Acorn
Model >The
Natural Learning Cycle
Lynnette's Notes
AcornModel-Holacracy Meeting Guidelines
Holacracy
Introduction - Whitepaper
Acorn Model Diagrams - Alan
Seid's -Lynnette's current
appplications
Elder Notes by Ed
The Natural Learning Cycle
From the Wilderness Awareness School's Nature
Skills website
by Warren Moon
First published in Foxprint,
Spring & Summer 2004.
The
more you study and learn about the natural world, the more you realize there are
natural cycles in every living system. And the more time you spend attuning to
these natural cycles, the more you realize that aligning with them greatly enhances
your ability to live in balance.
The most
obvious cycle is the seasons. As you become more connected to the natural world,
you may realize that when winter settles you become more introspective, and when
spring kicks in you have a hard time sitting still.
What
Wilderness Awareness School has found is that all natural cycles tend to follow
a consistent pattern. Knowing this, we have internalized this cycle into everything
we do and use a model based on the directions to describe and understand it.
One
of the most powerful ways that we utilize this understanding of natural cycles
is in how we teach, which is based on an understanding of the cycle of learning.
We call this approach The Natural Learning Cycle.
Whenever
we develop a lesson plan we make sure that we follow it. But before I can describe
The Natural Learning Cycle, you will first need a basic understanding of how we
interpret the cardinal directions and the corresponding energy related to them.
The
four cardinal directions (E, S, W, N) are the most concrete, while the minor directions
represent a transition between the cardinal directions. All natural cycles begin
and ultimately end in the NE. Here are some words that help develop the energy
or personality of the directions:
NE: 3:30AM,
creativity, dreams, conception, spirit, intention, death, vision
E:
6AM, spring, sprout, birth, energetic, curiosity, sun rise, enthusiasm, inspiration
SE:
9:30AM, orientation, childhood, play, emotion
S:
12 Noon, summer, focus, heat, work, adolescence, attention to detail
SW:
3:30PM, siesta, body, earth, wandering, internalization, searching, relaxing
W:
6PM, fall, community, gathering, celebration, sun set, honoring, thanksgiving,
leadership
NW: 9:30PM, transition, letting
go, surrender, release of ego
N: 12 Midnight,
winter, reflection, introspection, storytelling, wisdom, stillness
Some
examples of natural cycles:
Plant Life
Cycle: NE: Germination, E: Sprout, SE: External Growth, S: Flower, SW: Internal
Growth (Wood), W: Fruit, NW: Decay or Digestion of Fruit, N: Seed, NE: Death
Human
Life Cycle: NE: Conception, E: Birth, SE: Childhood (external growth), S: Adolescent,
SW: young adult, rite of passage, W: Adult/Leader (has found their gift in life
and may have started a family), NW: Mentor/Apprentice: mentoring next line of
leaders, apprenticing to be elder, N: Elder, NE: Death
Learning
a Skill Cycle: NE: Vision, you have a vision of wanting to ride a bike. E: Inspiration,
you cannot stop begging your dad/mom to let you do this. SE: Orientation, you
are given instructions by your parents. S: Practice, you get many scrapes on your
knees and cry a couple of times and almost give up. SW: Internalization, all of
a sudden it clicks in and you are riding your bike and not even thinking about
it. W: Celebration, you celebrate your new skill with your friends and family,
NW: Mentor: you begin to help your younger sister learn to ride her bike, N: Wisdom,
through seeing your sister struggle and almost give up, you reflect on how you
were able to overcome your fears and learn more about yourself (this reflection
may not happen until you teach your own kid to ride a bike). NE: Learning how
to ride your bike allows you to go to the local park and you discover a passion
for basketball. And the cycle starts over again.
As
you can see, you can overlay any activity on this model, you just might have to
get a little creative. You also might notice that certain of the directions are
lacking in the way you currently approach an activity. While this may work, we
have noticed a certain synergy that happens when you honor all the elements of
the cycle.
PART 2: Creating dynamic lessons
or activities.
Whenever we develop a lesson
plan here at Wilderness Awareness School, we make sure to follow this cycle.
The
Natural Learning Cycle: This represents the natural flow of how people learn.
NE:
Awareness: There are two parts to the NE: Before the program starts and during
the start of any Natural Learning Cycle with your students.
1)
Before: We first set an intention and lesson plan for the day. Setting an intention
can be achieved on an individual basis or done with your co-instructors. What
we feel is important here is to align with whatever spiritual or core values you
have and ask for guidance and help for a successful day in whatever way feels
comfortable to you. Wilderness Awareness School utilizes the practice of giving
thanks in order to center ourselves (this is explained in field exercise 3 of
the Kamana Two Naturalist Training program).
2)
During: Once you start the day or with any new cycle with your students, the Northeast
is about getting the students into a place of awareness and receptivity. Any activity
or game that gets the participant to fox walk or use owl eyes is appropriate here.
Your goal is to get them to be present and aware so that you maximize the opportunity
of them becoming engaged with any mystery that presents itself in nature.
E:
Engagement: What you want to achieve in the East is energy, inspiration, or curiosity
in the student. You are looking to help create a perceived need to know something.
