning to work consciously with shadow energy can spontaneously incite empowerment, transformation, and self-acceptance, both for an individual and for a community. Carl Jung, a luminary among psychologists, proved in his practice that the element in the human psyche with the greatest potential to transform hypocrites into loving, compassionate people is the shadow. But only if shadow, like a frog in a fairy tale, is kissed by the power of love and acceptance; when we embraces shadow, we become whole. Jung observed that the inhumanity of hypocritical people (mostly men) compulsively and unconsciously promulgates the atrocities of mass murder and war. “Weapons of mass destruction,” random violence, military adventures, large prison populations proliferate in “good“ societies that deny their shadows.
A spiritually based education must arise from free choice. Compulsory education that denies spirit and soul, and the legitimacy of feelings, intuitions, inspirations; that chains students to desks for most of the day away from fresh air and sunlight; that values conformity and obedience to authority figures above everything else, that strictly segregates according to age and grade; that excludes parents from participation in their child’s education; that is unresponsive to student’s desires and interests; that bars students from nature; that unnaturally regulates students behavior (requires permission to pee, to talk, to move away from one’s desk, etc.) is a sorry failure of man’s imagination.
New Earth Institute Forum
The bedrock of our community is learning to communicate directly, honestly, and non-violently. One of the functions of the Forum is to openly discuss conflicts and find resolution. We practice conflict resolution in our weekly Forum and whenever an individual experiencing conflict calls a meeting.
Our weekly Forum deals with all manner of things. Meetings are opportunities to celebrate personal and group victories, express gratitude, give minor performances, plan events, discuss issues, and make group decisions. There are no taboo subjects here; everyone is free to speak his or her truth, even about controversial issues involving strong feelings or conflict.
Our Forum is devoted to having everyone learn to take responsibility for the effect of their words and actions on others. All members of the community will learn how to use the language of nonviolence in which everything can be communicated and can be done through a non-blaming conscious use of language.
We have definite rules to channel dialogues in constructive and healing directions. This is especially important when issues colored by shadow emerge, whenever personal conflict surfaces (when someone wants to express discomfort or anger or simply get a straight answer from an individual). We apply rules that have proven to be effective in promoting understanding and healing while eliminating scapegoating of others and the tendency to echo others complaints and criticisms ad nauseum. These rules are:
1. A leader is chosen to open and close the Forum and to remind people to abide by the rules.
2. The Forum is public; incidental comments and side conversations are forbidden.
3. Allow a silence of approximately 15 seconds after each person speaks.
4. You may begin speaking out of the silence. Speak in specifics, not generalities. When you speak, identify the person you are addressing, establish eye contact, and speak in a strong, clear voice so everyone can hear you. No whining or playing the victim. Take time to breathe deeply if you find it difficult to talk so everyone can hear you. Get to the point and indicate when you are finished speaking.
5 If someone is talking directly to you, you need to look him or her in the eyes and listen until they have finished what they want to say. Then you repeat what you heard using your own words. Next you need to respond directly to him or her.
6. If you are objecting to somebody’s behavior, preface your remarks and observations by first noting something you admire about that person and also recall how and when you have done something similar to what you are objecting to.
7. At all time demonstrate respect for everyone present.
We often discuss techniques for co-creation in our meeting. The ultimate quest for each human being is to create an environment in answer to her or his deepest needs. The ability to co-create what the heart desires requires practice! So many activities at New Earth Institute serve as practicum in creative, fruitful living. Our intention is not to prepare human beings for later life, but to permit them to live and learn now, in the moment, as creative beings.
Our weekly Forum deals with all manner of things. Meetings are opportunities to celebrate personal and group victories, express gratitude, give minor performances, plan events, discuss issues, and make group decisions. There are no taboo subjects here; everyone is free to speak his or her truth, even about controversial issues involving strong feelings or conflict.
Our Forum is devoted to having everyone learn to take responsibility for the effect of their words and actions on others. All members of the community will learn how to use the language of nonviolence in which everything can be communicated and can be done through a non-blaming conscious use of language.
We have definite rules to channel dialogues in constructive and healing directions. This is especially important when issues colored by shadow emerge, whenever personal conflict surfaces (when someone wants to express discomfort or anger or simply get a straight answer from an individual). We apply rules that have proven to be effective in promoting understanding and healing while eliminating scapegoating of others and the tendency to echo others complaints and criticisms ad nauseum. These rules are:
1. A leader is chosen to open and close the Forum and to remind people to abide by the rules.
2. The Forum is public; incidental comments and side conversations are forbidden.
3. Allow a silence of approximately 15 seconds after each person speaks.
4. You may begin speaking out of the silence. Speak in specifics, not generalities. When you speak, identify the person you are addressing, establish eye contact, and speak in a strong, clear voice so everyone can hear you. No whining or playing the victim. Take time to breathe deeply if you find it difficult to talk so everyone can hear you. Get to the point and indicate when you are finished speaking.
5 If someone is talking directly to you, you need to look him or her in the eyes and listen until they have finished what they want to say. Then you repeat what you heard using your own words. Next you need to respond directly to him or her.
6. If you are objecting to somebody’s behavior, preface your remarks and observations by first noting something you admire about that person and also recall how and when you have done something similar to what you are objecting to.
7. At all time demonstrate respect for everyone present.
We often discuss techniques for co-creation in our meeting. The ultimate quest for each human being is to create an environment in answer to her or his deepest needs. The ability to co-create what the heart desires requires practice! So many activities at New Earth Institute serve as practicum in creative, fruitful living. Our intention is not to prepare human beings for later life, but to permit them to live and learn now, in the moment, as creative beings.
Record Keeping: Journals
Our daily journals will document both our daily activities and our considered thoughts, along with occasional poetry, drawings, music, sculpture, etc. We will record our original and interpretive musical and dramatic performances as well. Thereby, over time we will each develop a physical and electronic portfolio to represent our achievements and serve as vehicle to certify our learning accomplishments in order to gain entrance to institutions of higher learning.
Entrance Agreements
For the agree to abide by a few basic principles:
A. Every person is responsible for making this school safe for all. Each individual is obliged to honor and treat everyone with decency. That includes, over time: noticing and expressing the goodness of each member, no name calling, no violence, no verbal abuse, no screaming, and no personal attacks. There is a designated Forum where you can express personal upset, hatred grievances, betrayal, exclusion, panic, pain, etc., in a format that protects you and the ones you are upset with from abuse.
B. Since our school functions best when everyone speaks their truth, you agree to share your ideas, opinions, feelings and intuitions. In order to show respect for all, you will respond when talked to directly.
C. You are responsible for all your words and actions, even if you had no intent to harm.
D. Like everyone else, you have your own special talents, intelligence, and genius; these you will share with the whole community.smooth functioning of our program, entrance into New Earth Institute requires that participants
A. Every person is responsible for making this school safe for all. Each individual is obliged to honor and treat everyone with decency. That includes, over time: noticing and expressing the goodness of each member, no name calling, no violence, no verbal abuse, no screaming, and no personal attacks. There is a designated Forum where you can express personal upset, hatred grievances, betrayal, exclusion, panic, pain, etc., in a format that protects you and the ones you are upset with from abuse.
B. Since our school functions best when everyone speaks their truth, you agree to share your ideas, opinions, feelings and intuitions. In order to show respect for all, you will respond when talked to directly.
C. You are responsible for all your words and actions, even if you had no intent to harm.
D. Like everyone else, you have your own special talents, intelligence, and genius; these you will share with the whole community.smooth functioning of our program, entrance into New Earth Institute requires that participants
7. Consciousness; The Key to Education
Education, in my view, is simply about raising consciousness. In fact elevating awareness transforms one’s world view, makes one smarter, more generous, more talented, and more compassionate. It lift’s one’s spirit and provides perspective as one moves from misery towards bliss. It offers the control to create the, life you want. Consciousness is the key to creative freedom and power.
For educational purposes, it is important to have a clear picture of the spectrum of conscious awareness. By contrasting the low and the high ends,we can fill in the rest of the spectrum using our imagination. We view the extremes of awareness in some detail in order to better appreciate consciousness’ transformative power. Then we can make use of our understanding of consciousness to create a truly positive learning environment. First some portraits of low conscious development.
George has a very low level of consciousness. He observes his world through many filters of his lower self. These filters distort George’s reality in order to support two fictions: an, unthinking, fearful, dogmatic world view and an isolated, contemptuous self-image. He’s oblivious to everything that does not serve his Little Me Self. He habitually and obsessively employs the following defense mechanisms:
Denial: George categorically denies whatever does not flatter him.
Projection: He projects his negative qualities on others and blames “them” for his frustrations.
Distortion: He distorts external reality to meet his internal desires.
Splitting: Negative and positive impulses are split off and disintegrate. For example, people are split and seen as devils or angels rather than whole cohesive continuous persons.
Another sign of a low of consciousness is immaturity. George acts out: He resolves conflicts by fantasizing. He idolizes some people and is passive aggressive towards others. He somatizes: He transforms negative feelings towards others into negative feelings toward himself: pain, illness, and anxiety.
Ed displaces: He shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a safer outlet; he separates emotion from its original target and redirects intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening. For example, Ed may yell at her child because she is angry with her husband.
Sally dissociates: She modifies her personal identity or character to avoid emotional distress; she separates or postpones a feeling that normally would accompany a situation or thought.
Edna becomes a hypochondria: She’s preoccupied or worried about having a serious illness.
