For two weeks in late November, a “Symposium” – a gathering of learned scholars, assembled around the relatively contemporary phenomenon of adolescence. Skillfully and heartfully guided by TIES faculty Steven Arnold and Julie Haagenson, two hundred registered...
Integrative Learning Emphasis Areas
Adolescents and The Natural World
(A post by TIES alumna Kasey Errico) I recently returned from a fall overnight experience with 17 adolescent learners. On our way from our campsite to the morning harvest, with the students in front of me, descending the hill toward the garden house of the Community...
Empathy, Compassion and Healing Our Planet
Empathy, Compassion and Healing Our Planet As a teacher for 23 years, I have learned that one's capacity for empathy and compassion provides a platform for love, life and making a difference in our fragile world. When guiding students to fall in love with the Earth, I...
Join us fireside for upcoming adolescent symposium
What is a TIES symposium? I was recently asked, "What is a TIES symposium?" Being on the inside, I think it’s easy for me to forget that our online gatherings are unique in their simplicity, and yet profound in their outcomes. A newcomer could easily pass, thinking...
Montessori’s Cosmic Vision
If we look at Montessori’s cosmic vision through the planes of development, we see that each plane can be summarized in a phrase. The first plane is cosmic wonder and exploration. The second plane is cosmic stories and imagination. And the third plane is cosmic action...
Listening to Adolescents
We approach adolescents in a different way, for our benefit and theirs. It is not that we, the adults, should invite adolescents to the table, and share our plan of the future with them. It is that we should hang out in their space, and hope to be invited to watch...
Adolescents as Guides
Mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance, and one of teaching’s great rewards is the daily chance it gives us to get back on the dance floor. It is the dance of the spiraling generations, in which the old empower the young with their experience...
Food Eros
From Kate Hofstetter, TIES Alumna My recent learning and teaching projects have brought me into communion with natural food production. Lying in the prickly, three-inch, match weed (Phyla Nodiflora) that mats a swath of earth outside my boat, observing bees...