This could take the form of a very inspirational story that gets everyone psyched
to want to learn tracking, fire making or whatever the skill is you are focused
on in your lesson plan. Or more often, nature provides the opportunity for you.
As you are out scouting the land, fox walking and with owl eyes, one of your students
finds something really cool, such as a scat or skull.
SE:
Orientation: Something has hooked their attention in the East. They either found
or saw something cool, like a track, poop, bird or berry, or they are excited
to engage in an activity that you inspired them about. Now you need to give them
enough directions or orientation so that they are able to move into the South.
Sometimes very little is needed here, such as telling students not to directly
smell a poop but perform the delicate act of wafting, or a significant amount
is needed such as in learning to get fire with a bow or hand drill.
S:
Focus: Once you have created “engagement” in the student and you have
provided enough orientation, you can now focus their energy on the task at hand:
exploring a coyote poop, looking at a track, building a shelter, etc. The goal
here is to maximize the depth of exploration and attention to detail that the
students gain in the activity. The more you have them engaged, the longer you
can keep them in the focus stage. This is also an opportunity for the students
to practice any of the Core Routines of Awareness: fox walking, journaling, owl
eyes, secret spot, etc.
SW: Relaxation:
Now that you have focused their energy, you need to give the mind and body a chance
to relax. You want your students to be able to “chill out.” This can
take the form of an edible plant wonder, cloud watching, berry eating, anything
that does not have any real agenda to it. This can be very short in length (1
to 2 minutes) or long (a couple hours) depending on the nature of your program.
W:
Sharing: At this point in the cycle, it is important to give the students an opportunity
to share. The nature of the sharing depends on what occurred in the South portion
of the cycle. What is important is for the students to share their perceptions
and learnings, first because when people share it deepens their own experience
of the activity, and second, because people will learn even more by hearing other
people share their different perceptions and learning.
NW:
Surrender: This is a very subtle transition from outward focus to internal focus.
This is more of an energetic transition than something you have to create something
around. Just be aware of helping steward the energy shift from external to internal.
N:
Reflection: During the Natural Learning Cycle, you end by taking the Cycle deeper
and giving the students a chance to reflect upon what they have learned. We often
tell stories at this point. Stories are a great way to share deeper lessons on
a subtle level. Native societies used stories as a ways to demonstrate values
and to pass on natural history, such as why Opossum has a naked tail.
NE:
Awareness: You began in awareness and now you end in awareness, and wait for or
help facilitate the next East moment of engagement.
Here
is what it would look like in a lesson plan:
NE:
Awareness: Staff comes together as a group by giving thanks to the world around
them.
Students play awareness games to
start the day.
E: Engagement: I share a
story about how incredible animals are at hiding and how we often walk within
feet or inches of them and never see them. Would they like to be able to hide
as well as the animals?
SE: Orientation:
I introduce the rules of the game Eagle Eye. One student stands in the middle
with their eyes closed while the other students hide in the surrounding brush.
Those hiding have to be able to see the person in the middle with one eye. The
one in the middle opens their eyes and tries to find the hiding students while
standing in the same spot. During the next round, those who were not found have
to move in closer to the middle.
S: Focus:
We play the game. This game is also great for practicing the secret spot routine.
SW:
Relaxation: Now that we have practiced hiding like the animals, we practice wandering
through the landscape like the animals using fox walking and owl eyes. We forage
on plants and berries, and whenever I give the call that a predator is in our
midst, we hide in the bushes.
W: Sharing:
We circle up and share about our experience.
NW:
Surrender: We go back to our group gathering place (we always separate groups
into smaller units which we call clans, and we like to establish a clan meeting
place that we create as a sacred or special place to go).
N:
Reflection: I tell a story that relates to the activity. This may be a personal
story or a traditional native story.
NE:
Awareness: We go to see if we can scout another clan, fox walking and with owl
eyes.
As you begin to play with this model,
you will hopefully notice how natural it feels. While the model is helpful to
follow, it is important that you do not try to force the students through the
cycle. I continually check-in to see where the group is at in the cycle through
reading their body language. I then look to see how I can move the group through
the cycle by flowing with and harnessing the energy. Martial arts are a great
example of how to do this. For more information and practice on how to understand
and use this model, I highly recommend you come to one of our Coyote Mentoring
workshops.
Warren
Moon is executive director of Wilderness Awareness School.
Wilderness
Awareness School has developed a unique curricular model for education and organization
over the past 20 years which we call "The Six Shields of Awareness."
Click here to see how Wilderness Awareness School has organized our curriculum
according to the natural learning cycle.
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/about_curriculum.html
We are also very excited to be nearing completion of our new curriculum book,
Coyote's Guide to Connecting Kids with Nature. This 300-page guide distills into
print over twenty years of oral tradition and active practice in connecting kids
with nature. (More about Coyote's Guide)
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/about_curriculum.html#guide
Link
to Wilderness Awareness School's Calendar of Adult Programs:
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/adult/wilderness_awareness_calendar_adult.html
Link to Mentoring
Youth which includes wonderful articles on specific skills
Link to
Wikipedia: Eight
Shields Organizational Model
Link to Lynnette's
Notes: How I've applied the Acorn Model in my community work
Link
to Wikipedia:
Eight Shields Organization Model
