Gaia Education Design for Sustainability:
Week 1 - Social Design

13–19 October 2012

Building Community and Embracing Diversity

The overall focus of this week is on the social aspect, designed to develop the skills needed to work effectively with both large and small groups. Using an experiential format, we will start by looking at how to create a learning environment that meets the needs of all, looking at individual learning styles and needs. From there we will learn how to design inclusive group agreements as a foundation for embracing diversity. We will explore the role of games in building groups and community - both theory and practice. We will learn the processes which define community glue and common ground - including values, vision and mission - and will understand the relationship between task, process and relationship.

I do not know if you have ever examined how you listen, it doesn't matter to what, whether to a bird, to the wind in the leaves, to the rushing waters or how you listen in a dialogue with yourself to your conversation in various relationships with your intimate friends your wife or husband. If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen at all to what is being said. In that state there is no value at all. One listens, and therefore learns, only in a state of attention, a state of silence in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quiet; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate.

Krishnamurti, Talks and Dialogues

Communication Skills and Feedback

The heart of good communication is a simple but profound capacity to listen. This module will give participants the techniques and insights needed for creating environments informed by a culture of deep listening. We will learn how to support one another in the shift from a defensive to a collaborative communication and from debate to dialogue. We will practise mindful speaking and explore how to handle and welcome critical and constructive feedback as a vehicle for learning and growing.

Topics include:
Nonviolent & compassionate communication
Skills of dialogue
Giving and receiving feedback
Deep listening & mindful speaking

Conflict Facilitation

Conflicts are a part of our life like storms are a variety of weather. In fact, in groups that are truly diverse, differences are both a sign of health and an invitation to creativity. The most important lesson is to change our attitude from avoiding conflicts to looking at them with interest and openness. This means stepping out of a "winner-loser" and into a "win-win" perspective. Win-Win solutions become possible after all involved parties of a conflict have been heard and understood.

Topics include:
Steps for facilitating differences and conflicts successfully
Obstacles to harmonious interaction: rank and privilege, cultural and structural roots of conflict, gossip, personal attacks and cynicism


Facilitation Skills and Decision Making

Deep democracy claims that all people, parts and feelings are needed. Deep democracy appreciates present democratic forms but adds to them the need for awareness of feelings and atmosphere in moment-to-moment interactions and institutional practices.

Arnold Mindell

An organization's performance and ultimate success is directly related to its ability to make decisions that are high quality and that can be sustained over time. Making clear choices about the fundamental issues of power and process can transform a diverse group of people into a strong, stable, healthy community. This module will introduce a range of fair and participatory decision-making methods to avoid conflict over power imbalances. We will look at the role of facilitation in the process of finding common ground between people with diverse points of view. We will look at facilitation techniques that make meetings productive, participative, cooperative... and fun, while balancing the focus across three dimensions: Results, Process, and Relationship.

Topics include:
Different systems of decisions - from autocratic to unanimity
Different types of decisions
Essential elements of consensus
Facilitation techniques - Worldcafe, Think and Listen, Open Space, Mind mapping, Fishbowl

Celebrating Life: Creativity and Art

This module will explore how to integrate art, land, creativity and community life. We will learn how, by creating a culture of ethics, aesthetics and beauty, we can free ourselves progressively from the tyranny of a materialistic worldview which has separated us from each other and alienated us from the earth. We will look at the role of the artist in reinvigorating and healing local communities, and at art as a liberating force for collective transformation and self-realisation. We will work creatively with environmental art in a variety of ways which are not simply about the landscape, but which actually take place in it. Such art can contribute to our becoming a less destructive and more benign presence on our planet. Facilitated by Lisa Shaw.

The Gaia Education Design for Sustainability is being introduced to the world at this time to complement, correspond with, and assist in setting a standard for the United Nations'­ Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014.

Please complete the Application Form and Enrolment Questionnaire to book online.
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Fees
Income related price for Week 1 only (click here for more information): £495 / £545 / £695
For the full four-week programme: £1735 / £1925 / £2395

Fees include tuition, accommodation, vegetarian meals and field trips.

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