REVERENCING THE EARTH

By Donald Sutherland

With teamwork, change can happen

How often do we hear the phrases: “Think outside the box”; “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”; “When will we ever learn?”; “So, what’s new?”; “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Reverencing the earth requires all of these old truisms in spades — spectacular creativity, relentless will, learn from the collapse of previous civilizations and, finally, a heavy dose of patience.

Is it possible for a very diverse group (the world’s people) to work as a team and wrestle to obliteration something as complex, as ominous, as potentially devastating as climate change? Up to now I would have answered that question with a resounding no! On the contrary, we are becoming ever more fractured and dysfunctional. Work together? You must be kidding. The one per cent will strengthen their gated communities with private armies, not to mention a few fighter jets. The 99 per cent will continue as docile consumers, wildly cheering celebrities, financing gigantic sports stadiums, meanwhile paying no attention to the canaries in the coal mine.

What opened my mind to a different way? I had the privilege of attending a one-week workshop with an unimaginably diverse group of eight students who coalesced as a team to learn how to learn, and how to help others to learn more efficiently. The class ranged in age over four decades and in backgrounds dipping into many occupational streams — nun, priest, English/French translator, human resources, military support, engineering, restorative justice. Yet they came together as a star-studded team honouring each other’s gifts as they struggled to incorporate new teaching/learning guidelines.

By week’s end new and still somewhat fragile wires in the brain were automatically calling up behavioural skills such as “get off the stage,” “talk briefly,” ”teach in small steps,” “active engagement,” “positive reinforcement,” “learn by doing.” Once per day, during the five days, each student was required to teach — correction, not teach — facilitate the learning of classmates in a wide range of subject matter. What does it mean to facilitate? It means to set up processes — guides to learning, ways of doing things — that bring about self-learning, better described as self-directed learning.

This stimulating five-day workshop is one of several learning opportunities offered at the Winnipeg Transition Centre. Each is a metamorphosis from cocoon to butterfly. The centre’s handful of enthusiastic competent staff fully live on “higher ground” as they encourage each client to soar and to explore, what up to now were, undreamed of heights.

Here is a model for dealing with any issue from personal, to family, to work team, to global: “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in brilliant blaze than it would be stifled and dry-rot. The proper function of man is to live, not exist. I shall not waste my time in trying to prolong my days. I shall use my time.” — Jack London

Sutherland, MBA, is a restorational justice practitioner and Circle Facilitator in Winnipeg.