COUNCIL OF ALL BEINGS CURRICULUM

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Kate Greenway
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REVIEW OF KATE KAUFMAN GREENWAY'S COUNCIL OF ALL BEINGS  CURRICULUM

By Dr Elizabeth Bragg, Ecopsychologist & Environmental Educator 21st August 2000
ebragg@scu.edu.au

The Curriculum is an excellent adaptation of the Council of All Beings
workshops, initially created for adults by John Seed and Joanna Macy in the early 1980's and further developed by a large number of deep ecology facilitators around the world. Kate Kaufman Greenway has been inspired by the central process of these workshops, the gathering of role-played animals in a 'talking circle' to discuss environmental issues, and created a whole program for elementary school students culminating in this event.

From a program design perspective, she has achieved this successfully through the addition of structure and detailed explanation to the adult workshops. This splits the process up into easy-to-understand steps which provide a gentle transition from the more standard classroom teaching techniques and the possibly more challenging processes of deep emotional expression and meaningful role-play. The clear structure provides a feeling of 'safety' and 'understanding' for both students and teachers. Her practical suggestions for teachers' preparation and set-up of the processes also add to the ability for these innovative processes to be brought into classroom environments. The format in which she presents her curriculum, including the cross-referencing of the program's modules with learning performance standards/subjects, must also aid in the integration of this curriculum into the 'mainstream' elementary school system.

Kate has added several elements to the curriculum which, I believe, could enrich the Council of All Beings process for any age-group. The active intellectual study of the animals which are role-played is one such element. This addition has provided a more balanced mixture of the "head, heart and hands" learning modalities within the program, and one which is clearly suitable for school-learning.

Taking a local or regional perspective is another positive addition to the CAB process. This could result in a more realistic set of interactions between the animals in the final role play, and may also promote greater bonding with the students' local bioregion, rather than an unlikely mix of beings from around the planet. Some of the power of this may have been lost, however, by the focus being solely on animals. In the Council of All Beings workshops, all beings can be represented, including plants, rocks, the soil, fungi, the sun. A deep experiential understanding of whole ecosystems can be gained from role playing the interactions between these non-human beings. Limiting the 'ecosystem' to animals must severely limit the potential understanding gained from the Council.

Another element, which is usually only touched upon in the adult workshops, is promoting an intellectual understanding of the importance of the Council or 'talking circle' for decision-making. Through the addition of this element, Kate has woven together lessons about indigenous culture, social psychology / group process, and ecology into a practical teaching for our time.

The final two sessions of the curriculum are the Council of All Beings role-play and the final 'integration' Talking Circle. These could be improved by the following suggestions, which would obviously need to be piloted but would, I believe, significantly increase the power of the experience for the students, the teachers and the whole school environment.

It is also likely that the suggested changes would be more challenging. In the Council itself, it may be possible to loosen the structure a little from a straight 'round the circle' sharing of individual animals. This could be done by having the teacher-as-animal act as facilitator, and allowing animals to take turns asking a question of the whole group. The ensuing discussion would then occur between individual animals within the 'ecosystem'. This is an important event, because it is here that the links and relationships between the animals become apparent. Without this less structured interaction, the process can become one of the linear expression of a number of individual 'animals'. Indeed, the focus in the whole curriculum appears to be on fostering the relationship between each student and their animal, rather than fostering an understanding of the relationship between the animals. In this, I believe that there is a danger in the curriculum of missing an important opportunity to understand ecology, the interconnectedness of all beings, in contrast to understanding the natural history or biology of individual animals.

The final session of the curriculum, using a 'talking circle' of the students, provides an elegant method of integration for the whole curriculum. The questions the students are asked, however, tend to focus on how the talking circle can help various situations, rather than following up any environmental solutions which may have been proposed by the animals. This important missed opportunity could easily be rectified by the Council Reflection asking questions such as "What did the animals suggest that we can do as humans to help them?" and 'How do you think we can do some of these things in our school and at home?"

In summary, I believe that the strengths of this curriculum are that it is accessible to teachers (i.e., an excellent 'translation' of the Council of All Beings workshop for an elementary school environment). It provides a good breakdown of the essential elements of the Council of All Beings process, and creates an effective build-up to the more challenging processes of emotional expression and role-play. Weaknesses include that it focusses on animals only, tends to be individualistic rather than ecological, and does not fully draw out the practical environmental implications and possible actions from the process. All in all, a hearty congratulations is due, as it is about time that such a powerful process is embraced by the school system and Kate Kaufman Greenway has provided an admirable pathway for this to occur.

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