Boris intellectualizes to isolate himself and his emotions; he concentrates on the intellectual components of a situation so as to distance herself from the associated anxiety-provoking emotions; he separates emotion from ideas; he thinks about wishes in formal, affectively bland terms so as to not act on them; he avoids unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects. He partakes in ritual and magical thinking.
Billy separates feelings from ideas and events, for example, describing a murder with graphic details with no emotional response.
Nathan rationalizes: he convinces himself that no wrong was done and that all is or was all right through faulty and false reasoning. In other words he makes excuses.
लोइस makes use of reaction formation: She converts unconscious wishes or impulses that are perceived to be dangerous into their opposites; he behaves completely the opposite of what he really wants or feels; taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety.
Alex regresses: He reverts to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way. He becomes more naive, has memory lapses or lack of awareness of his own situation and condition; the emotion is conscious, but the idea behind it is absent.
Fred becomes a contrary, a person who engages in behavior that is the opposite of what is acceptable.
When consciousness is elevated, on the other hand, one almost magically matures, finds purpose in meaning, gets happy and intelligent. The veils that cloud access to the portals of perception are lifted. Direct knowing is quickened spontaneously.
Consciousness is the golden key that unlocks four doors to perception: Sensations, Thoughts, Feelings, and Intuition.
Henry’s changed. He’s examined the old beliefs that stifled him and kept him frozen in time: he’s chosen new, productive beliefs that connected him with himself, with Nature, with his Creator, and with others. He’s rejected his old self image -- a suffering, nice, above average man. He’s chosen a new purpose in life, one that betters everyone living on this planet. He’s given up his old job and his ambition to be richer, own exclusive possessions, and be safe and secure. He’s discovered that helping the Earth and fellow man brings him peace.
Others note a new spark in Henry’s eye, a straighter posture, a confidence to follow his own star. He’s reordered his priorities based on his new understandings. He knows that to give is to get. Henry’s family has grown to include those not related by blood. Henry’s intelligence has soared, his world view has broadened, and his compassion now extends to all people. He no longer relies on old, defense mechanisms because he appreciates the growth that comes from vulnerability.
Because the individual evolution of consciousness leads to brighter perceptions, more creative thoughts, deeper feelings, and clearer insights, NEI supports the development of awareness in all aspects of our program. We regularly discuss how our beliefs determine our experience of reality, how our behavior reflects our self-image, how our relationships can be improved, and how our attitudes affect both our learning and our happiness.
Patrick is a fictional student at NEI. He arrived with a relatively un-evolved consciousness and a lot of complaints about his life. But as his first year proceeded he became familiar with the subculture at NEI. He grasped the nature of the spectrum of consciousness and identified with someone at the low end. But he was inspired by hearing others speak about techniques to raise one's awareness. He worked with the help of others to bring his shadow into the light and become aware of his negative self-image. He also worked on his attitude and noticed how some of his thoughts and images produced consequences he did not like. Motivated to have a better, happier life, in the presence of people who were becoming more aware, he began to chose what beliefs he wanted to have about himself, and what self-image he wanted to have. More and more often he received confirmation from others that he had changed in many positive ways: he complained less often and was enthusiastic about his life. And Patrick noticed inside him new feeling of joy, confidence, and love.
In the subculture of NEI, we all become articulate about our feelings and thoughts and regularly voice our interests, concerns, aspirations, and intuitions. We review and evaluate how well we work together and how we can serve others. We reflect about our goals and whether they are being fulfilled. We discuss our ability to love and to forgive. All this transforms awareness and inspires us to evolve individually and as a community.
Promise becomes actuality through the expansion of consciousness. All is elevated and illuminated. Then the mundane contains the ineffable. This is the process of individual evolution.
For educational purposes, it is important to have a clear picture of the spectrum of conscious awareness. By contrasting the low and the high ends,we can fill in the rest of the spectrum using our imagination. We view the extremes of awareness in some detail in order to better appreciate consciousness’ transformative power. Then we can make use of our understanding of consciousness to create a truly positive learning environment. First some portraits of low conscious development.
George has a very low level of consciousness. He observes his world through many filters of his lower self. These filters distort George’s reality in order to support two fictions: an, unthinking, fearful, dogmatic world view and an isolated, contemptuous self-image. He’s oblivious to everything that does not serve his Little Me Self. He habitually and obsessively employs the following defense mechanisms:
Denial: George categorically denies whatever does not flatter him.
Projection: He projects his negative qualities on others and blames “them” for his frustrations.
Distortion: He distorts external reality to meet his internal desires.
Splitting: Negative and positive impulses are split off and disintegrate. For example, people are split and seen as devils or angels rather than whole cohesive continuous persons.
Another sign of a low of consciousness is immaturity. George acts out: He resolves conflicts by fantasizing. He idolizes some people and is passive aggressive towards others. He somatizes: He transforms negative feelings towards others into negative feelings toward himself: pain, illness, and anxiety.
Ed displaces: He shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a safer outlet; he separates emotion from its original target and redirects intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening. For example, Ed may yell at her child because she is angry with her husband.
Sally dissociates: She modifies her personal identity or character to avoid emotional distress; she separates or postpones a feeling that normally would accompany a situation or thought.
Edna becomes a hypochondria: She’s preoccupied or worried about having a serious illness.
Boris intellectualizes to isolate himself and his emotions; he concentrates on the intellectual components of a situation so as to distance herself from the associated anxiety-provoking emotions; he separates emotion from ideas; he thinks about wishes in formal, affectively bland terms so as to not act on them; he avoids unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects. He partakes in ritual and magical thinking.
Billy separates feelings from ideas and events, for example, describing a murder with graphic details with no emotional response.
Nathan rationalizes: he convinces himself that no wrong was done and that all is or was all right through faulty and false reasoning. In other words he makes excuses.
लोइस makes use of reaction formation: She converts unconscious wishes or impulses that are perceived to be dangerous into their opposites; he behaves completely the opposite of what he really wants or feels; taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety.
Alex regresses: He reverts to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way. He becomes more naive, has memory lapses or lack of awareness of his own situation and condition; the emotion is conscious, but the idea behind it is absent.
Fred becomes a contrary, a person who engages in behavior that is the opposite of what is acceptable.
When consciousness is elevated, on the other hand, one almost magically matures, finds purpose in meaning, gets happy and intelligent. The veils that cloud access to the portals of perception are lifted. Direct knowing is quickened spontaneously.
Consciousness is the golden key that unlocks four doors to perception: Sensations, Thoughts, Feelings, and Intuition.
Henry’s changed. He’s examined the old beliefs that stifled him and kept him frozen in time: he’s chosen new, productive beliefs that connected him with himself, with Nature, with his Creator, and with others. He’s rejected his old self image -- a suffering, nice, above average man. He’s chosen a new purpose in life, one that betters everyone living on this planet. He’s given up his old job and his ambition to be richer, own exclusive possessions, and be safe and secure. He’s discovered that helping the Earth and fellow man brings him peace.
Others note a new spark in Henry’s eye, a straighter posture, a confidence to follow his own star. He’s reordered his priorities based on his new understandings. He knows that to give is to get. Henry’s family has grown to include those not related by blood. Henry’s intelligence has soared, his world view has broadened, and his compassion now extends to all people. He no longer relies on old, defense mechanisms because he appreciates the growth that comes from vulnerability.
Because the individual evolution of consciousness leads to brighter perceptions, more creative thoughts, deeper feelings, and clearer insights, NEI supports the development of awareness in all aspects of our program. We regularly discuss how our beliefs determine our experience of reality, how our behavior reflects our self-image, how our relationships can be improved, and how our attitudes affect both our learning and our happiness.
Patrick is a fictional student at NEI. He arrived with a relatively un-evolved consciousness and a lot of complaints about his life. But as his first year proceeded he became familiar with the subculture at NEI. He grasped the nature of the spectrum of consciousness and identified with someone at the low end. But he was inspired by hearing others speak about techniques to raise one's awareness. He worked with the help of others to bring his shadow into the light and become aware of his negative self-image. He also worked on his attitude and noticed how some of his thoughts and images produced consequences he did not like. Motivated to have a better, happier life, in the presence of people who were becoming more aware, he began to chose what beliefs he wanted to have about himself, and what self-image he wanted to have. More and more often he received confirmation from others that he had changed in many positive ways: he complained less often and was enthusiastic about his life. And Patrick noticed inside him new feeling of joy, confidence, and love.
In the subculture of NEI, we all become articulate about our feelings and thoughts and regularly voice our interests, concerns, aspirations, and intuitions. We review and evaluate how well we work together and how we can serve others. We reflect about our goals and whether they are being fulfilled. We discuss our ability to love and to forgive. All this transforms awareness and inspires us to evolve individually and as a community.
Promise becomes actuality through the expansion of consciousness. All is elevated and illuminated. Then the mundane contains the ineffable. This is the process of individual evolution.
Help NEI
Our fledging school has many needs. Our first need is for people to come together with the intention of getting support for realizing their potential as well as to learn new life skills in order to live more fully.
We’re looking for students of all ages, people who are drawn to participate in our program, fully or peripherally.
We need voluntary advisors with specific skills that can give advice an demonstrations on the many facets of gardening; selecting plants for particular areas, preparing the soil, planting and transplanting, irrigation, acquiring a multitude of plants cheaply; identifying and cooking wild plants, carpentry; wood carving; masonry; building structures of all kinds with alternative materials such as adobe, straw bales, and papercrete; local geology and history; beekeeping; herbology; wellness; star gazing; pond building; yoga and meditation: solar energy and wind power; accounting; computer skills; patents; survival skills and wilderness trips and river rafting; people conversant with people of different cultures.
