Invitation to a learning circles workshop, Nov. 9-11

DRAFT

September 4, 2001

ADAPTING LEARNING CIRCLES FOR THE CLASSROOM AND OTHER FORMATS

WHERE: Highlander Research and Education Center
                   New Market, Tennessee  (35 miles from Knoxville)
WHEN:  November 9-11, 2001
WHO:    PEOPLE CIRCLES, INC. founders Nelda Pearson and John Wallace
People Circles is dedicated to using learning circles to nurture 
individual and social transformation to build a just society.
COSTS:  $250.00
                 Payable to: People Circles, Inc.
                 Due: October 8, 2001
                 Mail to: Nelda Pearson
                               6773 Circle Dr.
                               Radford, VA 24141

Registration for this workshop will close at 20 participants.

TOPIC: This learning circle workshop is for anyone experienced in 
leading learning circles and wants to explore adapting the ideal 
three to four day residential retreat to another format. These 
formats might include the classroom, student reflection sessions, 
meetings of faculty involved in service learning, meetings of 
community partners and the like. What appears highly desirable and 
possible at first glance, turns into a thorny situation when we 
actually try to adapt learning circles to other venues.

What are learning circles?
"Learning circles assume that all members bring valuable knowledge 
and perspectives to the learning setting and that learning is 
collaborative, transformative, and implies social action.  The circle 
unfolds from initial questions framed by the facilitators based on 
the topic of concern to the circle.  The questions usually address 
this main concern by exploring where participants are now, what 
participants are seeking, and what they would consider to be the 
ideal situation with regard to the concern and its resolution.  This 
exploration is a process of hearing from every member of the group, 
scribing their responses, and noting threads of commonality and 
diversity.  The initial questioning process generates the subsequent 
questions, concerns, and issues that the group addresses."  Why not 
take this approach to transformation of individuals and communities 
into many different meeting formats?

Why are other venues not obvious formats?
Our own experience and reports to us from others has been that it is not
automatic or easy to make this extension.  Myles Horton had two 
principles that help us explore why this is so.  First, Horton 
thought it essential that Highlander workshops not involve grades or 
other academic credentials.  Second, he thought that a workshop 
needed to have at least one full day in which participants were 
neither arriving nor leaving.  Most of the formats to which one 
naturally thinks of extending learning circles violate one or both of 
these principles.

The November workshop will explore honestly and in depth the 
practical possibilities of extending learning circles to shorter or 
credentialed formats.

SCHEDULE: Participants in the workshop will arrive Friday afternoon, 
November 9, 2001 in time for dinner together at 6 PM.  The workshop 
will begin on Friday evening and last through Sunday lunch. 
Participants will leave for home on Sunday afternoon.  We ask that 
the participants plan their travel schedules so that they do not have 
to arrive at the workshop late or leave early.  The strength and 
value of a learning circle experience depends on being there for the 
whole time.

Highlander Research and Education Center has been in existence since 
1932 in three different locations in Tennessee arriving at its 
current location in 1970.  Highlander has been engaged in social 
justice work first with the labor movement, then the civil rights 
movement, and over the last thirty years in issues of economic, 
social and environmental justice in the Appalachian mountains and the 
South.  Workshop  participants who have time and would like to have a 
more in-depth experience of Highlander are invited to arrive as early 
as possible on Friday and to spend the time before dinner exploring 
the Highlander Library, a rich archival resource. Exploring the 
library gives one a close-up sense for the work of Highlander.

On Saturday evening we will have Guy and Candie Carawan and Joyce 
Dukes with us for music and story telling related to the work of 
Highlander and social justice issues dating back to the Citizenship 
Schools on the Sea Islands.  All three have had a long term 
relationship with Highlander.  Guy and Candie are authors of VOICES 
FROM THE MOUNTAINS, a compilation of photographs, music, and 
quotations from organizing in the coal fields of Central Appalachia, 
and AINT YOU GOT A RIGHT TO THE TREE OF LIFE, a compilation of 
photographs, music and quotes from Johns Island, where the first 
citizenship schools were held.    They also have been the musical 
consultants for various productions on the Civil Rights Movement, 
including EYES ON THE PRIZE. They have recorded their own and others 
music in the labor and civil rights movements over the past forty 
years and are active performers at events throughout Appalachia.  Guy 
and Candie were staff members at Highlander for forty years.  Joyce 
Dukes was the personal assistant to Myles Horton the founder of 
Highlander and the Director of the Southern and Appalachian 
Leadership Training (SALT) at Highlander.

