Learner's Rights and Responsibilities
Shannon Nicoletta Manns
I may have posted this here before, if I did just ignore this posting.
Otherwise I'd really like to know what you think of this.
Fundamental Principles of Natural Learning "Self-Design and Global Ecology"
· learning and living are intrinsic to "curriculum as experience" ·
· self-actualization is the right of each and every individual regardless of
age ·
· whereas the origin of happiness is spiritual - the origin of unhappiness
is political arising from a politic of inequality and coercion ·
· a politic of equality of respect for self discovery and positive self
expression is essential to the harmonious development of every individual ·
· Wondertree is a context, is a safe and challenging community where the
youth determine their own course of study based on their natural enthusiasm
to know ·
· where everyone manages the budget of the community ·
· where the youth hire mentors relevant to their curiousity ·
· the youth are encouraged to take responsibility and plan the program while
living in terms of the consequences ·
· slowly they become responsible from the essence of their being to the
furthest edges of the world that they affect ·
· real learning - natural learning is deciding what is worth doing ·
· is deciding how to live in terms of one's own significance and in terms of
a shared sense of understanding and meaning within consensus ·
· when one's purpose and the harmony of life on the planet come into balance
then the inner sense of fulfillment becomes the compass to guide one through
life's journey ·
Wondertree Foundation for Natural Learning
Box 38083 Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 4L9
e-mail to - brentcameron@...
to children of all ages - may learning be lived lifelong and heartfelt
Introduction to The Declaration of Learner's Rights and Responsibilities
In May and June of 1994 six young people met with their mentor, Brent
Cameron, to discuss and write a learner's rights document. They had been
invited to give a presentation on their ideas on education by the organizers
of a conference to be held in Victoria on the Rights of Children.
Interestingly, we were the only group to address the issue of education and
children's rights. We chose the word 'learner' because it can be associated
with lifelong learning and avoided already 'age' loaded terms like child and
adult. We also avoided the word student as this role is closely associated
with schooling and teachers. We wrote 12 points that covered both rights and
responsibilities, asserting that you can't have one without the other. The
underlying assumption is based on the fact that virtually everyone in
cultures all around the world trust 2 year olds to learn how to talk without
being taught. Psychologists say that learning how to talk is probably one of
the most difficult learning tasks of a lifetime, yet each very small child
masters the complexity of language on their own initiative. A meaningful,
responsive and supportive relationship optimizes the languaging and
communication process. However, we do not trust children to learn to read or
do math on their own, we have developed a "schooled" attitude that if we
don't make children learn that they will not develop these skills.
This assumption is what our Declaration challenges. We assert that learners,
regardless of age have the right to determine the direction and course of
their own learning. We assert that if a two year old can learn a language
without being taught then we need to re-think our entire production model of
public education. We propose that any new model for learning be based on the
underlying idea that human beings are biological and that a development and
growth metaphor would be the most appropriate model to support the lifelong
learning of every individual.
The heart of the learning process is a mutually chosen and sustained learner
and mentor relationship where there is a shared enthusiasm and fascination
for learning in a particular field. The freedom to choose and design the
nature of this learning relationship is central to the Declaration of
Learner's Rights and Responsibilities.
The Declaration was announced in all of our four workshops and was given out
to the participants at the conference in June. That same week we also gave a
copy to the Minister of Education in Victoria. We intend to represent the
Declaration to the Minister each year on the anniversary until children have
a choice and a voice in the educational process. We intend to bring an
awareness to the issue of "ageism."
Declaration of Learner's Rights and Responsibilities
1. As a learner I have the right to allow my own experience and enthusiasm
to guide my learning.
2. As a learner I have the right to choose and direct the nature and
conditions of my learning experience. As a learner I am responsible for the
results I create.
3. As a learner I have the right to perfect the skills to be a conscious,
self confident and resourceful individual.
4. As a learner I have the right to be held in respect. It is my
responsibility to hold others in respect.
5. As a learner I have the right to a nurturing and supportive family and
community. My family and community have the right and responsibility to be
my primary resource.