We need people who can provide resources (land or building s to use) and financing.
We need people who can provide transportation and vehicles suitable for transporting a number of people.
We need people who can offer things we haven’t yet thought of.
We’re looking for students of all ages, people who are drawn to participate in our program, fully or peripherally.
We need voluntary advisors with specific skills that can give advice an demonstrations on the many facets of gardening; selecting plants for particular areas, preparing the soil, planting and transplanting, irrigation, acquiring a multitude of plants cheaply; identifying and cooking wild plants, carpentry; wood carving; masonry; building structures of all kinds with alternative materials such as adobe, straw bales, and papercrete; local geology and history; beekeeping; herbology; wellness; star gazing; pond building; yoga and meditation: solar energy and wind power; accounting; computer skills; patents; survival skills and wilderness trips and river rafting; people conversant with people of different cultures.
We need people who can provide resources (land or building s to use) and financing.
We need people who can provide transportation and vehicles suitable for transporting a number of people.
We need people who can offer things we haven’t yet thought of.
The Name: New Earth Institute
Throughout this piece, I have use the word institute instead of school because the word SCHOOL in our culture evokes so many associations and expectations, as well as provoking strong gut reactions. We tend to assume this school will resemble the school we know from our own personal experience. I am determined it won’t; INSTITUTE is the best I’ve come with. I chose “institute” mainly because our experience of institutes is limited, or non-existent, leaving us relatively free to create an original image that reflects our aspirations and yearnings for a creative place of learning.
Similarly its name calls for a NEW EARTH. That represents our highest vision of a beautiful world, pristine in its nature, inviting in its beauty. It represents a state of mind characterized by awareness of our intimate loving connection with all things organic and inorganic, with sky and universe. It represents harmony and beauty, our true home. We are blessed because the Gila Valley and the Gila wilderness already reflects this vision. It is our intention that New Earth Institute will help transform the consciousness of the whole world.
Similarly its name calls for a NEW EARTH. That represents our highest vision of a beautiful world, pristine in its nature, inviting in its beauty. It represents a state of mind characterized by awareness of our intimate loving connection with all things organic and inorganic, with sky and universe. It represents harmony and beauty, our true home. We are blessed because the Gila Valley and the Gila wilderness already reflects this vision. It is our intention that New Earth Institute will help transform the consciousness of the whole world.
How does New Earth Institute begin?
At first the growth of New Earth Institute will be organic. So it will be slow, building as it develops. We start without funding, without a school site, without an organization in place. The possibilities, nevertheless, are limitless.
At our initial meeting sometime in April we will discuss our first baby steps. Each of us can state our intentions and interest(s). In what capacity we would like to be affiliated with New Earth Institute? How would we like it to serve us.
At another meeting shortly after we can begin the process of determining together what projects or studies will be included in our first offerings. we can each present a wish list of what we yearn to study, of what projects we want to explore. Another list of our talents will help us know the resources at hand. The group at that meeting will determine what courses and projects they wish to commit to. I suggest an initial limit of three activities, each meeting once a week until the group decides to share what they have done in a presentation to the larger community. Then other courses could be offered.
Inevitably discontent within a group will arise over some issue or personality. I suggest that at any point in group’s activity, any individual, feeling discomfort, can spontaneously call for a mini-Forum comprised of members of that group, chose a leader and adhere to the Forum rules presented above. When the conflict is settled, then the group can continue its work.
We'll most likely start with adult students although all ages are welcome. It is an opportunity to not only study something or do a project, but also to experience how we work together. After taking several courses, we may build a core group with a common view of how NEI should unfold.
Weekly meetings of the large Forum will allow all those interested to keep abreast of our new developments, general discussions, debates, reforms, and agreements.
At some point in the evolution of our institute, we need to form an organization. Probably a limited liability corporation (LLC) would allow the us most latitude and flexibility. It could then own, lease, or rent land, property, and objects. That ownership triggers the beginning of the full operation of New Earth Institute and the full implementation of this prospectus.
At our initial meeting sometime in April we will discuss our first baby steps. Each of us can state our intentions and interest(s). In what capacity we would like to be affiliated with New Earth Institute? How would we like it to serve us.
At another meeting shortly after we can begin the process of determining together what projects or studies will be included in our first offerings. we can each present a wish list of what we yearn to study, of what projects we want to explore. Another list of our talents will help us know the resources at hand. The group at that meeting will determine what courses and projects they wish to commit to. I suggest an initial limit of three activities, each meeting once a week until the group decides to share what they have done in a presentation to the larger community. Then other courses could be offered.
Inevitably discontent within a group will arise over some issue or personality. I suggest that at any point in group’s activity, any individual, feeling discomfort, can spontaneously call for a mini-Forum comprised of members of that group, chose a leader and adhere to the Forum rules presented above. When the conflict is settled, then the group can continue its work.
We'll most likely start with adult students although all ages are welcome. It is an opportunity to not only study something or do a project, but also to experience how we work together. After taking several courses, we may build a core group with a common view of how NEI should unfold.
Weekly meetings of the large Forum will allow all those interested to keep abreast of our new developments, general discussions, debates, reforms, and agreements.
At some point in the evolution of our institute, we need to form an organization. Probably a limited liability corporation (LLC) would allow the us most latitude and flexibility. It could then own, lease, or rent land, property, and objects. That ownership triggers the beginning of the full operation of New Earth Institute and the full implementation of this prospectus.
Empowerment & Responsibility
New Earth Institute of Creative Living is about empowerment: individual and group empowerment. Empowerment engenders self-reliance, harmonious, cooperative problem solving, self-knowledge, and honest, non-violent and compassionate expression of feelings and intuitions.
Integral to the process of full empowerment is an inspired view of mankind that sees all people as intrinsically good, intelligent, and sacred. All people, when released from dogma and unconscious, negative conditioning, demonstrate genius. Such a view recognizes that each of us is dual in nature like a packet of energy or photon that exhibits both wave and particle behaviors. Each person has, having both a specific personality (a consistent, organized, habitual pattern of energy which attempts to deal with life’s external problems), and a more subtle, immortal soul (with a highly developed sense of natural, universal morality, justice, and decency). The soul is fully capable of steering our path through life in creative, constructive, fruitful directions if we would but initiate conversations with it and heed its advice.
Our soul, freed from the constraints of our numbing beliefs, is able to directly cull truth from illusion out of the thoughts that flow involuntarily through our minds. Without the force of feeling, soul remains a stranger.
When adults hold this inspired view of students, they naturally give them awesome responsibility: to come up with answers to life’s most difficult questions on their own, rather than rely on authorities and dogmatic teachings. Teachers and adults at New Earth Institute expect each student to be powerful and proactive, to develop and use her or his clear and powerful voice, to help design and implement the school’s environment, the nature of its subculture, and its procedures for learning and living.
Integral to the process of full empowerment is an inspired view of mankind that sees all people as intrinsically good, intelligent, and sacred. All people, when released from dogma and unconscious, negative conditioning, demonstrate genius. Such a view recognizes that each of us is dual in nature like a packet of energy or photon that exhibits both wave and particle behaviors. Each person has, having both a specific personality (a consistent, organized, habitual pattern of energy which attempts to deal with life’s external problems), and a more subtle, immortal soul (with a highly developed sense of natural, universal morality, justice, and decency). The soul is fully capable of steering our path through life in creative, constructive, fruitful directions if we would but initiate conversations with it and heed its advice.
Our soul, freed from the constraints of our numbing beliefs, is able to directly cull truth from illusion out of the thoughts that flow involuntarily through our minds. Without the force of feeling, soul remains a stranger.
When adults hold this inspired view of students, they naturally give them awesome responsibility: to come up with answers to life’s most difficult questions on their own, rather than rely on authorities and dogmatic teachings. Teachers and adults at New Earth Institute expect each student to be powerful and proactive, to develop and use her or his clear and powerful voice, to help design and implement the school’s environment, the nature of its subculture, and its procedures for learning and living.
The 3-Step Creative Process: Intention, Focus, Feeling,
How is all this to be done? We rely on tapping the potential of all human beings, specifically the most powerful, the most subtle, and the most creative energy in the universe: thought itself. Although Quantum Physics of the 20th Century claims to have discovered that the power of thought determines the outcome of experiments and the specific nature and form of reality that is created out of the world of subatomic particles, our Creator made use of the same phenomenon long ago. His Word caused the entire universe to manifest the macrocosm. It is also obvious in every-day life that all inventions arise only after the conception of detailed thoughts is completed.
Another ally of creative expression inherent in all people is imagination. Imagination coupled with the audacity to create what one most deeply desires, is an unstoppable force because of the universal power of thought focused on a cherished objective.
Another ally of creative expression inherent in all people is imagination. Imagination coupled with the audacity to create what one most deeply desires, is an unstoppable force because of the universal power of thought focused on a cherished objective.
The Campus Center: The Garden
The Garden is the place we regularly commune with Mother Earth. Through the process of planning and creating a species-diverse, productive garden on the school campus, students and teachers will acquire extensive, first-hand knowledge of all aspects of gardening, including: soil preparation, water and nutrient requirements for specific plant species, insect identification and ecologically sound deterrents for those that are harmful, while producing attractive gardens and nutritious foods.
The curriculum will include the study of the nature of living forms and the planting of shade trees (cottonwood, pine, cedar, willow, birch, almond, walnut, etc.), fruit trees (apple, quince, cherry, pear, peach, etc.), extensive berry producing bushes, a variety of healing herbs, root and leaf vegetables, and beds of flowers, spaces for wild plants and grasses, bee colonies for pollination of plants and the production of honey. The garden is the center around which our community revolves, our safe place where we connect daily with plant life. Its continual living processes connect learning and studying with regular community activity and integrate our need to nurture life with the energy of sunlight, water, and air and spirit. Gardening activity thus reflects and symbolizes our conscious, deliberate communion with life and the Creator of life.
