On the first day of class, we remind students about the following aspects of the program:
>If you work for someone, volunteer, or provide a service to an institution or individual as part of your academic plan, you must complete an in-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 about your work.
>And when you exit the program, 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, Yvonne, David & Bill
OUR SOURCESTo 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 of Native American Studies 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 on 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 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 (part of our 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. Our main tool for this is Bloom’s Taxonomy.
- is committed to building community by creating our own Covenant and by together making this program the dream program each one of us always wanted.
We construct and justify our program process by studying and internalizing–through reading, seminaring, creating and delivering workshops, discussing in small or large groups, writing our reflections via email, communicating through our moodle site, writing thoughtful self evaluations, talking during conferences, and discussing in study groups–concepts from the following books:
-Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
-A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
-Choice Theory by William Glasser
-Intelligence Reframed by Howard Gardner (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
-Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
-Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford
-1491 by Charles C. Mann
The Art of Changing the Brain by James E. Zull-1579220541
Native American Testimony by Peter Nabokov- 0140281592
Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks-0415908086
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
The Schools Our Children Deserve by Alfie Kohn
Human Brain Human Learningby Leslie HartInspirational Readings
5 Million Footsteps: The Transcontinental Trek of the Global Walk for a Livable Worldby Greg EdblomA note from Raul Nakasone, faculty member in last year’s Ceremony program:
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.
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