EDE Curriculum 2012.pdf - Gaia Education

Module 1: Building Community & Embracing
Diversity
Learning Goals
� Tapping into the immense power for social change that lies in the building of community
� Acquiring social interpersonal skills on how to start a community including: organising a core
group, forging a common vision, creating community glue, and instilling an atmosphere of trust
and goodwill
� Incorporating the issues of the human heart into everything we do
� Developing qualities of forgiveness, empathy, and reconciliation in our relationships with others
� Embracing diversity and being ready to witness the richness it brings to our lives
Content
“Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is
the only thing that ever has.”
The Power of Building Community
32
Margaret Mead
Building community can make all the difference! There is a ‘group mind’ that is far wiser than any individual;
there is a group potential far vaster than any solo effort. We live in community as part of the
Web of Life anyway; so it is our conscious choice whether we acknowledge this fact and take responsibility
for creating a well-knit, positively expressed form of community.
In essence, respecting Life means consciously caring for community on all levels. Although we concentrate
on the building of community within the human world in this part of the curriculum, the qualities
required to do this are basically the same for our relationships with all the natural worlds as well.
Connective thinking and acting is needed in every realm. Developing an ever-finer capacity for sensitive
observation and communication are the stepping-stones. Climbing out of a space of inner judgement,
in which we feel that we already know it all, allows us to perceive freshly.
This will bring out the true individuality of everybody’s special gifts. Cooperating and sharing then become
possible. Building a new global culture is the accumulated product of so much individual and collective
work.