Our campus will also feature a menagerie of animals (not to be slaughtered for food but to serve as helpers, teachers and companions). The manure of chickens, milking cows, sheep, and mules is used for fertilizer. Eggs and milk provide food. Chickens, turkeys, and geese help control insects that are harmful to garden plants. A living pond supports wildlife. There are open studios and workshops for creative endeavors; a greenhouse; a cold cellar, a cote for carrier (rock) pigeons, a sweat lodge for purification of body, mind, heart and spirit while giving thanks, all built by our participants. Our campus is in close proximity to a river that flows year round and a genuine wilderness millions of acres, each serving as living areas in which to romp, explore, and learn, an extended campus provided by nature herself, featuring a variety of life forms, our sisters and brothers in creation.
The curriculum will include the study of the nature of living forms and the planting of shade trees (cottonwood, pine, cedar, willow, birch, almond, walnut, etc.), fruit trees (apple, quince, cherry, pear, peach, etc.), extensive berry producing bushes, a variety of healing herbs, root and leaf vegetables, and beds of flowers, spaces for wild plants and grasses, bee colonies for pollination of plants and the production of honey. The garden is the center around which our community revolves, our safe place where we connect daily with plant life. Its continual living processes connect learning and studying with regular community activity and integrate our need to nurture life with the energy of sunlight, water, and air and spirit. Gardening activity thus reflects and symbolizes our conscious, deliberate communion with life and the Creator of life.
Our campus will also feature a menagerie of animals (not to be slaughtered for food but to serve as helpers, teachers and companions). The manure of chickens, milking cows, sheep, and mules is used for fertilizer. Eggs and milk provide food. Chickens, turkeys, and geese help control insects that are harmful to garden plants. A living pond supports wildlife. There are open studios and workshops for creative endeavors; a greenhouse; a cold cellar, a cote for carrier (rock) pigeons, a sweat lodge for purification of body, mind, heart and spirit while giving thanks, all built by our participants. Our campus is in close proximity to a river that flows year round and a genuine wilderness millions of acres, each serving as living areas in which to romp, explore, and learn, an extended campus provided by nature herself, featuring a variety of life forms, our sisters and brothers in creation.
Jay Garland’s Abiding Passion
This description of New Earth Institute emerges from my need to create a school worthy of the divine nature of the children, adolescents, and adults it serves. This portrait of a new school is a work in progress to be amended and improved by people of good will. I sent this to you for two reasons. I seek critiques, suggestions, amendments, comments, and honest reactions if you feel called to respond. And, since the undertaking of a new school requires tremendous effort and determination, I hope that a few of you will want to participate in New Earth Institute’s birth and development. Even if you find this description unrealistic or misguided I, seek your comments.
My life has been devoted to first founding and then running two schools dedicated to raising human awareness. By this I mean helping students co-create a sense of connectivity to the world around them, one that transcends the tangible to also embrace the intangible. It was clear to me from the beginning that raising consciousness creates brighter, more creative and more compassionate students. For only by lifting one’s consciousness can one transform one’s worldview, shift one’s attitude, alter outer circumstances, witness truth and beauty all around you, and experience genuine happiness. My observation today is that individual evolution determines the shape and nature of the future, individually and collectively.
Today I am deeply concerned about the current model of mass, compulsory, industrial education based on the assembly line model of efficient, pernicious factories. Here students become the products, assembled over a twelve-year span, formed to be obedient, conforming “high school graduates. After all, just sitting at a desk for 12 years destroys the will, cripples the spirit, and dumbs intelligence. The effect of this system of mass, compulsory education, widely adopted in the nineteenth century during The Industrial Revolution, is to produce a mechanical, materialistic worldview marked by lifeless thought patterns that can only continue to degrade the air we breathe, and the water we drink, affecting the entire ecosystem of the earth, doing violence to life all over the world.
Sadly, this dumbing process can begin at home when parents make all or most decisions for a child. Often a child will come to his own conclusion: there’ no point in trying to think for oneself. Everything has been decided already.
Many teachers autocratically run their classes as Queens or Kings. They make the rules and decisions and the consequences. Many psychological forces conspire to compel students to think like their teacher. Constrained in their own thinking, many students reluctantly give up independent thought. But even worse they resist the thinking promulgated by the teacher; we all know that resistance can permanently slow down thinking. Unless, at a later point, one deals with the resistance and consciously makes a new choice, the pattern remains.
My sense of urgency propels me to offer a radical model of education, one that is in harmony with the ecosystem, one that empowers students to proactively transform their environment now while learning crucial life skills in the process
My life has been devoted to first founding and then running two schools dedicated to raising human awareness. By this I mean helping students co-create a sense of connectivity to the world around them, one that transcends the tangible to also embrace the intangible. It was clear to me from the beginning that raising consciousness creates brighter, more creative and more compassionate students. For only by lifting one’s consciousness can one transform one’s worldview, shift one’s attitude, alter outer circumstances, witness truth and beauty all around you, and experience genuine happiness. My observation today is that individual evolution determines the shape and nature of the future, individually and collectively.
Today I am deeply concerned about the current model of mass, compulsory, industrial education based on the assembly line model of efficient, pernicious factories. Here students become the products, assembled over a twelve-year span, formed to be obedient, conforming “high school graduates. After all, just sitting at a desk for 12 years destroys the will, cripples the spirit, and dumbs intelligence. The effect of this system of mass, compulsory education, widely adopted in the nineteenth century during The Industrial Revolution, is to produce a mechanical, materialistic worldview marked by lifeless thought patterns that can only continue to degrade the air we breathe, and the water we drink, affecting the entire ecosystem of the earth, doing violence to life all over the world.
Sadly, this dumbing process can begin at home when parents make all or most decisions for a child. Often a child will come to his own conclusion: there’ no point in trying to think for oneself. Everything has been decided already.
Many teachers autocratically run their classes as Queens or Kings. They make the rules and decisions and the consequences. Many psychological forces conspire to compel students to think like their teacher. Constrained in their own thinking, many students reluctantly give up independent thought. But even worse they resist the thinking promulgated by the teacher; we all know that resistance can permanently slow down thinking. Unless, at a later point, one deals with the resistance and consciously makes a new choice, the pattern remains.
My sense of urgency propels me to offer a radical model of education, one that is in harmony with the ecosystem, one that empowers students to proactively transform their environment now while learning crucial life skills in the process
23 Distinctive Features of New Earth Institute
The distinctive program of New Earth Institute arises to provide a healthy and sane alternative to Western education. Traditional, Western education is based on the philosophy of materialism. This doctrine states that physical objects are the only things that exist. Materialism denies the role played by the forces and creative energies of conscientious awareness: intention, focus, intuition, and spiritual values that are of the soul. The experiences of the soul – inspiration; generosity; intuition, direct knowing; the spontaneous understanding of certainty, goodwill, and integrity, as well as the awareness of spirit working through nature – all are debunked, ridiculed, and denied by materialism.
In fact subtle energies experienced as elevated consciousness, profound feelings, direct intuition, inspiration, truth, goodness, generosity, mercy, and beauty have no place in Western education, no authority or reality in Western schools. For there such experiences are referred to with the rather derogatory term and tone: “subjective,” meaning unreliable, misleading, illusory, weak, feminine, thereby having no validity or existence in so called “pure, objective reality.”
The twenty-three innovations given (listed in order at the bottom of the index) contrast with what has become the norm in education: a deluge of endless and nearly always superficial facts, a hostile and exploitative attitude towards Nature, and a jaundiced, narrow view of the full potential, spiritual power and beauty of human nature.
A Listing of 23 Distinctive Features of New Earth Institute is given below. (Consult the Index for a description of each distinctive feature.)
1. Holistic Education: Awakening Innate Intelligence
2. New Earth Institute functions as a family
3. NEI Interacts Meaningfully with Nature every day
4. Values at NEI: Self-Knowledge, Self-Reliance, Cooperation & Compassion,
Giving and Forgiving, Non-Violent Communication, and Interpersonal Growth
5. Non-Violent Communication, and Interpersonal Growth
6. Service to Others
7. Consciousness: The Key to Education
8. NEI is Egalitarian Community where All are Empowered
9. NEI Highlights the Art of communication
10. Experiential Learning
11. The Goal: Independent Learners
12. Academics: Explore the Context of Factual Information
13. Subjective Learning is Crucial Link between Individual Experience and
Objective Reality
14. NEI Practices the Inquiry Approach to Learning
15. The Authority at NEI is YOU
16. The Challenge: Become a Pioneer
17. NEI Celebrates Life in many ways
18. Healthy Joyous Lifestyle
19. Consciousness and Choice
20. Silence is Greatest Teacher
21. NEI helps develop a Unique Voice in each student
22. The whole point of NEI is to Live Now
23. Accelerated Learning: The Product of Genius
In fact subtle energies experienced as elevated consciousness, profound feelings, direct intuition, inspiration, truth, goodness, generosity, mercy, and beauty have no place in Western education, no authority or reality in Western schools. For there such experiences are referred to with the rather derogatory term and tone: “subjective,” meaning unreliable, misleading, illusory, weak, feminine, thereby having no validity or existence in so called “pure, objective reality.”
