1.3 Outcomes

Personal outcomes

This project has helped me externalize many things about teaching from my subconscious.  My passion with earth ovens has always been centered on creating community. It was not until I had my dialogue with Kiko Denzer that I realized the act of teaching an earth oven courses in itself is about creating community, and spreading this passion. This project has made me a better teacher through the process of self-inquiry. My vision and overall purpose of being a teacher has been broadened. The process of creating this manual (designing, writing, illustrating, consulting, implementing feedback, rewriting and learning various ways of formatting) has given me the skills needed to make professional looking, publishable eBooks and manuals. Creating this OP has given me the drive and vision to inform other teachers of the need for these pedagogical manuals and the tools to help them create their own.

 

Yestermorrow oven course slide show by Simha Bode

Outcomes to the field

The teachers manual for facilitating an earth oven course is both a pedagogical reference for teachers to host a transformative learning experience and a technical guide to course logistics. My hope is that this will empower and guide oven builders to become teachers and community builders. This project on the meta-level is encouraging all teachers of the regenerative field to create their own pedagogical guides. Here are six of the pedagogical best practices I identified in this manual:

  • Be professional and fun - Adopt an equanimous relationship with all participants of the course; be organized and punctual while having a good time.
  • Take interest in the participants - Learn their names and help them get acquainted with each other’s names by playing a name game. Find out their experience and interests associated with oven building, some may want to be bakers and others oven builders. 
  • Be a good listener while staying on track - It is easy for questions to sidetrack the course. If a question is too much of a tangent let them know when you will be covering that topic later in the course. 
  • Be a good facilitator - Encourage them to be professional by not playing favorites with other participants, engage shy people by giving them tasks, give participants tasks that meet their abilities (elders, youth, handicapped), mix up groups and pairings, rotate tasks, be sure to gather everyone for demos. 
  • Be clear in your orientation - Give overviews of the next steps, use repetition to help participants stay on track, open the space for questions after each new step and demonstration, continually clarify things which may be confusing. 
  • Have a confident presence -  Be honest with your own experience level. If you are unsure about something tell the truth and get back to them with answers. Be relaxed about participants skill level and use positive reinforcement.

Patrix effects

Patrix is a Gaia University coinage meaning the 'patriarchal matrix' or matrix of oppression. This is an underlying structure of society which goes unnoticed to many because it has been integrated into our worldview. The foundation of our institutions of education are a large part of the patrix structure. These traditional institutions start from the premise that you are an empty vessel that needs to be filled. This is the pedagogy of the patrix which stifles critical thinking and maintains the status quo through the established power structures academia protects. The regenerative fields such as natural building, ecological restoration, ecological agriculture, agroforestry, holistic health, green energy, and many more, are challenging the status quo by their very nature. This project is addressing this root of the patrix through dissemination of pedagogical best practices. Pedagogy is a broad topic which needs all of us to be leaderful leaders and active learners. 

Conclusion

Writing a pedagogical guide is a lot of work, requiring deep self-inquiry and feedback from other professionals of the particular field you are addressing. If teaching is a passion for you, writing such a manual is a great service to the field and the teachers following in your foot steps. You can expect that this process will have you looking at teaching in a new dynamic way and will likely improve your own teaching skills. I hope you will join me in growing this needed resource!

 

Next Steps

I will be teaching an earth oven course this coming June while "looking through this lens of teaching to facilitate". After the course I will review my manual and add to and edit it with my new insights. This will fulfill the third component (Active Feedback) for this project's design cycle.

This project has renewed my passion for a teaching/facilitating career and I will continue to pursuit it! I have yet to form any new concrete steps in this regard. This project has made me aware of the need of pedagogical manuals in the EcoSocial field. I will be working with my peers and others to gather such manuals and aid in their dissemination. Gaia University is planning to start a printing press and I hope be involved, aiding in the creation and dissemination of this valuable resource. 

 

 

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Updated on 09 July 2016, 21:40; 864 page visits from 21 March 2015 to 2 April 2026