Robert Regnier

The Sacred Circle: A Process Pedagogy of Healing.

This paper proposes a process pedagogy based on an aboriginal approach to healing. It is founded on the Sacred Circle teachings of Canadian Plains Indians and on the educational practices undertaken at a school for aboriginal youth, the Joe Duquette High School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Healing, is viewed here as “transition toward meaning, wholeness, connectedness, and balance” (Katz & St. Denis, 1991, p. 24). As aboriginal pedagogy, this approach to the practice and theory of teaching is selfconsciously founded on process symbolized in the Sacred Circle. It is presented here as part of a critical theory of education committed to human emancipation that recognizes that the appropriation of an aboriginal world view as a foundation for teaching is undertaken within the context of modern political and cultural systems and institutions that have excluded, denied, or rejected aboriginal world views. The Sacred Circle is a “traditional symbolic circle” that incorporates the spiritual beliefs of many Indian tribes of North America, including Dakota Nations, Blackfoot Confederacy, Cree, Saulteaux, and Assiniboine nations in Canada. It symbolizes harmony and the belief that life occurs within a series of circular movements that govern their relationship with the environment. Although the Sacred Circle has symbolized aboriginal world views for thousands of years, some schools are beginning only now to use it as a self-conscious foundation for education as healing.The paper begins with Whiteheads criticism of Western metaphysics and his notion of reality as process. These ideas and some of his views about education and teaching provide an introduction to and framework for developing the notion of healing as a process pedagogy based upon the Sacred Circle concept. The Sacred Circle is examined as the expression of an aboriginal metaphysics in which reality is conceptualized as process, the movement of life through wholeness, connectedness, and balance. Healing and teaching are viewed as the transition to meaning in that movement. Finally, process pedagogy as healing is interpreted as having the three phases of belonging, understanding, and critical reflection through an examination of practices at the Joe Duquette High School.

Bridging western and First Nations thought: Balanced education in Whitehead's philosophy of organism and the sacred circle

The sacred circle offers a perspective for interpreting and theorizing about human development valuable in shaping the education of First Nations and non-First Nations students. For those of us in a western materialist culture who are interested in coming to understand what the sacred circle might offer, it is necessary to address assumptions in our own culture. This paper proceeds in four parts to facilitate such an understanding. Part One formulates the importance of a culturally self-critical approach to understanding education based in the sacred circle. Part Two presents the sacred circle as a pattern used to interpret meaning in First Nations education. Part Three examinesinterconnectedness through (a) whiteheads criticism of western scientific epistemology and his idea of education for balanced development, and (b) through the creator, mother earth and the Four Directions reflected in the sacred circle. Part Four interprets aholistic apprehension approach to education based in (a) Whiteheads notions of intuition and imagination for balanced development from the sacred circle perspective, and (b) through the sacred circle in the vision quest ceremony.