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8th -10th April 2025.
Council in Education, Pedagogy and Practice – Bringing a Rites of Passage Framework into the Educational Mainstream
It is exciting to have Joe Provisor of Circle Ways coming to offer this workshop at Bracken Tor Youth Hostel, Okehampton, Devon. This is both a fringe event/pre workshop for the Wilderness Guides Gathering 2025, and also open to the general public.
Joe is the founder of Circle Ways (2017), Council In Schools (2005), and the Palms Council Project (1992). A public-school teacher for 24 years and educator trainer for Los Angeles Unified School District for seven years, Joe is also a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and an elder of The Ojai Foundation. He has practiced circle ways in the classroom since 1986 and has been a recognized Council Trainer since 1994, providing workshop experiences for educators, therapists, and businesspeople nationally and internationally. He is the author of stories, training curricula, lesson plans on circle ways in schools, and the forthcoming book Circle Ways: Pedagogy in the Round.
In the anthology Crossroads, The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage (edited by Louise Mahdi, Michael Meade and Nancy Christopher), there is a beautiful chapter by Shelley (Rachael) Kessler that eloquently articulates how Council and circles in schools can create a foundational community of respect. With this foundation, the often-intense life passages young people naturally experience as teens can find space for safe expression, acknowledgment, and honouring, rather than being routinely ignored and brushed past, as is so often the case.
Rachael’s beautiful book The Soul of Education elaborated on this theme and how, even if wilderness oriented retreats may be an ideal, even in their absence, profound work can be done. Rachael has sadly passed now, but there are other elders who also have strongly carried this torch, not just for alternative culture but also into the mainstream, and Joe Provisor is a hugely experienced mentor and teacher in this work.
Inspired through his own experience with The School of Lost Borders, Joe trains educators in traditional public schools to employ a “circle-based pedagogy” to deepen students engagement in academic content, the immediate interpersonal field of the classroom, and to access and address the immediate felt-needs, the “questions of the heart” that youth carry at this time. Concerned that most urban youth can rarely access the resources to participate in wilderness rites of passage programs, Joe will suggest ways ROP guides and teachers can integrate processes that encourage reflection, intention setting, and community support and accountability within the limitations and structures of traditional school cultures.
Joe comes at the invitation of Jeremy Thres of Regenco and Heidi Rose of Circlewise UK, both of whom have played a part over many years seeding work of this nature in this country. Here is the registration form for this event, which includes details of costs and venue some of which you will also find below: Event Registration – Google Forms
Practicals:
Timings: The Workshop will begin 7.30 pm on the 8th April. Arrive from 4.30 pm to settle as there will be supper at 6 pm. Workshop times on the 9th are 9 am to 4 pm with optional games and movement after dinner. On the 10th, the workshop runs from 9am to 4pm. with an option to stay on and talk a bit further with Joe.
Accommodation: dormitory/camping, further details and requests can be made in registration form.
Food: full board, delicious vegetarian, organic when possible. If you have specific dietary needs, there’s space for these to be clarified on registration form.
Cost: £250 – £500 sliding scale, bursaries hopefully available (apply via the registration form).
Event Timing: arrive from 4.30pm for 7.30 pm start April 8th – 4pm 10th 2025
Venue: YHA Brackentor
Location: Bracken Tor, Saxongate, Okehampton, Devon, EX20 1QW
Right on the edge of both the town and the moor, betwixt between!
Travel: There is a reopened train station in Okehampton, which links from Exeter St Davids and the venue is less than fifteen minutes walk from here. Taxis can also be taken. We will do our best to set up a lift share page for those who register. Buses also come to Okehampton from most directions.
For further information in relation to booking, please use the registration form and or contact ditavizoso@gmail.com