6. As a learner I have the right and responsibility to enter into
relationships based on mutual choice, collaborative effort, challenge and
mutual gain.
7. As a learner I have the right to be exposed to a diverse array of ideas,
experiences, environments, and possibilities. This exposure is the
responsibility of myself, my parents and my mentors.
8. As a learner I have the right to evaluate my learning according to my own
sensibilities. I have the right to request and the responsibility to include
the evaluations of my mentors.
9. As a learner I have the right to co-create decisions that involve and
concern me.
10. As a learner I have the right and responsibility to openly consider and
respect the ideas of others, whether or not I accept these ideas.
11. As a learner I have the right to enter a learning organization which
offers, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical support, and
operates in an open and inclusive manner.
12. As a learner I have the right of equal access to resources, information
and funding.
This document has been created by a group of learners aged 15-17.
Serena Staples, Gregory Dean, Ilana S. Cameron, David Muncaster, Jesse Blum
and Sarah Partridge,
with the help of Brent Cameron and other Wondertree Affiliates.
Learner's Rights and Responsibilities - Wondertree Foundation for Learning
1. The Learning Process
1.1. Every human is born with an inherent ability to learn. Learning is
integral to living. It is the awareness of change and development.
1.2. Learning is a lifelong natural process. Learning increases one's
ability and choices in responding to, and being responsible for one's
actions and thoughts.
1.3. Learning emerges from an integral enthusiasm to understand and has
inherent worth. Learning is a desire to know, and characteristically has its
own intrinsic reward.
1.4. Learning implies growth, and growth implies the realization of an inner
pattern of design and harmony. Balance in growth is achieved by maintaining
a harmony between one's conscious development and the underlying unconscious
awareness.
1.5. Learning is a mirroring process. If an individual is respected then one
will learn respect. It is a human need to create meaning and to be in a
responsive loving relationship.
1.6. It is essential to shift focus from teaching and expectations to
learning and curiousity. Meeting the needs of the individual is the best way
to invest in society, as fulfilled individuals will make positive
contributions to society.
2. The Learning Individual
2.1. Learning is based on experience. Patterns of experience form models for
understanding one's role in the world. One naturally learns through
modeling. Learning emerges from an inner desire and enthusiasm to understand
and to form meaningful relationships in the world.
2.2. Every individual has the right to determine the direction of one's own
learning, and correspondingly is responsible for one's learning.
2.3. Every learner has the right to be treated as a whole and competent
learner. The responsibilities for the results are each learner's opportunity
for growth.
2.4. Natural learning is the unfolding of the infinite potential within.
Self-realization is a process of understanding one's potential as one's role
in a dynamic between self and others.
2.5. Learning is ultimately a self-design process, therefore each individual
has the right to follow their own inner wisdom.
2.6. It is the right of every learner to be held in respect and it is the
responsibility of each learner to hold everyone else in respect.
2.7. It is the right of every individual to live and learn from a sense of
fulfillment, and to set goals that increase one's sense of self-confidence
and one's sense of oneself as a resourceful individual.
2.8. One's self is ultimately not exclusive of others, it is inclusive of
others through a sense of love and compassion. The purpose of living from
one's sense of fulfillment is that one's actions will naturally enhance the
experience of others and maintain a balance in relationships.
3. The Learning Relationship
a.) the family - parents
a3.1. The parenting relationship is the first and most significant
relationship. Each learning parent is responsible to respond to the learning
needs of the child as expressed by the child. Every child has the right to a
nurturing and responsive family.
a3.2. One's capacity or ability to learn is determined more by the quality
of one's relationships than any other factor. Given a meaningful and
responsive relationship, every child makes appropriate choices for their
level of ability.
a3.3. All families have the right to equal access to funding available for
learning within a society. It is the family's right to decide how to best
invest this funding for the lifelong development of learners.
a3.4. Life is a challenge, living is maintaining a delicate balance.
