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  • From: Stephen Figgins <stephen@plainscraft.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] greenschooling
  • Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:58:32 -0500

Sounds great, Jenny!

I have some experience with a school that teaches something similar to what I think you have in mind, the Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, Washington. To get a better understanding of that school I spent a couple of years up near Duvall. I participated in local events they held and volunteered to help at they summer day camps working with kids the same age as yours. I was very impressed.

They have developed something like greenschooling techniques already, based on the techniques used by tribal people around the world to develop awareness in their children and to pattern their minds on the natural world. They teach these techniques in their Art of Mentoring program and they employ them in a community school that primarily serves homeschooling families in the Seattle area. They have also been working on adapting their techniques for use by school teachers. They teach some special mentoring courses aimed at educators and are developing a book aimed at more traditional teachers.

They have a correspondence course that you can take to develop wilderness awareness skills. It incorporates as many of these techniques as they can without a direct mentoring relationship. This is called the Kamana program. That program is more appropriate for older kids and adults. It requires a good deal of self discipline too. A couple of people at the school have been adapting the Kamana program for a younger crowd and have some simple books that work great to introduce the concept to children as young as yours. My kids (8 and 11) really like them. Since they are self published with lots of color illustrations they are a bit on the expensive side but I do recommend them.

There is some wilderness awareness school/permaculture crossover on the west coast where some instructors work with both. I believe this is a wonderful way to work with the outer zones and to bring that awareness and understanding back into the inner zones.

If you have more questions about the school I would be happy to answer them though I'm mostly just a student and a fan of the school. The school started in New Jersey and they still have a lot of students and former instructors on the east coast so you should be able to get a quick leg up in establishing a greenschool there. Here are some online resources to help you begin your exploration:

The Wilderness Awareness School:
http://www.wildernessawareness.org

A sister school in southern Maine:
http://www.whitepineprograms.org/

An online forum for students of WAS:
http://www.naturetalk.net/


If you have an interest in herbalism and wildcrafting you might also check out the resources one of their former instructors has put together - a simple kit for getting started making salves and tinctures and a chutes and ladders type game that builds an understanding of native plants with medicinal uses.

http://www.learningherbs.com/

Best of luck in your endeavors. I hope to hear more about your development of greenschooling!


- Stephen
from the Kansas Area Watershed




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