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Institute of Global Education Part 2 Orientation Course Instructions |
PROJECT NATURECONNECTWhat is it like being on the course once it has started?
Below is an example of what the course looks like when it is running smoothly. Our challenge here is to make this description a reality by painstakingly following the guidelines and instructions on these web pages.
Preparation:
"Carol, an online course member has done her preparatory "homework. She read through the introductory course and website material, submitted her application to the course and received a course participation confirmation. She ordered her optional Reconnecting With Nature book, completed the required prerequisite activities and her self-introduction, and set up a group mailing list from the addresses sent to her by the course organizer. Then she carefully read the instructions you are reading now.The specific dates for her course were made for the convenience of all and send and receive dates for email assignments were set. Group guidance roles were offered to participants, the co-facilitator was identified, and the email addresses were checked to assure that they worked properly.
Attitude:
"Enthusiastic" is the way Carol feels about the course. She knows what is important in it to her because in the prerequisite material she identified areas of interest and results that others found important for themselves. She also tried some of the activities with friends and knows they work well for her. They help her thinking reasonably co-create with nature's intelligence, balance and beauty by safely connecting with it. She recognizes that with respect to Nature's eons of balanced relationship building experience, there is no known substitute for the real thing. Substitutes often pollute or deteriorate naturally balanced relationships.Schedule:
Carol reads her course instructions online from a "base camp" webpage. She learns from them what activity she and her email partners, who live in many different countries, will to do on this scheduled day in their local park, backyard, or even with a terrarium. In general they have been doing two activities a week. The schedule they use is posted at their Internet Base Camp website whose address they were given when the course began.
Role of attractions
As Carol begins this day's activity she seeks what's most attractive to her in a local natural area at this moment. Unexpectedly, she becomes aware that the delicate sparkle of a water droplet on a fern attracts her. She does additional activities that reinforce this nature-connected sensation and she becomes aware of other things that come to mind from the total experience. They include other times she has felt its joy and meaning as well as her past disconnection from it, what caused it, and the effects of the loss. She discovers the droplet being attractive to her was not an accident. It was subconsciously attractive to parts of her that sought the fulfillment of the balanced tenacity, brightness and refreshment it provided. Contact with the droplet brought these parts of her into her awareness.
Written material
Carol then reads, or has already read online, (and optionally in her Reconnecting With Nature book,) material which helps her understand and model various aspects of the activity she has just done and how she might apply them to improve and further enjoy her daily relationships with people and the environment.
Guidelines and process
Carol closely follows the seven-step guidelines that come with the activity instructions. At some convenient time on the due date for the completion of the activity and readings, Carol goes on-line and shares with her 7-person interact group her thoughts, feelings and reactions from her nature connecting experience. She also downloads, reads, and later reacts, to the attractions she finds and things she has learned in all the emails she receives from the group by the due date. They become the course textbook. They convey her group member's experiences in nature with the same activity and readings she just did. Later she reads their reactions to the experience description she just sent to all of them.
Unity
Carol finds the course process is enjoyable and educational. She feel relieved that participants hold something important in common and are therefore supportive and not bogged down in "flaming" arguments about differing viewpoints, ideologies, religions, politics etc. Carol feels alive and spirited, sustained by her email partners genuine responses and the group's rejuvenating reconnections to nature.
Value and self-empowerment
Her day brighter and energized, Carol looks forward to applying the activity by using it to further connect with people and natural places that attract her. They gain new value and she becomes aware of an often unrecognized natural self-worth in herself and others along with additional values in natural areas. She has new confidence for she has done the activity and known its effects. She owns it, can teach it, and gain its rewards at will.Why the process works.
The coursework sounds and feels simple to Carol, but explaining to others how and why it works challenges her intellect and spirit in fun ways. The process and its effects are so steeped in nature's balanced ways that for most people they are, like nature's perfection, beyond words. To be known and understood the process must be experienced first hand. To our loss, in our nature disconnected society that is often suspect."
What guidelines help the course organize itself?
Below are the guidelines and instructions that Carol and
her classmates followed to help them make the course operate
in ways that optimized their learning and rewards from their
participation.
Please proceed to Part Three
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..........ALTERNATIVES