Children naturally model parents, and integrate their strategies. It is
therefore essential that parents are supported in taking responsibility for
becoming optimum models for learners.
b.) the mentor
b3.1. A collaborative learning relationship is designed around a mutual
enthusiasm for learning. The roles of mentor and learner shift and it is the
responsibility of a mentor to share strategies and insights with the
learner. The learner-mentor relationship is based on the principles of
friendship and mutual respect.
b3.2. Every individual has the right to choose to participate in a
relationship that is essentially nurturing and caring. Conversely, in
achieving one's needs, one must be responsible to the realization of
another's needs.
b3.3. Each individual in a relationship has the right to choose to enter
into a relationship that is based on mutual gain. It is the right of an
individual to end a relationship.
b3.4. Learning is a self-evaluative process. Learning is a collaborative
process as it is important to include other points of view for an increase
in self understanding. It is the responsibility of each learner to invite
the point of view of others to gather information for further
self-evaluation.
4. The Learning Organization
4.1. It is the responsibility of every learning organization to remain open
to redesign, to include everyone in a process of consensus evaluation for
ongoing openness and change.
4.2. Each individual has equal access to the resources of the community to
increase their learning through development. Each individual is responsible
to reciprocate the investment by the organization.
5. The Learning Society
5.1. It is the responsibility of a society to provide equal access to
resources and to invest in the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and
physical growth of learners. It is the right of every individual to develop
to one's full potential and one's responsibility to share what one gains.
5.2. It is the responsibility of society to encourage diverse points of
view, and it is the responsibility of individuals in society to respect
other view points. A society has the responsibility to withdraw support for
view points that are against individuals or groups.
created by the collaboration of · Jesse Blum · Ilana Cameron · Greg Dean ·
David Muncaster · Sarah Partridge · Serena Staples · and Brent Cameron
(mentor) · with editorial input from friends
© 1994 All Rights Reserved
Wondertree Foundation for Natural Learning
Box 38083 Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 4L9
(604) 739-5941 FAX 739-6903
"I have
long believed
that we are
not humans
seeking
spiritual experiences
but spirits
seeking
human experience."
Rory Ralston
Teaching the Stones
to Speak
Otherwise I'd really like to know what you think of this.
Fundamental Principles of Natural Learning "Self-Design and Global Ecology"
· learning and living are intrinsic to "curriculum as experience" ·
· self-actualization is the right of each and every individual regardless of
age ·
· whereas the origin of happiness is spiritual - the origin of unhappiness
is political arising from a politic of inequality and coercion ·
· a politic of equality of respect for self discovery and positive self
expression is essential to the harmonious development of every individual ·
· Wondertree is a context, is a safe and challenging community where the
youth determine their own course of study based on their natural enthusiasm
to know ·
· where everyone manages the budget of the community ·
· where the youth hire mentors relevant to their curiousity ·
· the youth are encouraged to take responsibility and plan the program while
living in terms of the consequences ·
· slowly they become responsible from the essence of their being to the
furthest edges of the world that they affect ·
· real learning - natural learning is deciding what is worth doing ·
· is deciding how to live in terms of one's own significance and in terms of
a shared sense of understanding and meaning within consensus ·
· when one's purpose and the harmony of life on the planet come into balance
then the inner sense of fulfillment becomes the compass to guide one through
life's journey ·
Wondertree Foundation for Natural Learning
Box 38083 Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 4L9
e-mail to - brentcameron@...
to children of all ages - may learning be lived lifelong and heartfelt
Introduction to The Declaration of Learner's Rights and Responsibilities
In May and June of 1994 six young people met with their mentor, Brent
Cameron, to discuss and write a learner's rights document. They had been
invited to give a presentation on their ideas on education by the organizers
of a conference to be held in Victoria on the Rights of Children.
