2018 Field Academy Community Jam
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Five amazing days of jamming with the Field Academy
August 1-5, 2018 Plainfield, Massachusetts CLICK HERE TO APPLY NOW! Special Extended Deadline! Apply by July 25th So… Are you thinking: YES! I’m IN, but… uh, guys, what’s a JAM??
A Jam is a gathering of people who come together to explore a series of questions, and to create, together, a space that helps people learn about themselves, about each other, and about making change in our broader context, systems, and communities. Kind of like when musicians come together to jam, the content of each jam is different because its co-created by the people who are there. Jen and Heather have been working with an organization named YES! that helps facilitate jams all over the world. Since 2013, there have been four amazing Education Transformation Jams. This year, our Field Academy Jam will be one of over 20 jams happening around the world! You can read more about them here! How does the jam work? First, you apply HERE. That application is a chance for you to share some of the big questions, ideas, challenges, hopes, dreams, fears, and experiences that are really alive and important to you right now. We’ll gather all of these amazing applications and create a tentative plan or "flow" for our time together. Then, we’ll all gather at Earthdance, a retreat center in Western, MA, for FIVE DAYS and spend the time hanging out, reconnecting, learning new tools and ideas, and envisioning what we want for the future of this community. We’ll have a team Field Academy folks and YES! Facilitators to help guide us as we co-create our time together. Is everyone coming? Who is coming!? We have 30 spots total for this program and they are open to alumni, teachers, partners, supporters, advisors, and others who have been part of this community. We are definitely prioritizing spots for alumni and have some donated funds to support transportation for folks coming from far away (see below for more detail). We’d also like to extend five of these spots to past participants from YES!’s Education Transformation Jams who are interested in learning from/with the Field Academy. Over the past few years, we’ve had a number of Field Academy graduates attend the Education Transformation Jam and we feel like lots of connection, cross-pollination, and inspiration might come from inviting some new perspectives and experiences into the room! In the end, we’re hoping that everyone who wants to be there, can be - let us know what you need to make it possible for you to be there! Why a Field Academy Community Jam now? We are in a moment: politically, socially, environmentally, economically, where individuals, communities, and systems are shifting. After a year of sabbatical and exploration, we can feel, too, that the Field Academy is in a moment of transition… leaning into how we can best help create a healing and just world through the kind of educational community we’re building. Over the last seven years, the Field Academy has created and nurtured relationships, culture, traditions, practices, inquiry, tools, and skills that are simultaneously ancient and new. We have built something dynamic and stretchy that allows us to care for each other and also take risks as we explore and learn about ourselves, each other, and the country we live in. What have we learned? How can we best put that in service of the bold movements for change and justice? What’s next for the Field Academy? Here are some of the questions we’re inviting us all to explore:
What will we be DOING together at the jam? The jam will have time for circle and check-ins together, lots of games and hanging out, and facilitated sessions that offer a variety of tools for communication and visioning that help us to think and dream big, individually and as a community, about the questions and themes in our lives in relation to learning, education, and social change. Where will we be staying? Earthdance is an artist-run workshop, residency, and retreat center located in the Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts that has been spearheading innovative arts programming and maintaining a beautiful facility for rental groups in the Pioneer Valley for three decades. Their facilities include two large and sunny studios with maple floors, meeting space, meditation and massage rooms, 100 acres of woods, streams and trails. Have questions? Give us a shout: info@fieldacademy.org |
Why you?
Because you are an incredible part of the web that is the Field Academy. You bring unique perspectives and experiences - both of your time with the Field Academy and in your life before and since. You have, each of you in different ways, helped to create what the Field Academy is today. We want to invite you to be a part of helping to dream what it can emerge into. ALSO, did we mention that we want to hang out with you? And for each of you to hang out with each other!? This community of people is amazing and stretches across this entire country. We can’t wait to be back together again. Can’t. Wait. Who is putting this on? As we said above, we’re working with an amazing organization called YES! to help create this jam. YES! supports personal, interpersonal, and systemic changemaking around the globe and was started by two teenagers in 1990. We are also grateful to have the support of Invoking the Pause - a foundation that supports “pauses” or retreats that help bring forth bold solutions to the climate crisis. The combination of these organizational partners feels really powerful and exciting to us. We also know, as with everything the Field Academy has ever done, it will be a co-creation with all of you. As you’re filling out your application (here!) let us know what you are excited to bring to our time together because that is what’s going to make it awesome. Also, we have an awesome facilitation team for this jam! (Bios coming...) Jonathan Peck - Education Jam Facilitator Laura Nunez - Field Academy (Class #1), Education Jam 2016 Amalia Leamon - Field Academy (Class #1), Northeast Jam 2018 Jen Lazar - Field Academy Co-founder, Education and Northeast Jam Facilitator Heather Foran - Field Academy Co-founder, Education and Northeast Jam Facilitator |