The twenty-three innovations given (listed in order at the bottom of the index) contrast with what has become the norm in education: a deluge of endless and nearly always superficial facts, a hostile and exploitative attitude towards Nature, and a jaundiced, narrow view of the full potential, spiritual power and beauty of human nature.
A Listing of 23 Distinctive Features of New Earth Institute is given below. (Consult the Index for a description of each distinctive feature.)
1. Holistic Education: Awakening Innate Intelligence
2. New Earth Institute functions as a family
3. NEI Interacts Meaningfully with Nature every day
4. Values at NEI: Self-Knowledge, Self-Reliance, Cooperation & Compassion,
Giving and Forgiving, Non-Violent Communication, and Interpersonal Growth
5. Non-Violent Communication, and Interpersonal Growth
6. Service to Others
7. Consciousness: The Key to Education
8. NEI is Egalitarian Community where All are Empowered
9. NEI Highlights the Art of communication
10. Experiential Learning
11. The Goal: Independent Learners
12. Academics: Explore the Context of Factual Information
13. Subjective Learning is Crucial Link between Individual Experience and
Objective Reality
14. NEI Practices the Inquiry Approach to Learning
15. The Authority at NEI is YOU
16. The Challenge: Become a Pioneer
17. NEI Celebrates Life in many ways
18. Healthy Joyous Lifestyle
19. Consciousness and Choice
20. Silence is Greatest Teacher
21. NEI helps develop a Unique Voice in each student
22. The whole point of NEI is to Live Now
23. Accelerated Learning: The Product of Genius
2. New Earth Institute functions as a loving family
We share in the work required to practice a simple lifestyle that is ecologically sound and culturally rich and diverse. We compassionately support each other, we grow and cook our own food, care for our farm animals, construct buildings, maintain the school grounds, express our passions and concerns, provide our own entertainment, and learn to employ energy sources that are not dependent on carbon fuels.
There are no hired janitors to clean up after us and set up for the next day. That responsibility falls on all participants equally. Here, there is no artificial division between those who do manual labor and those who do more important things. No maids, no servants, no slaves! Everyone shares the responsibility to keep our property clean and orderly. As a result, everyone takes pride in our campus.
There are no hired janitors to clean up after us and set up for the next day. That responsibility falls on all participants equally. Here, there is no artificial division between those who do manual labor and those who do more important things. No maids, no servants, no slaves! Everyone shares the responsibility to keep our property clean and orderly. As a result, everyone takes pride in our campus.
3. New Earth Institute interacts meaningfully with Nature each day.
Our campus features a working garden created and tended by all members of the school. In close proximity to the campus are two priceless and rare treasures. The first, Gila National Forest contains 3.3 millions of acres of public land, perfect for wildlife study, living in a natural environment, and the learning of basic survival skills. The second is the pristine Gila River that flows out of this wilderness area, a perfect mentor for the study of living water, water free of man introduced chemicals and pharmaceuticals, with a focus on how to best sustain this priceless gift.
4. NEI VALUES: self-knowledge, self-reliance, cooperation and compassion, giving and forgiving, nonviolent communication, and interpersonal growth
We therefore ask all members of the school to regularly reflect on their thoughts, actions, and ideals. This will encourage them to reorder their priorities, make new and better decisions, realize new possibilities, and update their ideas of who they want to be. We ask everyone to work together, do their best, share ideas, be scrupulously honest, practice decency, try new things, and expand their skills. We suggest they practice giving thanks, forgive and let go of grudges, volunteer when they see something that needs doing, and express and enthusiasm for life.
5. The purpose of NEI is COMPASSIONATE POWER
We are powerful creative beings capable of using our divine heritage to discover and express our uniqueness, to love and protect our Mother Earth, and to fulfill our need to establish a loving, safe environment for ourselves and/or our family. The recognition of our true nature inevitable leads to unique self-expression and a desire and commitment to change the world in some specific way.
6. Service to others is a core principle of New Earth Institute.
The deteriorating conditions of modern life are largely the result of ignorant decisions motivated by fear, selfishness, cruelty, greed, and hopelessness. By realizing that divine love infuses our true nature, we consciously practice our power to love through performing acts of kindness. Only acts of love have the power to transform hopeless situations into promising ones.
We use public performances and presentation to the larger community as opportunities to give of ourselves. As a community we will develop other ways to redress abysmal situations.
We use public performances and presentation to the larger community as opportunities to give of ourselves. As a community we will develop other ways to redress abysmal situations.
7. At New Earth Institute, children, adolescents and adults study, work, and play together.
Fascistic Prussia in the 19th century first forced children and adolescents to associate only with those of the same age in order to subjugate and program their thoughts and behavior; they were very successful in this regard. Strict segregation of age groups, isolated from adult society creates artificial, immature peer groups that must be constantly monitored and restrained. For us it is more natural for age groups to mix as in an extended family so the specific qualities of each age blend in a common endeavor.
Adults who are life-long learners provide an excellent model for youngsters; learning is a vital and essential part of life itself and not just for kids. Learning together, working together, and playing together integrate generations and constitute a healthy life style. Learning together stimulates and invigorates mind; working together grounds and bonds us; playing together lightens and energizes us.
The role of adults is not to monitor kids, but to inspire and serve be role models. Often kids become role models as well; then the role of adults is to recognize and articulate what quality in those kids inspires them.
The integration of ages has another important effect, the cross fertilization of interests, passions, strategies, modes of intelligence, styles of expression, types of queries, intuitions, silent understandings, character traits, and aspirations.
Adults who are life-long learners provide an excellent model for youngsters; learning is a vital and essential part of life itself and not just for kids. Learning together, working together, and playing together integrate generations and constitute a healthy life style. Learning together stimulates and invigorates mind; working together grounds and bonds us; playing together lightens and energizes us.
The role of adults is not to monitor kids, but to inspire and serve be role models. Often kids become role models as well; then the role of adults is to recognize and articulate what quality in those kids inspires them.
The integration of ages has another important effect, the cross fertilization of interests, passions, strategies, modes of intelligence, styles of expression, types of queries, intuitions, silent understandings, character traits, and aspirations.
8. New Earth Institute is an egalitarian community where children, adolescents and adults are all empowered.
We are an egalitarian, cooperatively run school. Children, adolescents and adults are decision makers who help steer the entire educational program. There is no hierarchical controlling body dictating what is politically correct. Because we value discovery, consciousness, and the power of individual choice, the relationship between children, adolescents and students is based on collaboration, not on authority.
We are all students, empowered to find our own answers when we live in an atmosphere of respect, openness, compassion, empathy, and a rigorous commitment to truth. Individually, or in group meetings, teachers listen to and focus on each student’s personal agenda --- his or her unique circumstances, needs, priorities, desires, goals, interests, and fears. Unless these individual, subjective elements are respected and honored, the educational process can only proceed on a superficial level. Therefore, we integrate subjective and objective perspectives in order to make the learning experience appropriate, relevant, and potent.
We are all students, empowered to find our own answers when we live in an atmosphere of respect, openness, compassion, empathy, and a rigorous commitment to truth. Individually, or in group meetings, teachers listen to and focus on each student’s personal agenda --- his or her unique circumstances, needs, priorities, desires, goals, interests, and fears. Unless these individual, subjective elements are respected and honored, the educational process can only proceed on a superficial level. Therefore, we integrate subjective and objective perspectives in order to make the learning experience appropriate, relevant, and potent.
9. New Earth Institute highlights the art of communication.
Communication of feelings, thoughts, ideals, intuitions, hopes, and dreams are part of the currency of human exchange at New Earth Institute. As we learn the skills of listening to our inner life and the essence of others, expressing our soul through art, poetry, music, dance, as well as by spoken and written words, and as we respond to outer events and circumstances with grace, dignity, and confidence, we define who we are as powerful, resourceful, and beautiful human beings.
A weekly Forum dedicated to profoundly open and honest communication (there are no taboos about what can be discussed here) is a consciousness-raising organ of the school. Among other things, it helps participants integrate their ego and shadow selves in a safe environment, using well-tested techniques.
A weekly Forum dedicated to profoundly open and honest communication (there are no taboos about what can be discussed here) is a consciousness-raising organ of the school. Among other things, it helps participants integrate their ego and shadow selves in a safe environment, using well-tested techniques.
10. New Earth Institute practices experiential learning in an atmosphere of open communications.
Our purpose is to integrate objective knowledge with subjective experience so that what is learned incorporates head, heart, and hands. The hours we devote to individual and group projects each day allows students to experience every step of the process of independent learning. The students select, design, research, implement, and document each project and then present it, individually or collectively, to an audience of peers, teachers, and friends. By going through this process a number of times, students incrementally learn how to teach as well as how to learn. By experiencing the entire process from many perspectives, they master the process of learning itself. It may take a dozen projects before the procedure become second nature. Students may require considerable help and encouragement, but in the end they will master all the ingredients of becoming an independent learner.
11. The educational goal of New Earth Institute: To become an Independent Learner through a plethora of course options.
Some courses are born spontaneously simply by a consensus of participants who chose their specific course or activity; Our stand-by curriculum of courses offered by community members includes more than 100 written high school and college level seminars and activities that address college entrance requirements; modification to fit a particular group of individuals is routine. In addition, students can also take on-line courses for credit. Students can develop their own unique course to fulfill their personal interests and receive credit based on their presentation to the larger community; a tested procedure for doing this successfully exists.
The goal for these courses and activities is not knowledge itself, but learning the process of how the to become an independent learner. These include the skills of information gathering, direct communication, wide reading, reflective reading; technology, and original research; articulate, persuasive writing; artistic demonstrations; drawing conclusions from logical thinking; and giving oral, written, or artistic presentations. Become an independent learner assumes as well, developing the motivation and ability to follow up a course with further individual study, research, or original experiments.