Interestingly, we were the only group to address the issue of education and
children's rights. We chose the word 'learner' because it can be associated
with lifelong learning and avoided already 'age' loaded terms like child and
adult. We also avoided the word student as this role is closely associated
with schooling and teachers. We wrote 12 points that covered both rights and
responsibilities, asserting that you can't have one without the other. The
underlying assumption is based on the fact that virtually everyone in
cultures all around the world trust 2 year olds to learn how to talk without
being taught. Psychologists say that learning how to talk is probably one of
the most difficult learning tasks of a lifetime, yet each very small child
masters the complexity of language on their own initiative. A meaningful,
responsive and supportive relationship optimizes the languaging and
communication process. However, we do not trust children to learn to read or
do math on their own, we have developed a "schooled" attitude that if we
don't make children learn that they will not develop these skills.
This assumption is what our Declaration challenges. We assert that learners,
regardless of age have the right to determine the direction and course of
their own learning. We assert that if a two year old can learn a language
without being taught then we need to re-think our entire production model of
public education. We propose that any new model for learning be based on the
underlying idea that human beings are biological and that a development and
growth metaphor would be the most appropriate model to support the lifelong
learning of every individual.
The heart of the learning process is a mutually chosen and sustained learner
and mentor relationship where there is a shared enthusiasm and fascination
for learning in a particular field. The freedom to choose and design the
nature of this learning relationship is central to the Declaration of
Learner's Rights and Responsibilities.
The Declaration was announced in all of our four workshops and was given out
to the participants at the conference in June. That same week we also gave a
copy to the Minister of Education in Victoria. We intend to represent the
Declaration to the Minister each year on the anniversary until children have
a choice and a voice in the educational process. We intend to bring an
awareness to the issue of "ageism."
Declaration of Learner's Rights and Responsibilities
1. As a learner I have the right to allow my own experience and enthusiasm
to guide my learning.
2. As a learner I have the right to choose and direct the nature and
conditions of my learning experience. As a learner I am responsible for the
results I create.
3. As a learner I have the right to perfect the skills to be a conscious,
self confident and resourceful individual.
4. As a learner I have the right to be held in respect. It is my
responsibility to hold others in respect.
5. As a learner I have the right to a nurturing and supportive family and
community. My family and community have the right and responsibility to be
my primary resource.
6. As a learner I have the right and responsibility to enter into
relationships based on mutual choice, collaborative effort, challenge and
mutual gain.
7. As a learner I have the right to be exposed to a diverse array of ideas,
experiences, environments, and possibilities. This exposure is the
responsibility of myself, my parents and my mentors.
8. As a learner I have the right to evaluate my learning according to my own
sensibilities. I have the right to request and the responsibility to include
the evaluations of my mentors.
9. As a learner I have the right to co-create decisions that involve and
concern me.
10. As a learner I have the right and responsibility to openly consider and
respect the ideas of others, whether or not I accept these ideas.
11. As a learner I have the right to enter a learning organization which
offers, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical support, and
operates in an open and inclusive manner.
12. As a learner I have the right of equal access to resources, information
and funding.
This document has been created by a group of learners aged 15-17.
Serena Staples, Gregory Dean, Ilana S. Cameron, David Muncaster, Jesse Blum
and Sarah Partridge,
with the help of Brent Cameron and other Wondertree Affiliates.
Learner's Rights and Responsibilities - Wondertree Foundation for Learning
1. The Learning Process
1.1. Every human is born with an inherent ability to learn. Learning is
integral to living. It is the awareness of change and development.
1.2. Learning is a lifelong natural process. Learning increases one's
ability and choices in responding to, and being responsible for one's
actions and thoughts.
1.3. Learning emerges from an integral enthusiasm to understand and has
inherent worth. Learning is a desire to know, and characteristically has its
own intrinsic reward.
1.4. Learning implies growth, and growth implies the realization of an inner
pattern of design and harmony. Balance in growth is achieved by maintaining
a harmony between one's conscious development and the underlying unconscious
awareness.
1.5. Learning is a mirroring process. If an individual is respected then one
will learn respect. It is a human need to create meaning and to be in a
responsive loving relationship.
1.6. It is essential to shift focus from teaching and expectations to
learning and curiousity. Meeting the needs of the individual is the best way
to invest in society, as fulfilled individuals will make positive
contributions to society.
