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| Community Nature Awareness Program |
The Community Nature Awareness Program 2008-2009!
Click here to download and fill out Registration Forms.
"CNAP was a living laboratory to learn how to be in community..." "CNAP was one of the best things I have done for myself and my family." "Participating in the CNAP helped me to clarify my role as an individual, and is allowing me to go confidently forward as a leader, knowing that my role in community is a great gift."
This is the flagship program of the Institute for Natural Learning. Our main goal is to reach a new body of regional participation in the arts of mentoring and natural learning. We are designing this program to meet the needs of parents, teachers, and adult community participants from all walks of life who are interested in making and strengthening a great connection to nature and profound change in their community. In the human history of nature study and nature connection, learning has always taken place within the complex fabric of community. We are dedicated to delivering a holistic model of environmental education that honors our ancestors' wisdom and approach to knowledge of place. We are naming this program as a break through in mid-level training. The Community Nature Awareness Program provides new ground between the current adult week-long trainings in nature awareness, such as the Art of Mentoring workshop, and the year-long Apprenticeship models. This program will take place one weekend of every month for 8 months running from November to June.
Curriculum Components: 1. Art of Mentoring Skills These skills are common approaches used by native people world wide and still exist in our own original lineages. Training in this area includes: *One-on-one mentoring skill sets *Study of the archetypal energies of the medicine wheel as a curriculum guide *Training and experience in practicing the core routines of native awareness
"Keeping my commitment to get out to my sit spot gets me outside more... I notice I am more aware in other areas as well - like paying attention to where I have parked my car at the grocery store! I also experience the feeling of connectedness to the earth and to all people - I find I am more patient, more accepting of others and more engaged with my family, friends and strangers." -- 2006-2007 CNAP Participant
2. Focused Naturalist Skill Sets
These skill sets will be delivered in a Saturday session format. Training includes exposure and practice in the following: -Naturalist observation and awareness routines -Tracking and pattern recognition -Landscape navigation, wandering and exploration -Ecological and permaculture principles -Birding and bird language study -Survival and long term wilderness living skills
3. Gentle Nature Immersions
We will provide safe and practical interaction with the blocks that stop us from interacting with the world we love. As leaders in the outdoor education field we have many years of experience facing our fears of "Cold, Wet, Muddy, Buggy, Dark, and Alone". Imagine if you could be led to know these things as not insurmountable obstacles but simply challenges you know how to work with while having fun.
"The other day my family went on a walk and it began raining. Well, my teenage son doesn't like to get dirty and we were all wet and muddy. In the past my son never would have gone out in the rain. He would have complained the whole way. But now after participating in these old ways of natural learning he didn't complain at all; he was actually having fun! As a family we never would have done that before. We have learned that there is no weather to be afraid of." -- Mother of two teenage boys
4. Experiencing the Cultural Model of Education Education for the last 10,000 years has not taken place in classrooms but in a living mentoring culture called community. We have been taught to bring these elements back into our view of nature study and include them as valid approaches to learning. These elements include:
-Music, singing, and celebration -Ritual and ceremony -Art, regalia, and story telling -Codes of conduct for elders, leaders, and youth -Approaches to self awareness and "inner tracking"
"What I left with was a new understanding of how our lives are full of transformation and passage regardless of choosing them. Passage happens and I now have a map. Choosing passage as a whole community means we get to 'grow up', cherish each other and life, come to our senses and remember who we are." -- 2006-2007 CNAP Participant
Program Dates and Titles : 2008-2009 Nov 14, 15, 16 The Introduction to Natural Learning: Awakening the Senses Dec 5,6,7 Rekindling your Passion: The Arts of Survival Jan 2,3,4 Tracking and Observation: The Tools of Nature Study Feb 6,7,8 Extended Family Adoption: The Fabric of Community Mar 6,7,8 Rites of Passage: Putting the Edge back in Education Apr 3,4,5 Indigenous Approaches to Mentoring: Principles and Practice May 1,2,3 Empowering your Vision: Balancing Ceremony and Awareness Jun 5,6,7 Power of Storytelling: Healing and Transformation
Program Cost Sliding scale $2,250 - $2,500 for the 8-weekend series includes fresh, delicious food and bunk-style lodging. If you are a Vermont resident, you may be eligible to receive full funding from Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. Please contact us asap, before filling out an application form, so we can walk you through the process.