The goal for these courses and activities is not knowledge itself, but learning the process of how the to become an independent learner. These include the skills of information gathering, direct communication, wide reading, reflective reading; technology, and original research; articulate, persuasive writing; artistic demonstrations; drawing conclusions from logical thinking; and giving oral, written, or artistic presentations. Become an independent learner assumes as well, developing the motivation and ability to follow up a course with further individual study, research, or original experiments.
12. Academics: Explore the Context as well as the information
We sample the creative and performing arts, literature, history, science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, anthropology, archeology, drama, and psychology. This means, whatever the field of study, we make use of primary sources whenever possible and investigate the work and thinking of geniuses rather than rely on politically correct textbooks and other sources that eliminate passion, controversy, and dissent. By relying on original, creative sources we learn both the context and the information.
Certain personality types, especially those cognitive types that live almost completely in their head and are cut off from emotion and intuition, do well academically in any school. They live in a black-and-white factual universe, so a fact-based education is their cup of tea. Textbooks, replete with data, engage their mind and satisfy a need.
Another type, relentlessly driven to be good and win approval, will walk through fire to win a teacher’s or parent’s favor and applause. They will suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous” education to win acclaim. Education for them is not a pleasure, but a grim series of tests and auditions for a place in the sun. They often also succeed academically.
But for the majority of students, academic success depends upon whether or not classes and educational projects make sense to them or are intrinsically enjoyable. If studies have meaning or provide insights into their lives, they are welcomed.
The majority of students, nevertheless, require a simple, reliable frame of reference about the world to succeed academically. They need the Context for the information that they are being taught. To learn arithmetic, without the context of how numbers work, is a walk in the dark. To learn historical dates and facts without the context of a particular historical period is not to learn ideology, not history, to be ingested without thinking. What were the burnings issues of the times? What were the yearnings, insecurities, and new discoveries of the period?
If one learns the historical background and context of an accurate historical novel, one learns many of the details of history while reading fiction. There is a transfer of living information when the images of the author align with the imagination of the reader.
The presentation of traditional sciences is ironic because we are taught the scientific method in every science we study, but we rarely or never are given the opportunity to do original experiments of our own. Mostly we memorize scientific dogma in the form of facts. When we carry out experiments we are told what the result “should be.” If our results differ from what we “should have gotten,” we change the results. This is the teaching of dogma and goes against the grain of genuine science, which is open ended exploration.
Knowing the scientific method can have both importance and relevance, especially if the student proactively carries on research to answer questions that has meaning for him or her. It is necessary to follow up our original experiment by refining our thesis, and applying the scientific method again and again. If doing science and thinking scientifically is not a part of our life, science is simply dead, useless dogma that clogs our minds.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Today many people lack imagination, because television helps makes imagination irrelevant; its images already pictures everything for us. Yet a developed Imagination is necessary to visualize the many aspects of reality that are invisible as well as to see what is possible and to visualize our hopes and dreams. Without Imagination we see a world impoverished, ruled by dogma, authorities, and convention.
And so our teaching methods must engage imagination and our curriculum mast present works of great imagination.
Authentic academics must also teach and elucidate the power of language. To teach students to always interpret things literally is to teach them to be functionally deaf and dumb.
The creative partner of Imagination is Figurative Language. It is the language that speaks to our soul. It is the language of poetry, of metaphor and simile. It is the language of powerful symbols, of impelling images that carry deep unconscious and conscious meaning.
Figurative Language conveys meaning in many other ways; Personification (a type of metaphor in which human qualities are attributed to objects, ideas, or animals; Apostrophe (a figure of speech in which something absent or dead is addressed as if it were present and alive; Synecdoche (using a part to represent the whole); Parables and Allegories (stories with a second, hidden meaning); Hyperbole (deliberate overstatement);Understatement (deliberate underemphasis), and Irony (deliberately meaning the opposite of the literal).
We learn Figurative Language though a thousand striking examples of poetry, short stories, essays, and novels. We master Figurative Language by writing figuratively as well as literally. We can truly beliterate when we have a command of Figurative Language.
From my point of view, the most crucial subject matter of academics, the main investigations to be explored and experienced, should be The Nature of Mankind. Knowing the nature of ourselves and exploring the nature of others, illuminates our relationship to everything else. Without a certain amount of self-knowledge man become disconnected from the natural world and its mysteries.
What are man’s untapped potentials? How can they be developed or released? How can we evolve consciously so as to expand our framework of reality, become united with Nature, and find happiness?
What our deepest needs? How do we fulfill them?
How can we understand the conditions that brought us here into this world at this time? Who are we? What are our multifaceted aspects? How do we come into conscious awareness of them?
How can we understand our personality? How were we programmed by our society? How do we get the freedom to choose our own programming? How do we co-create the fulfillment of our deepest desires.
Academics ought to play a significant role in knowing ourselves as well as our world. We cannot truly understand anything without critical thinking, figurative thinking, and imagination.
Certain personality types, especially those cognitive types that live almost completely in their head and are cut off from emotion and intuition, do well academically in any school. They live in a black-and-white factual universe, so a fact-based education is their cup of tea. Textbooks, replete with data, engage their mind and satisfy a need.
Another type, relentlessly driven to be good and win approval, will walk through fire to win a teacher’s or parent’s favor and applause. They will suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous” education to win acclaim. Education for them is not a pleasure, but a grim series of tests and auditions for a place in the sun. They often also succeed academically.
But for the majority of students, academic success depends upon whether or not classes and educational projects make sense to them or are intrinsically enjoyable. If studies have meaning or provide insights into their lives, they are welcomed.
The majority of students, nevertheless, require a simple, reliable frame of reference about the world to succeed academically. They need the Context for the information that they are being taught. To learn arithmetic, without the context of how numbers work, is a walk in the dark. To learn historical dates and facts without the context of a particular historical period is not to learn ideology, not history, to be ingested without thinking. What were the burnings issues of the times? What were the yearnings, insecurities, and new discoveries of the period?
If one learns the historical background and context of an accurate historical novel, one learns many of the details of history while reading fiction. There is a transfer of living information when the images of the author align with the imagination of the reader.
The presentation of traditional sciences is ironic because we are taught the scientific method in every science we study, but we rarely or never are given the opportunity to do original experiments of our own. Mostly we memorize scientific dogma in the form of facts. When we carry out experiments we are told what the result “should be.” If our results differ from what we “should have gotten,” we change the results. This is the teaching of dogma and goes against the grain of genuine science, which is open ended exploration.
Knowing the scientific method can have both importance and relevance, especially if the student proactively carries on research to answer questions that has meaning for him or her. It is necessary to follow up our original experiment by refining our thesis, and applying the scientific method again and again. If doing science and thinking scientifically is not a part of our life, science is simply dead, useless dogma that clogs our minds.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Today many people lack imagination, because television helps makes imagination irrelevant; its images already pictures everything for us. Yet a developed Imagination is necessary to visualize the many aspects of reality that are invisible as well as to see what is possible and to visualize our hopes and dreams. Without Imagination we see a world impoverished, ruled by dogma, authorities, and convention.
And so our teaching methods must engage imagination and our curriculum mast present works of great imagination.
Authentic academics must also teach and elucidate the power of language. To teach students to always interpret things literally is to teach them to be functionally deaf and dumb.
The creative partner of Imagination is Figurative Language. It is the language that speaks to our soul. It is the language of poetry, of metaphor and simile. It is the language of powerful symbols, of impelling images that carry deep unconscious and conscious meaning.
Figurative Language conveys meaning in many other ways; Personification (a type of metaphor in which human qualities are attributed to objects, ideas, or animals; Apostrophe (a figure of speech in which something absent or dead is addressed as if it were present and alive; Synecdoche (using a part to represent the whole); Parables and Allegories (stories with a second, hidden meaning); Hyperbole (deliberate overstatement);Understatement (deliberate underemphasis), and Irony (deliberately meaning the opposite of the literal).
We learn Figurative Language though a thousand striking examples of poetry, short stories, essays, and novels. We master Figurative Language by writing figuratively as well as literally. We can truly beliterate when we have a command of Figurative Language.
From my point of view, the most crucial subject matter of academics, the main investigations to be explored and experienced, should be The Nature of Mankind. Knowing the nature of ourselves and exploring the nature of others, illuminates our relationship to everything else. Without a certain amount of self-knowledge man become disconnected from the natural world and its mysteries.
What are man’s untapped potentials? How can they be developed or released? How can we evolve consciously so as to expand our framework of reality, become united with Nature, and find happiness?
What our deepest needs? How do we fulfill them?
How can we understand the conditions that brought us here into this world at this time? Who are we? What are our multifaceted aspects? How do we come into conscious awareness of them?
How can we understand our personality? How were we programmed by our society? How do we get the freedom to choose our own programming? How do we co-create the fulfillment of our deepest desires.
Academics ought to play a significant role in knowing ourselves as well as our world. We cannot truly understand anything without critical thinking, figurative thinking, and imagination.
13. NEI honors subjective learning as the crucial link between our unique, individual experience and the objective reality we share with others
There are two kinds of knowledge. Objective knowledge comes from viewing an object mentally and dispassionately from the outside, by analyzing it, comparing it with other objects, and finally by defining it. Western education embraces only this form of knowing.
The origins of spiritual knowledge result from a completely different process, a creative rather than an analytical process. Rather than mental dissociation and analysis, the seeker of spiritual or subjective knowledge ignores the world as it is, its objects, situations, and problems, to focus on what he or she wants to become and what circumstances he or she wants to create for his or her life.