2. The Learning Individual
2.1. Learning is based on experience. Patterns of experience form models for
understanding one's role in the world. One naturally learns through
modeling. Learning emerges from an inner desire and enthusiasm to understand
and to form meaningful relationships in the world.
2.2. Every individual has the right to determine the direction of one's own
learning, and correspondingly is responsible for one's learning.
2.3. Every learner has the right to be treated as a whole and competent
learner. The responsibilities for the results are each learner's opportunity
for growth.
2.4. Natural learning is the unfolding of the infinite potential within.
Self-realization is a process of understanding one's potential as one's role
in a dynamic between self and others.
2.5. Learning is ultimately a self-design process, therefore each individual
has the right to follow their own inner wisdom.
2.6. It is the right of every learner to be held in respect and it is the
responsibility of each learner to hold everyone else in respect.
2.7. It is the right of every individual to live and learn from a sense of
fulfillment, and to set goals that increase one's sense of self-confidence
and one's sense of oneself as a resourceful individual.
2.8. One's self is ultimately not exclusive of others, it is inclusive of
others through a sense of love and compassion. The purpose of living from
one's sense of fulfillment is that one's actions will naturally enhance the
experience of others and maintain a balance in relationships.
3. The Learning Relationship
a.) the family - parents
a3.1. The parenting relationship is the first and most significant
relationship. Each learning parent is responsible to respond to the learning
needs of the child as expressed by the child. Every child has the right to a
nurturing and responsive family.
a3.2. One's capacity or ability to learn is determined more by the quality
of one's relationships than any other factor. Given a meaningful and
responsive relationship, every child makes appropriate choices for their
level of ability.
a3.3. All families have the right to equal access to funding available for
learning within a society. It is the family's right to decide how to best
invest this funding for the lifelong development of learners.
a3.4. Life is a challenge, living is maintaining a delicate balance.
Children naturally model parents, and integrate their strategies. It is
therefore essential that parents are supported in taking responsibility for
becoming optimum models for learners.
b.) the mentor
b3.1. A collaborative learning relationship is designed around a mutual
enthusiasm for learning. The roles of mentor and learner shift and it is the
responsibility of a mentor to share strategies and insights with the
learner. The learner-mentor relationship is based on the principles of
friendship and mutual respect.
b3.2. Every individual has the right to choose to participate in a
relationship that is essentially nurturing and caring. Conversely, in
achieving one's needs, one must be responsible to the realization of
another's needs.
b3.3. Each individual in a relationship has the right to choose to enter
into a relationship that is based on mutual gain. It is the right of an
individual to end a relationship.
b3.4. Learning is a self-evaluative process. Learning is a collaborative
process as it is important to include other points of view for an increase
in self understanding. It is the responsibility of each learner to invite
the point of view of others to gather information for further
self-evaluation.
4. The Learning Organization
4.1. It is the responsibility of every learning organization to remain open
to redesign, to include everyone in a process of consensus evaluation for
ongoing openness and change.
4.2. Each individual has equal access to the resources of the community to
increase their learning through development. Each individual is responsible
to reciprocate the investment by the organization.
5. The Learning Society
5.1. It is the responsibility of a society to provide equal access to
resources and to invest in the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and
physical growth of learners. It is the right of every individual to develop
to one's full potential and one's responsibility to share what one gains.
5.2. It is the responsibility of society to encourage diverse points of
view, and it is the responsibility of individuals in society to respect
other view points. A society has the responsibility to withdraw support for
view points that are against individuals or groups.
created by the collaboration of · Jesse Blum · Ilana Cameron · Greg Dean ·
David Muncaster · Sarah Partridge · Serena Staples · and Brent Cameron
(mentor) · with editorial input from friends
© 1994 All Rights Reserved
Wondertree Foundation for Natural Learning
Box 38083 Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 4L9
(604) 739-5941 FAX 739-6903
"I have
long believed
that we are
not humans
seeking
spiritual experiences
but spirits
seeking
human experience."
Rory Ralston
Teaching the Stones
to Speak