Cost for the Extended Family Adoption Conference Cost for participants not registered for the weekend is $300. Includes food and lodging in the rustic but comfortable (heated) lodge as well as unheated cabins at Camp Neringa (Marlboro, VT). Please inquire about bunking that meets your needs.
Guest Instructors:
Paul Raphael 
Paul Raphael, from Pashawbestown, Michigan, is a singer, storyteller and one of the Peace Maker's of the Grand Traverse Band. He is married and has four children, two boys and two girls, and three grandchildren. Paul and Mark have worked together for 7 years teaching the Art of Mentoring, sharing back and forth the best approaches to mentoring the next generation. Paul has made significant contributions to the reawakening of extended family conciousness and the resilient function of these diverse roles in community in our nature and community awareness programming as well as mentoring us about how to recognize and work through issues of grief and broadening our understanding of the Eight Shields Mentoring Model. He will be our guest instructor at: Extended Family Adoption: The Fabric of Community February 6, 7 and 8
Tim Drake
Other guest instructors to be announced.
Participant Benefits:
- A Leadership Learning Adventure: Each weekend is a blend of experiential learning, practical skills sets, community building practices, looking within, and tiny edge experiences to awaken yourself from the slumber of modern living. - Intensive AND affordable: CNAP is an excellent mid-level training in nature awareness, self-exploration, and cultural mentoring at 20% the cost of a full-year Apprenticeship trainings at other wilderness schools. Participants graduate with an ability to confidently initiate and participate in Art of Mentoring educational culture. - Weekends: The weekend format allows participation for those who have woven themselves into family, homes, jobs, and other community leadership committments. - Learning Pace: Intermittent rhythm allows for the gradual integration and application of skills and material into daily personal and community life. - Positive Peer Mentoring: Coming back together each month and sharing the unfolding journey of lessons and successes with each other is a key aspect of each participant's experience in building and experiencing a powerful mentoring culture.
"[The weekends] have been incredibly transformative for me and have reconnected me with a sense of personal strength and vitality that can easily get overshadowed during tough times. Thank you for sharing so much of yourselves and I look forward to having more time together as we go deeper in our group and individual journeys." -- 2006-2007 CNAP Participant (to other CNAP participants)
Regional Wilderness School Benefits: - Allows for parent and teacher involvement - Regional schools get a rhythmic boost during the year of inspiration and commitment from participants - As well, Regional schools get strong mid level- trained instructors at the end of one year. - Regional schools get the benefit of a strong program for a few individuals, which would otherwise be too costly or time-consuming to produce by themselves.
Registration Click Here 83.50 Kb to download the registration form.
Testimonials
“CNAP was a living laboratory to learn how to be in community. The experience helped me to identify my vision of service to my community at home, and inspired me to have a greater vision of wanting to be a leader. I’m serving on the Board (at EarthWalk Vermont) now.” -- Mark Christiansen
"CNAP is one of the best things I have done for myself and my family. At the broadest level, participating in CNAP totally changed my perceptionof what it is to be human, the responsibilities and the potential. I feel reconnected to my human blueprint that drives how I learn and interact with the natural world. I have especially gained insights into how to be a parent to my three young children and a how to be a member of a community. I am working to approach life, and particularly parenting, from a more cooperative standpoint, acknowledging each individual's gifts and innate value. I've also become aware of the imperative need for more adults, adoptive aunts and uncles, in my children's lives, and am working to guide my community in that direction. The experience of CNAP was also an incredibly successful example of Coyote Mentoring. I will be processing my experiences and learning from this handful of weekends for years." -- Ken Hamilton
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