Acorn Model >The Natural Learning Cycle

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The Natural Learning Cycle
From the Wilderness Awareness School's Nature Skills website

by Warren Moon

First published in Foxprint, Spring & Summer 2004.

The more you study and learn about the natural world, the more you realize there are natural cycles in every living system. And the more time you spend attuning to these natural cycles, the more you realize that aligning with them greatly enhances your ability to live in balance.

The most obvious cycle is the seasons. As you become more connected to the natural world, you may realize that when winter settles you become more introspective, and when spring kicks in you have a hard time sitting still.

What Wilderness Awareness School has found is that all natural cycles tend to follow a consistent pattern. Knowing this, we have internalized this cycle into everything we do and use a model based on the directions to describe and understand it.

One of the most powerful ways that we utilize this understanding of natural cycles is in how we teach, which is based on an understanding of the cycle of learning. We call this approach The Natural Learning Cycle.

Whenever we develop a lesson plan we make sure that we follow it. But before I can describe The Natural Learning Cycle, you will first need a basic understanding of how we interpret the cardinal directions and the corresponding energy related to them.

The four cardinal directions (E, S, W, N) are the most concrete, while the minor directions represent a transition between the cardinal directions. All natural cycles begin and ultimately end in the NE. Here are some words that help develop the energy or personality of the directions:

NE: 3:30AM, creativity, dreams, conception, spirit, intention, death, vision

E: 6AM, spring, sprout, birth, energetic, curiosity, sun rise, enthusiasm, inspiration

SE: 9:30AM, orientation, childhood, play, emotion

S: 12 Noon, summer, focus, heat, work, adolescence, attention to detail

SW: 3:30PM, siesta, body, earth, wandering, internalization, searching, relaxing

W: 6PM, fall, community, gathering, celebration, sun set, honoring, thanksgiving, leadership

NW: 9:30PM, transition, letting go, surrender, release of ego

N: 12 Midnight, winter, reflection, introspection, storytelling, wisdom, stillness

Some examples of natural cycles:

Plant Life Cycle: NE: Germination, E: Sprout, SE: External Growth, S: Flower, SW: Internal Growth (Wood), W: Fruit, NW: Decay or Digestion of Fruit, N: Seed, NE: Death

Human Life Cycle: NE: Conception, E: Birth, SE: Childhood (external growth), S: Adolescent, SW: young adult, rite of passage, W: Adult/Leader (has found their gift in life and may have started a family), NW: Mentor/Apprentice: mentoring next line of leaders, apprenticing to be elder, N: Elder, NE: Death

Learning a Skill Cycle: NE: Vision, you have a vision of wanting to ride a bike. E: Inspiration, you cannot stop begging your dad/mom to let you do this. SE: Orientation, you are given instructions by your parents. S: Practice, you get many scrapes on your knees and cry a couple of times and almost give up. SW: Internalization, all of a sudden it clicks in and you are riding your bike and not even thinking about it. W: Celebration, you celebrate your new skill with your friends and family, NW: Mentor: you begin to help your younger sister learn to ride her bike, N: Wisdom, through seeing your sister struggle and almost give up, you reflect on how you were able to overcome your fears and learn more about yourself (this reflection may not happen until you teach your own kid to ride a bike). NE: Learning how to ride your bike allows you to go to the local park and you discover a passion for basketball. And the cycle starts over again.

As you can see, you can overlay any activity on this model, you just might have to get a little creative. You also might notice that certain of the directions are lacking in the way you currently approach an activity. While this may work, we have noticed a certain synergy that happens when you honor all the elements of the cycle.

PART 2: Creating dynamic lessons or activities.

Whenever we develop a lesson plan here at Wilderness Awareness School, we make sure to follow this cycle.

The Natural Learning Cycle: This represents the natural flow of how people learn.

NE: Awareness: There are two parts to the NE: Before the program starts and during the start of any Natural Learning Cycle with your students.

1) Before: We first set an intention and lesson plan for the day. Setting an intention can be achieved on an individual basis or done with your co-instructors. What we feel is important here is to align with whatever spiritual or core values you have and ask for guidance and help for a successful day in whatever way feels comfortable to you. Wilderness Awareness School utilizes the practice of giving thanks in order to center ourselves (this is explained in field exercise 3 of the Kamana Two Naturalist Training program).

2) During: Once you start the day or with any new cycle with your students, the Northeast is about getting the students into a place of awareness and receptivity. Any activity or game that gets the participant to fox walk or use owl eyes is appropriate here. Your goal is to get them to be present and aware so that you maximize the opportunity of them becoming engaged with any mystery that presents itself in nature.

E: Engagement: What you want to achieve in the East is energy, inspiration, or curiosity in the student. You are looking to help create a perceived need to know something. This could take the form of a very inspirational story that gets everyone psyched to want to learn tracking, fire making or whatever the skill is you are focused on in your lesson plan. Or more often, nature provides the opportunity for you. As you are out scouting the land, fox walking and with owl eyes, one of your students finds something really cool, such as a scat or skull.

