Courses
PM 534 Emergent Teaching: Educating for Creativity, Significance, and Transformation (3 credits)
Leadership is more than a title. Opportunities abound for leadership in everyday life, in our occupations, and in our learning environments in ordinary and extraordinary situations. Often we are expected to act within a very limited spectrum that falls within the dominant society’s definitions and beliefs about leadership. A different set of ideas and beliefs about leadership is possible and necessary for a just sustainable world: authentic leadership.
In this course learners explore paths to holistic, integrated, and authentic leadership. Learners will experience techniques for holistic and authentic leadership that integrate several philosophies, including authentic, contextual, holistic and values-based leadership, with their authentic self. Learners will explore leadership examples and theories from cultures all over the world (i.e. aboriginal, Chinese Philosophy, First Nations, Taoist, transformational, and tribal) and their own lives. The course emphasizes exploration and practice of an integrated leadership model for learning environments and for a more just, sustainable world.
PM 535 Earth Charter Pedagogy: A Values-Based Approach to Sustainable Well-Being, Ecological Integrity, and Social Justice (3 credits)
The current health care and health crisis in many parts of the world has an immediate impact on adolescents. Often the targets of advertising that promotes unhealthy, unrealistic, and damaging views of health, adolescents have a right to be aware of how they are impacted by the societal and ecological systems in which they live. Introducing adolescents to a systems approach to their own health magnifies the power they have to understand and define their own well-being and that of the ecologies in which they live.
In this course learners explore the dynamics of ecological systems and how an ecological view of adolescent health leads to empowerment and lasting change. Learners also explore Western and Non-Western philosophies of health (i.e. allopathic (Western) medicine, Ayurveda, Herbalism, Integrative Medicine, Naturopathic Medicine, and traditional Chinese Medicine) as these relate to an ecological view. The emphasis is on techniques and lessons to empower adolescents to take charge of their health and the health of the ecologies in which they live.
PM 536 Holistic Education: An Integrative Paradigm for Learning, Knowing, and Being (3 credits)
In the field of holistic health, there are six interactive elements identified that contribute to the well-being and health of an individual. They include the mental, emotional, social, physical, environmental, and spiritual conditions of life. These elements have been affirmed within the mainstream medical community even though they are not universally applied. If we explore the current research in the neurosciences, cognitive theory, social-psychology, and learning it is clear that these categories can be applied to education. Importantly, these holistic elements are not isolated but are continually interacting together to create an integrative view of a living organism.
This vision is part of a paradigmatic change leading not to just an alternative cultural narrative, but to a new way of living and being. Holistic Education represents not just another way of teaching, and it is not just an extension of progressive education models. It is a fundamentally alternative perception of the world and within that perception comes the challenge to think, act, and live differently.
Learners in this course will explore this new mapping of reality from the implications of enactive and embodied processes of learning to new research methodologies to new understandings of curriculum, schooling, and organizations.
Webinars
Dr. Sam Crowell on his 2013 program with the Earth Charter
Sam is a Faculty member, Earth Charter Center and UNESCO Chair for Education for Sustainable Development and the Earth Charter, University for Peace, Costa Rica.
A new UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development and the Earth Charter has been established through the Earth Charter Center on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), the University for Peace (UPEACE), and UNESCO for a period of three years. The purpose of the Chair is to promote transformative educational experiences that cultivate the fundamental values and ethical vision necessary to move towards a more sustainable world.
The uniqueness of this project is that it will work at the intersection of education, sustainability, and ethics using the Earth Charter as a framework. It will develop workshops and courses for educators, young leaders, and business groups. The courses will also offer an opportunity to further explore the practical implementation of the sustainability paradigm and the Earth Charter principles in management, leadership, and education settings.