The goal is create new circumstances by enlarging one's identity. One imagines a desired state of being and particular circumstances that reflect the new identify. By giving focused attention to NEW desired circumstance and FEELING the result, one creates a new world for oneself. Instead of just passively talking about an unfulfilled desire, one envisions and creates it.
This process is second nature to an artist: a painter, novelist, a poet, a composer, an interpretive dancer, or a sculptor. These artists are inspired to create a work of art. The focus attention in order to imagine or envision it, feel it reality, and then compose it.
When we examine our subjective experiences, we notice that they are the doorways to discovering significance, meaning, and beauty. Without subjectivity, there is no individual purpose, nor relevance, nor spontaneity, nor creative life. Without the force of feelings and intuitions, without the power of imagination to infuse new life into what has atrophied or died, we are soulless robots in a mechanical universe.
Subjectivity is the medium in which all relationships --- with our self, with others, and with Nature --- exist and develop. Without subjectivity there is no genuine personal experience, and there is no ground on which to build meaningful rapport with others.
It is a stumbling block of traditional education to tenaciously and obstinately resist the experience of real self-expression. Dissociation allows sympathy (a feeling that arises from a sense of superiority. Empathy, however, springs forth from genuine interconnection, from a sense of the equality of being. While objectivity breeds disconnection and arrogance, subjectivity grants us connection on the basis of equality. Spiritual subjectivity is the portal to to many gifts: compassion, forgiveness, grace, and unconditional love.
At long last, let education sanction these gifts of the human heart and human spirit. Authentic Education, that which furthers spirit as well as mind, feeling as well as intellect, soul as well intellect, is the new paradigm of Holistic Education.
The origins of spiritual knowledge result from a completely different process, a creative rather than an analytical process. Rather than mental dissociation and analysis, the seeker of spiritual or subjective knowledge ignores the world as it is, its objects, situations, and problems, to focus on what he or she wants to become and what circumstances he or she wants to create for his or her life.
The goal is create new circumstances by enlarging one's identity. One imagines a desired state of being and particular circumstances that reflect the new identify. By giving focused attention to NEW desired circumstance and FEELING the result, one creates a new world for oneself. Instead of just passively talking about an unfulfilled desire, one envisions and creates it.
This process is second nature to an artist: a painter, novelist, a poet, a composer, an interpretive dancer, or a sculptor. These artists are inspired to create a work of art. The focus attention in order to imagine or envision it, feel it reality, and then compose it.
When we examine our subjective experiences, we notice that they are the doorways to discovering significance, meaning, and beauty. Without subjectivity, there is no individual purpose, nor relevance, nor spontaneity, nor creative life. Without the force of feelings and intuitions, without the power of imagination to infuse new life into what has atrophied or died, we are soulless robots in a mechanical universe.
Subjectivity is the medium in which all relationships --- with our self, with others, and with Nature --- exist and develop. Without subjectivity there is no genuine personal experience, and there is no ground on which to build meaningful rapport with others.
It is a stumbling block of traditional education to tenaciously and obstinately resist the experience of real self-expression. Dissociation allows sympathy (a feeling that arises from a sense of superiority. Empathy, however, springs forth from genuine interconnection, from a sense of the equality of being. While objectivity breeds disconnection and arrogance, subjectivity grants us connection on the basis of equality. Spiritual subjectivity is the portal to to many gifts: compassion, forgiveness, grace, and unconditional love.
At long last, let education sanction these gifts of the human heart and human spirit. Authentic Education, that which furthers spirit as well as mind, feeling as well as intellect, soul as well intellect, is the new paradigm of Holistic Education.
14. New Earth Institute Practices Inquiry.Approach to Learning
Inquiry for us is the practice of asking questions without supplying answers. But sitting with a question over a period of time stirs us at different levels of our being, and awareness. Inquiry in this sense stimulates original thought. This turns on its head the traditional methods of teaching, especially the practice of providing information to be memorized and regurgitated.
15.The authority at New Earth Institute is YOU.
It is your decision whether or not to defer to authorities, experts, gurus, and people with PhDs or certificates of infallibility or sainthood. We assume all knowledge is already contained in your soul; only life experience can bring it to consciousness. In the meantime our job is to create our environment and our circumstances through intention, focused thought, purposeful actions, and joyful activity.
16. The Challenge of New Earth Institute: Become a Self-Sufficient Pioneer
Often it is difficult to realize the spiritual concept that we are capable of doing anything our heart desires. But the opportunity to master life skills one at a time inevitably leads to that end. We value direct life experience above memorizing objective knowledge, including that of actively engaging in practical arts, crafts, and trades. We encourage gaining mastery in dance, solo and choral singing, instrumental study, bands, ensembles, drawing, painting, sculpture, design, cleaning, cooking, baking, designing and making a garden, doing the laundry, cutting and splitting firewood, building (fashioning cement, framing, finish carpentry as well as rustic cabin building, creating electric circuits, plumbing, insulating, roofing). We value beekeeping, farming, animal husbandry, and computer literacy (mastering a word processor and spreadsheet, creating graphics, visuals and databases and learning how to manage files and do research on he web, downloading, saving, and printing information, creating web sites and using the internet). We encourage the development of drama skills (acting, directing, controlling lighting and sound effects, and creating sets); potting; repairing machinery; and gaining entrepreneurial skills by working in a small, school business enterprise. As symbols that recognize the achievement of different levels of proficiency in any of the above life skills, the community through group consciousness could elect to present certificate that acknowledge partial or full mastery.
17. New Earth Institute integrates frequent hikes, excursions and field trips, celebrations, competitions, presentations, and artistic performances i
We are enriched by hikes, swimming, games, friendly competitions visits to local families, friends, and businesses to participate in some activity or event, outings to local and not-so-local points of interest and contact with other cultures and lifestyles. In addition New Earth Institute will host regular poetry recitations and contests, and produce a repertoire of familiar and original dramatic works
18. New Earth Institute practices an extremely healthy, active and joyous Life Style.
Continual exposure to nature, life, sun, fresh air, clean water, nutritious food, daily movement and exercise, thoughtful inquiry, augmented by associations with evolving people is a recipe for a sacred life. The body is the home and holds the texture of our spirit as it is. It grows and changes through our experiences, perceptions, and habits. Through conscious exploration of movement, perception and expression students learn to embody creative expression of heath and awareness. This work will include the study of plant and energy medicines, indigenous and modern health practices and movement traditions.
19. As consciousness is elevated at New Earth Institute, the power of human choice in shaping our environment and our experience soars
When we discover and re-define our individual life path and purpose, the rate of our personal transformation and evolution accelerates. We attract new and exciting opportunities for ourselves as we make new, conscious choices about how we wish to live our lives and whom we choose to become.
20. At NEI our greatest teacher is Silence
One of the ingredients involved in the
process of healthy, creative living is periods of silence, short or extended, that ground us and restore vitality and sanity We provide for times of silent reflection, meditation and quiet creative activity
process of healthy, creative living is periods of silence, short or extended, that ground us and restore vitality and sanity We provide for times of silent reflection, meditation and quiet creative activity
21. To live fully at NEI, develops his or her unique voice.
To live fully at proactively in our school so that together we all sculpt the nature of our community. If learning is to be integrated with living, we need to shape and become aware of the dynamics of our personal relationships and choose to align our behavior with our ideals. Speaking our truth inspires, motivates and engages us in life. New Earth Institute requires that each student develops his or her unique voice and participates
22. The Whole point of NEI is to Live NOW
The whole point of New Earth Institute is to live now. Instead of preparing for life over a decade or two in what is considered the normal way to educate, we can start living now in the moment, making use of our genius and developing our potential. Our program is predicated on the genius of us all, not on the old assumption that we are blank slates that must be programmed.
Life is a journey. For the lucky, it is a journey of discovery, an odyssey into the fascinating unknown. Those that are fortunate, discover their talents, transform their identify, experience their power. Those that are blessed, discover a life purpose, or unearth creativity, or find their unique voice.
As we know, life is lived on the practical, not the theoretical, level. Yet most schools continue their obsession with having students passively memorize dead, abstract knowledge and factual information, denying them the opportunity to observe life directly, to experience life fully. In the educational factory, students are invisible; like zombies, they just do what is required. Learning is for passing tests; otherwize it is never used.
We at NEI view authentic education as the proactive pursuit of truth and knowledge and life. The process of real education has three steps. First, we must acknowledge, it does indeed involve mastering information and intellectual models in a host of fields of study.
But authentic education also stresses keen observation and deep reflection. Authentic education asks each individual to respond to what is happening: to react intellectually, emotionally, and/or intuitively to life. After all, it is our response to life that makes us truly intelligent. Students are not computers to be programmed; rather they are sacred beings, unfolding.
Ultimately authentic education empowers. It provokes a growth of awareness, the discovery of new areas of beauty, truth, and wonders, as well as a great deal of individual struggle (for self-expression, for self-discovery, for responsible self-governance, and for recreating self).
Education, in the true sense, is not preparation for life. It is life itself!
Life is a journey. For the lucky, it is a journey of discovery, an odyssey into the fascinating unknown. Those that are fortunate, discover their talents, transform their identify, experience their power. Those that are blessed, discover a life purpose, or unearth creativity, or find their unique voice.
As we know, life is lived on the practical, not the theoretical, level. Yet most schools continue their obsession with having students passively memorize dead, abstract knowledge and factual information, denying them the opportunity to observe life directly, to experience life fully. In the educational factory, students are invisible; like zombies, they just do what is required. Learning is for passing tests; otherwize it is never used.