SE: Orientation: Something has hooked their attention in the East. They either found or saw something cool, like a track, poop, bird or berry, or they are excited to engage in an activity that you inspired them about. Now you need to give them enough directions or orientation so that they are able to move into the South. Sometimes very little is needed here, such as telling students not to directly smell a poop but perform the delicate act of wafting, or a significant amount is needed such as in learning to get fire with a bow or hand drill.

S: Focus: Once you have created “engagement” in the student and you have provided enough orientation, you can now focus their energy on the task at hand: exploring a coyote poop, looking at a track, building a shelter, etc. The goal here is to maximize the depth of exploration and attention to detail that the students gain in the activity. The more you have them engaged, the longer you can keep them in the focus stage. This is also an opportunity for the students to practice any of the Core Routines of Awareness: fox walking, journaling, owl eyes, secret spot, etc.

SW: Relaxation: Now that you have focused their energy, you need to give the mind and body a chance to relax. You want your students to be able to “chill out.” This can take the form of an edible plant wonder, cloud watching, berry eating, anything that does not have any real agenda to it. This can be very short in length (1 to 2 minutes) or long (a couple hours) depending on the nature of your program.

W: Sharing: At this point in the cycle, it is important to give the students an opportunity to share. The nature of the sharing depends on what occurred in the South portion of the cycle. What is important is for the students to share their perceptions and learnings, first because when people share it deepens their own experience of the activity, and second, because people will learn even more by hearing other people share their different perceptions and learning.

NW: Surrender: This is a very subtle transition from outward focus to internal focus. This is more of an energetic transition than something you have to create something around. Just be aware of helping steward the energy shift from external to internal.

N: Reflection: During the Natural Learning Cycle, you end by taking the Cycle deeper and giving the students a chance to reflect upon what they have learned. We often tell stories at this point. Stories are a great way to share deeper lessons on a subtle level. Native societies used stories as a ways to demonstrate values and to pass on natural history, such as why Opossum has a naked tail.

NE: Awareness: You began in awareness and now you end in awareness, and wait for or help facilitate the next East moment of engagement.

Here is what it would look like in a lesson plan:

NE: Awareness: Staff comes together as a group by giving thanks to the world around them.

Students play awareness games to start the day.

E: Engagement: I share a story about how incredible animals are at hiding and how we often walk within feet or inches of them and never see them. Would they like to be able to hide as well as the animals?

SE: Orientation: I introduce the rules of the game Eagle Eye. One student stands in the middle with their eyes closed while the other students hide in the surrounding brush. Those hiding have to be able to see the person in the middle with one eye. The one in the middle opens their eyes and tries to find the hiding students while standing in the same spot. During the next round, those who were not found have to move in closer to the middle.

S: Focus: We play the game. This game is also great for practicing the secret spot routine.

SW: Relaxation: Now that we have practiced hiding like the animals, we practice wandering through the landscape like the animals using fox walking and owl eyes. We forage on plants and berries, and whenever I give the call that a predator is in our midst, we hide in the bushes.

W: Sharing: We circle up and share about our experience.

NW: Surrender: We go back to our group gathering place (we always separate groups into smaller units which we call clans, and we like to establish a clan meeting place that we create as a sacred or special place to go).

N: Reflection: I tell a story that relates to the activity. This may be a personal story or a traditional native story.

NE: Awareness: We go to see if we can scout another clan, fox walking and with owl eyes.

As you begin to play with this model, you will hopefully notice how natural it feels. While the model is helpful to follow, it is important that you do not try to force the students through the cycle. I continually check-in to see where the group is at in the cycle through reading their body language. I then look to see how I can move the group through the cycle by flowing with and harnessing the energy. Martial arts are a great example of how to do this. For more information and practice on how to understand and use this model, I highly recommend you come to one of our Coyote Mentoring workshops.

Warren Moon is executive director of Wilderness Awareness School.


Wilderness Awareness School has developed a unique curricular model for education and organization over the past 20 years which we call "The Six Shields of Awareness." Click here to see how Wilderness Awareness School has organized our curriculum according to the natural learning cycle.
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/about_curriculum.html

We are also very excited to be nearing completion of our new curriculum book, Coyote's Guide to Connecting Kids with Nature. This 300-page guide distills into print over twenty years of oral tradition and active practice in connecting kids with nature. (More about Coyote's Guide)
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/about_curriculum.html#guide

Link to Wilderness Awareness School's Calendar of Adult Programs:
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/adult/wilderness_awareness_calendar_adult.html

Link to Mentoring Youth which includes wonderful articles on specific skills

Link to Wikipedia: Eight Shields Organizational Model

Link to Lynnette's Notes: How I've applied the Acorn Model in my community work

Link to Wikipedia: Eight Shields Organization Model