Courses
TLF Professional Development Courses
Natural Learning Relationships: Evolution of consciousness in childhood and beyond
What is the child’s consciousness and how does learning emerge in relationship to the child’s consciousness? This question must be central to any educational process. Greater awareness of children’s innate developmental capacities gives us a greater ability to support children’s social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual development.
Adult Development and Accessing Wisdom with Children
Everyone accepts that the adult influences the child but few realize how much the child influences change in the adult. This course is a focus on how nurturing development in the child leads to the emergence of new-meaning and self-knowledge in the adult. This course delves deeply into the difference between change and transformation (epistemological change). Based on the principle that capacities are innate and development occurs in relationship, we will examine the kinds of relationships that bring forth optimal well-being in children and transformation in adults.
Positive Development in Children:
Applications for Academic Excellence, Resolving Conflict, and Promoting Social Justice
This course delves deeply into how children organize their world at different ages of their lives. Based on the principle that capacities are innate and development occurs in relationship, this course uses evidence based practices to examine the kinds of relationships that bring forth optimal well-being in children. This allows powerful opportunities to heal dysfunction, to support academic excellence, and to improve social relationships. Specific attention will be given to successful character development and behavior in school.
Child and Adolescent Development
Part I: An overview of developmental theories including underlying paradigm assumptions, history, context, comparison of theories, differences between approaches (e.g., pathology vs well-being), and the antecedents to the holistic view of development.
Part II: Natural Learning Relationships—emergent developmental contextual view of holistic child development in optimal well-being.
Part III: theory to practice – applications of developmental knowledge to positive communication, community relationships, education, academic excellence, and family relationships. Contributions of children to school, community and social well-being; how to recognize and support these contributions; the effect of such support on the children.
Rites of Passage in Our Times
Rites of Passage (ROP) have historically been very prominent in cultures. In our times, many people feel there are only vestiges left that are more of a celebration rather than a true passage. This loss is a catastrophe for humanity. When carefully and correctly executed, ROP can be a response to the lack of meaning and purpose that pervades the post-modern world.
Learners in this course will discover how the structure of Rites of Passage provides opportunity for a face to face meeting with the unknown. This responds to the question of how we, as individuals, can experientially know ourselves as open-ended and whole. Done well, ROP create opportunity to touch the very depths of human possibility including the emergence of greater self-knowledge.
Directed Study
Creating School Culture: Natural Learning Relationships holistic child development, School Culture, and Working with Parents
School Culture is not easy to create. We explore the foundations of creating and maintaining a school culture that is imbued with meaning and inspiration.
The school culture is part of our student’s learning experience. An educational culture of meaning is one that supports sustainable relationships by providing respect, integrity, connection, and authentic relationships. Trust and collaboration are mutually reinforcing. We will explore how to create educational environments that support healthy psychological, emotional, and spiritual growth.
Adult Development
Adult development involves systematic, qualitative changes in consciousness, human abilities, and behaviors as a result of interactions between internal and external environments. This course will look at constancy and change in ways of knowing self and the world (e.g., social, cognition, emotion, and physical development across ages and stages). We will review the literature on developmentally related change in perspective-taking, meaning-making, self-knowledge, action theory, and transformational learning. From reductionist-deterministic, through organismic, contextualist, holistic, on through phenomenological-existential perspectives, to integral.
Working with families: What every educator needs to know
All parents are a part of their child’s education. So, Holistic Educators must know how to engage parents and work with their needs. When there is a synergy among these key relationships children’s educational experiences grow exponentially. We will discuss the importance of collaboration with our students’ families that is mutually respectful with shared power and decision-making.
Personal Statement
I love working with people in all areas related to consciousness and relationships with children.
Children bring the opportunity to engage life with authenticity and in-the-moment spontaneity that draws us into great opportunities to grow together.
As an educator, writer, developmental consultant, and public speaker, I specialize in the fields of child and adult development, adult transformational learning, sustainable family relationships, and how adult and child grow together. I have worked with children, parents, teachers, and whole families in seminars, family programs, and in schools since 1985.
In the Media