2019 Summer Institute for Educators

We are clearly living in challenging times — for ourselves, our families, our local communities, our institutions, our society as a whole and our planet. Rapid social and environmental change, information overload, time urgency, polarization and all the unknowns as we consider the future, contribute to a widespread experience of uncertainty and stress in the present.

The educators with whom we work in our Academy programs talk about the challenges they face daily in their classrooms and in their institutions as they strive to find balance and keep their own creative energy alive.

This year’s Summer Institute has two primary intentions:

• To provide educators with the opportunity to slow down and deeply reflect on the impact of this last year, to identify and explore what new understandings may be emerging from their experience and to consider how this informs their next steps

• To delve deeply into the felt experience of disorientation that is the result of living with uncertainty and change, and through experiential and didactic work to reframe and build capacity for this as an opportunity for learning ourselves forward

The Academy for the Love of Learning seeks to awaken, enliven, nurture, and sustain the natural love of learning in people of all ages. We hold learning to be an on-going process that can be embraced as a life-long practice. A necessary aspect of learning is disorientation – the questioning of, and sometimes letting go of, beliefs and assumptions as new circumstances, information and insight emerge and are explored. Far from being only a negative state, disorientation can be embraced as an opportunity to awaken to new possibility and agency.

During their three days together, Summer Institute participants will be guided by Academy faculty in an experiential journey that includes time for solo reflection and renewal, peer-to-peer learning and opportunities to reconnect with the larger natural world in which we are embedded. When we engage deeply with, re-inspire and reanimate teaching and learning, we are revitalized and drawn to express more naturally our creativity, our joy, and our capacity for productive collaboration.

Many of us are in educator roles, both inside and outside of the traditional school setting. Whether you are an administrator, a teacher, a nurse, a counselor, an artist who teaches, or any other kind of educator, we welcome you. We find that bringing together people with different roles and from different contexts can be especially enlivening and enriching. We hope you will join us at our beautiful campus in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we recognize teaching and learning as profound and sacred practices.

Now in its 10th year, the Summer Institute is an opportunity for educators to reflect upon the year that has just drawn to a close, draw meaning and insight from their experiences and apply these discoveries as they imagine and prepare for the path ahead. Through shared experience, reflective practice, artistic expression, time in nature and group discussion participants are invited to explore and renew their commitment to continue to learn and thrive in their practice as educators and open up to transformative and positive change within themselves, their schools and organizations, and their communities at large.

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And, if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”

–Martha Graham

Registration and Fees

• The cost for the three-day retreat is $150 which includes all supplies, breakfasts, lunches and snacks/beverages.
• All SFPS registrants must also register on THE SFPS PD Listing to receive a Professional Development stipend from the district. Register here.
• Scholarship: If you are between the age of 18 – 28, contact Laura Pancoast to learn more about our scholarship opportunities.

*Because of our ongoing collaborative relationship with the Santa Fe Public School educators affiliated with SFPS are eligible for a discounted rate of $75
**Please note that the Academy is not able to provide childcare for retreat participants.
***Lodging is available for an additional fee. Please contact Sarah Spearman for lodging information.

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