FACILITIES: Room, board, facility fees, workshop materials and costs 
for Guy, Candie, and Joyce are included in the retreat fee.  This is 
a flat rate regardless of when you arrive. We will all stay in the 
Highlander bunkhouse style dormitories, sharing a room and bath, and 
eat in the Highlander dinning room.  Highlander provides simple 
country cooking with enough choices to accommodate vegetarians. 
Unfortunately, they do not have the facilities to provide for special 
dietary needs. Coffee, tea, and fruit are available throughout the 
day.  Highlander is very isolated and if you have any special needs 
it would be wise to come prepared

TRANSPORTATION: Highlander is in the country, in the foothills of the Smoky
Mountains, about 45 minutes from the Knoxville airport.  Taxi service 
is available.  We are responsible for making these arrangements 
ourselves.
In late August you will be receiving a welcome letter with further 
specific  information on your visit including taxi number and maps to 
Highlander.

REGISTRATIONS AND DEADLINES:  Please fill out and return the following
form no later that August 14 to:
Nelda Pearson
6773 Circle Dr.
Radford, VA 24141
Please enclose your check for $250.00 payable to People Circles, Inc. 
After OCTOBER 9 we will assume that applicants who have not paid the 
retreat fee are non-attenders and we will replace them with someone 
on our waiting list.

Questions about the workshop may be addressed to Nelda Pearson at 
npearson@runet.edu or John Wallace at walla003@umn.edu

REFUND POLICY: If you have to cancel we will refund the full amount 
up until SEPTEMBER 30 WHEN WE MUST GIVE HIGHLANDER OUR FINAL COUNT 
AND ARE LOCKED INTO THAT FEE.

NAME:______________________________

ADDRESS:___________________________

                    ___________________________

PHONE: _____________________     EMAIL:_______________________________

OCCUPATION POSITION AND
ORGANIZATION__________________________

IF YOU ARE VEGETARIAN PLEASE INDICATE HERE _______________


  FACILITATORS:

Nelda Pearson is a Professor of Sociology and Anthropology and Chair of
the Race, Class, and Gender Studies Program at Radford University in
Virginia. She has done community development work using learning 
circles with the farm women of Canada, the Inupiat of Arctic Alaska, 
and with several communities in Central Appalachia. She is one of the 
founders of Beans and
Rice, Inc a community development corporation (see 
www.beansandrice.org).  She has had extensive post doctoral training 
in conflict resolution, mediation, prejudice reduction, and diversity 
training and has led workshops on these topics over the past ten 
years.  She is also extensively published in the area of community 
development, activism, and popular education/learning circles. She is 
the recipient of the Outstanding Volunteer award from the Virginia 
2000 Governor's Volunteerism and Service Awards.  She is chair of the 
Invisible College.

John Wallace is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of 
Minnesota.  He has been deeply involved in the college student 
community service movement for more than twelve years.  He has served 
as chair of the Board of the Campus Outreach Opportunity League 
(COOL) and as a member of the Advisory Council of the Southern 
Community Partner's program.  He is founder of the Invisible College, 
a national group of educators who are taking leadership on their 
campuses and in their communities in linking student's service with 
the curriculum.  His current main community project is as part of a 
leadership team for a neighborhood learning and action center, the 
Jane Addams School for Democracy (see www.publicwork.org/jas).  He 
has published extensively in the areas of philosophy of language and 
philosophy of education.  He is the recipient of the 2000 Campus 
Compact Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning, the 
University of Minnesota 2000 Josie R. Johnson Human Rights and Social 
Justice Award and the Minnesota Campus Compact 2000 Sister Pat 
Kowalski Leadership Award.

John and Nelda have been among the leaders in establishing the 
learning circle concept as a cornerstone of the Invisible College-now 
shifting to a new name, Educators for Community Engagement--and have 
designed
and facilitated learning circles in a variety of settings over the 
past four years. They offer four workshops per year at Highlander.
-- 
John Wallace
Department of Philosophy
University of Minnesota
831 Heller Hall
271 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0310
(612) 624-5210
FAX (612) 626-8380
walla003@tc.umn.edu