Welcome to Ceremony:

A note from your Team:

Welcome to Ceremony, we wish you a wonderful learning experiencie. We invite you to join us on tuesdays and thursdays every week, and every other saturday to share your questions/ideas. We also invite you to communicate with your co-learners using the most advanced technology available on campus. We also invite you to learn about the program so you will be an expert when you explain it to others. Most of the suggested readings are in our library. When you create your own curriculum, you will create your own reading list.

The information we remind students about on the first day of each quarter includes:

Respond and post your responses to the 4 questions.
If you work for someone, volunteer, and/or provide a service to an institution or individual as part of your academic plan - then you must complete a program internship form with academic advising.
If your plan includes international travel, you can do it through an Independent Learning Contract, please contact Michael Cliffthorne.

Keep in touch by email or on our moodle website so your colleagues know of your work.
And, when you exit at the end of this quarter, contact us so an evaluation can be completed.

Email:
Please use:
Subject:        Ceremony-YourLastName
and write to the the faculty team.

Have a great year/quarter!

Your Team                                                                                RETURN


OUR SOURCES

To better understand our approach to education you may read some aspects of the foundations of our program, our program:
-    is part of the Twenty Year Vision long range plan NAS on campus programs.
-    is the praxis (in the Freirian sense) of our own educational philosophy.
-    is a learner-centered learning environment based in the Native American approach to learning, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, (in our learning environment we apply William Glasser's Choice Theory) and Multiple Intelligences theory.
-    emphasizes the Evergreen five focii and the expectations of our Evergreen graduates,
-    follows the brain natural learning function (you learn what you are interested in learning),
-    puts strong emphasis in developing communication skills and use of instructional technology (for distance learning praxis) we share our  learning during community visiting time (every tuesday or thursday), in our Saturday Theory to Praxis class, or via email using our program list or using our program moodle site, and by presenting our projects at the end of our experience.
-    uses Howard Zinn's A People's History of the US to help us find out more about who we are and why we are what we are,  (search for identity)
-    applies the Multiple Intelligences Theory (everyone is a learner, everyone is an intellectual), this is required reading.
-    is a community of co-learners and each one of us is in charge of our instruction,  our curriculum and our assessment and our main tool for this is Bloom's Taxonomy,
-    is committed to building community by creating our own Covenant and by making together this program the dream program each one of us always wanted.

We construct/justify our program process by studying/internalizing (reading, seminaring, creating/delivering workshops, discussing in small/large groups, writing our reflections via email, our moodle site, self evaluations, talking during conferences, discussing in study groups. and applying/using) concepts from the following books:
-Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
-A Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn
-Choice Theory by William Glasser
-Intelligence Reframed by Howard Gardner (this is required reading)
-Education for Extinction by David Wallace Adams.
-Embracing Contraries by Peter Elbow
-The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav
-Ceremony by Silko
-Broad and Alien is the World by Ciro Alegria (travellers to Peru)
-Open Veins of Latin America, by Eduardo Galeano
-Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford
-1491 by Charles C. Mann
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Recommended books:
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire-0826412769
Intelligence Reframed by Martin Gardner-0465026117
A People's History of the U S by Howard Zinn- 0060528370
The Art of Changing the Brain by James E. Zull-1579220541
Native American Testimony-Peter Nabokov- 0140281592
Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks-0415908086
Choice Theory by William Glasser- 0060930144
Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith-1856496244
Natives and Academics by Devon Mihesuah- 0803282435
Genocide of the Mind by Marijo Moore-1560255110
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Steven C. Hayes-1572309555
Methodology of the Oppressed by Chela Sandoval-0816627371
How to Quit School & Get a Real Life & Education by Grace Llewellyn
Education for Extinction by David Wallace Adams.
The Schools Our Children Deserve by Alfie Kohn
Embracing Contraries by Peter Elbow
Human Brain Human Learning by Leslie Hart
Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford
1491 by Charles C. Mann

Inspirational Readings
5 Million Footsteps: The Transcontinental Trek of the Global Walk for a Livable World by Greg Edblom

A note from Raul:

Wherever you attended school, you went through a system based on a specific psychology and philosophy.  I didn't think about this for many years after graduating from college and working for 20 years applying the same psychology and the same philosophy, helping very actively to perpetuate a system. I wish I was invited to learn about the kind of psychology and the philosophy of the education system I was obligated to go through in my home country.  I would have been better equipped to be a human being in my own community.

Being in Ceremony, you have the opportunity to learn about the ideas and theories that support this specific program in Evergreen. At the same time you could also learn about the education system you just went through. This knowledge will help you develop you own emerging curriculum.

New trends in Education

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/09/gee

http://www.academicevolution.com/2009/02/chronicle-extinct.html


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