We at NEI view authentic education as the proactive pursuit of truth and knowledge and life. The process of real education has three steps. First, we must acknowledge, it does indeed involve mastering information and intellectual models in a host of fields of study.
But authentic education also stresses keen observation and deep reflection. Authentic education asks each individual to respond to what is happening: to react intellectually, emotionally, and/or intuitively to life. After all, it is our response to life that makes us truly intelligent. Students are not computers to be programmed; rather they are sacred beings, unfolding.
Ultimately authentic education empowers. It provokes a growth of awareness, the discovery of new areas of beauty, truth, and wonders, as well as a great deal of individual struggle (for self-expression, for self-discovery, for responsible self-governance, and for recreating self).
Education, in the true sense, is not preparation for life. It is life itself!
23. Accelerated Learning; The Product of Genius
All students exhibit genius. Sometimes it is for academic learning, sometimes for artistic expression (theater, dance, music, drawing, painting, printmaking, design, sculpture, photography, animation, poetry or prose); sometimes it is as a green thumb (gardening, farming) or a green heart (an ability to relate to plants, animals, people, or stars); sometimes it exhibits as architectural or building talent; or an understanding of machines; sometimes it appears as charisma or a leadership ability; sometimes as selflessness and service; sometimes as the ability to question or philosophize or make people laugh; sometimes it’s shows itself as great integrity; sometimes as visions of what may be.
Collectively our job at NEI is to discover genius in every person and to help them realize its existence within self. Everyone needs first to discover a single genius within so that she or he will, in the end, discover many talents. We must first have the monumental experience of realizing we are what we are (a genius in some respect) before we dare create a larger, greater image of who we want to be. Once we cross the threshold from the actual to the possibility, we have attained a new understanding of out God-given power, the power to become in many respects who we want to be.
Self-image is everything. Our I AM concept determines the quality and landscape of our existence. What I cannot accept and affirm as true of myself, cannot enter my experience. My identity, therefore, is my great limiting factor OR my great creative factor; identity defines what we can and cannot be. I may yearn to be more than I am, but I must first change my self-image to allow my dreams to be fulfilled.
Accelerated Learning is not based on cramming more information in someone’s head. It is about expanding our self-image so that we are released to create according to our deepest longings.
Accelerated learning is about changing the game of life so that we experience (instead of frustration, disappointment, and shame) greater possibility. Learning becomes easier as we become authentically motivated to realize and to manifest our vision. As who we are expands, our undeniable accomplishments unfold and potential is realized. Part of the consequences of an augmented self-image are educational accomplishments; the rest relate to the quality of life we experience.
In a school setting with an accepted will to do so, self-images expand and Accelerated Learning simply happens naturally. Yet it is the most powerful and most transformative thing we can do.
Collectively our job at NEI is to discover genius in every person and to help them realize its existence within self. Everyone needs first to discover a single genius within so that she or he will, in the end, discover many talents. We must first have the monumental experience of realizing we are what we are (a genius in some respect) before we dare create a larger, greater image of who we want to be. Once we cross the threshold from the actual to the possibility, we have attained a new understanding of out God-given power, the power to become in many respects who we want to be.
Self-image is everything. Our I AM concept determines the quality and landscape of our existence. What I cannot accept and affirm as true of myself, cannot enter my experience. My identity, therefore, is my great limiting factor OR my great creative factor; identity defines what we can and cannot be. I may yearn to be more than I am, but I must first change my self-image to allow my dreams to be fulfilled.
Accelerated Learning is not based on cramming more information in someone’s head. It is about expanding our self-image so that we are released to create according to our deepest longings.
Accelerated learning is about changing the game of life so that we experience (instead of frustration, disappointment, and shame) greater possibility. Learning becomes easier as we become authentically motivated to realize and to manifest our vision. As who we are expands, our undeniable accomplishments unfold and potential is realized. Part of the consequences of an augmented self-image are educational accomplishments; the rest relate to the quality of life we experience.
In a school setting with an accepted will to do so, self-images expand and Accelerated Learning simply happens naturally. Yet it is the most powerful and most transformative thing we can do.
Jay and Toni Garland: Bio
Toni and Jay Garland have been teaching side by side for forty years.
Jay and Toni both grew up in Mount Vernon, New York and attended the Mount Vernon public schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade, allowing them to meet in the seventh grade where they affectionately traded blows and comments.
They married in 1957 while in college. Toni transferred from Michigan State University to Boston University, close to Harvard College where Jay was a student. Jay was mysteriously inspired to write a prospectus for an innovative school before they both graduated in 1960, Toni with a BA in education and Jay with a BA in social relations (chiefly psychology and anthropology).
For two years they taught for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Barrow, Alaska, a large Inuit (Eskimo) village above the Arctic Circle, and for another two years in Pilot Station, a small, remote Eskimo Village set on the Yukon River. It was in these villages that they learned a crucial lesson. All aspects of education thrive in a real community where people honor each other.
In the year between their Alaskan forays Jay’s did graduate level work was in Special Education at Keene State College, while Toni taught special education classes at the college.
In 1967, Jay and Toni, with their two small children, moved from Alaska to Peterborough, New Hampshire and established a small, independent day school, The Well School, where they were full-time teachers and administrators, sharing their home with the school for the next thirty-four years.
The Well flourished as a school providing students with advanced academics. When Well School graduates applied to boarding schools and colleges (The Well had a high school from 1970-1972) they were accepted at an exceptional rate. Over 85% of all applications to these schools were accepted!
The Well, however, by design devoted two thirds of its school hours to non-academic pursuits: open communications between students, parents, and teachers, the study of a wide variety of artistic forms and the practice of consciousness-raising activities --- drawing, painting, calligraphy, batik, stained glass, block printing, weaving, model building, drama, music, dance, creative writing, singing, as well as yoga, guided and unguided meditation, tai chi, the study of symbols, of myths, of allegories, of parables, of poetry, and of dreams --- all universal languages for expressing the lively world of imagination.
Well activities also fostered an extensive schedule of public performances and presentations. Intensive academic study that reflected a classical curriculum rounded The Well School curriculum and rigorously prepared students for whatever their next school would be.
Leaving the school under the direction of their son, Akhil Garland and his wife Lee, Toni and Jay retired from The Well in 2002 to Cliff, New Mexico to reflect and write a series of six books about their experiences of school and family. The Challenge of Authentic Education Book 1: Joyful Learning in a School Community was published in March of 2004. The second book is yet to be published.
In September of 2007 Jay & Toni founded Terra Nova Project, a project-based holistic high school on the campus of The Well School in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In addition to rigorous academic study preparing students for college, Terra Nova focused on sustainable living and the health of planet Earth. Students are introduced to designing and building their own structures, turning trees into finished lumber, solar and wind energy sources, practicing organic gardening, raising animals, cooking meals together, and maintaining the campus.
Jay and Toni both grew up in Mount Vernon, New York and attended the Mount Vernon public schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade, allowing them to meet in the seventh grade where they affectionately traded blows and comments.
They married in 1957 while in college. Toni transferred from Michigan State University to Boston University, close to Harvard College where Jay was a student. Jay was mysteriously inspired to write a prospectus for an innovative school before they both graduated in 1960, Toni with a BA in education and Jay with a BA in social relations (chiefly psychology and anthropology).
For two years they taught for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Barrow, Alaska, a large Inuit (Eskimo) village above the Arctic Circle, and for another two years in Pilot Station, a small, remote Eskimo Village set on the Yukon River. It was in these villages that they learned a crucial lesson. All aspects of education thrive in a real community where people honor each other.
In the year between their Alaskan forays Jay’s did graduate level work was in Special Education at Keene State College, while Toni taught special education classes at the college.
In 1967, Jay and Toni, with their two small children, moved from Alaska to Peterborough, New Hampshire and established a small, independent day school, The Well School, where they were full-time teachers and administrators, sharing their home with the school for the next thirty-four years.
The Well flourished as a school providing students with advanced academics. When Well School graduates applied to boarding schools and colleges (The Well had a high school from 1970-1972) they were accepted at an exceptional rate. Over 85% of all applications to these schools were accepted!
The Well, however, by design devoted two thirds of its school hours to non-academic pursuits: open communications between students, parents, and teachers, the study of a wide variety of artistic forms and the practice of consciousness-raising activities --- drawing, painting, calligraphy, batik, stained glass, block printing, weaving, model building, drama, music, dance, creative writing, singing, as well as yoga, guided and unguided meditation, tai chi, the study of symbols, of myths, of allegories, of parables, of poetry, and of dreams --- all universal languages for expressing the lively world of imagination.
Well activities also fostered an extensive schedule of public performances and presentations. Intensive academic study that reflected a classical curriculum rounded The Well School curriculum and rigorously prepared students for whatever their next school would be.
Leaving the school under the direction of their son, Akhil Garland and his wife Lee, Toni and Jay retired from The Well in 2002 to Cliff, New Mexico to reflect and write a series of six books about their experiences of school and family. The Challenge of Authentic Education Book 1: Joyful Learning in a School Community was published in March of 2004. The second book is yet to be published.
In September of 2007 Jay & Toni founded Terra Nova Project, a project-based holistic high school on the campus of The Well School in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In addition to rigorous academic study preparing students for college, Terra Nova focused on sustainable living and the health of planet Earth. Students are introduced to designing and building their own structures, turning trees into finished lumber, solar and wind energy sources, practicing organic gardening, raising animals, cooking meals together, and maintaining the campus.
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