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The Power of the Circle
I have always been drawn to circles, and their potential to facilitate more equal
participation. Perhaps the earliest versions of this in my upbringing came from our
Family Council meetings at the dinner table, where we would make collective decisions
about household chores, upcoming holidays, etc. It was a kind of a circle, even if the
table was rectangular (I’m always seeking out circular tables: it was my first piece of
furniture when I got my own apartment and the first thing I brought into my York office!).
I had another early introduction to the circle at age 8 or 9, when my family attended a
Quaker camp. The worship tradition of the Quakers (Society of Friends) is to sit in a
circle in silence, and speak only when one is inspired to do so, and then only in a way
that comes from the heart and offers something to a process of collective reflection, but
is not about talking for its own sake. There is no pastor in a pulpit leading this process,
everyone has the right to share from their own vantage point in the circle.
Moving from my own formal schooling in classrooms shaped by 90 degree angles and
rows of chairs, congruent with many dominant notions about teaching and learning
(Freire’s banking model), my experiences in the world of adult and popular education in
both Latin America and North America reinforced this notion that a circle could
challenge traditional relations of power between teacher and student (though not
completely erase them). For example, the central gathering place of the Highlander
Center for Research and Education, perhaps the best known popular education centre
in North America, is a circular building with a central room consisting of 30 Appalachian
style rocking chairs in a circle.
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This layout is the physical manifestation of the educational philosophy of its founder
Myles Horton, who believed if people came together and shared their own diverse
stories of struggle, they could find common ground, develop a collective analysis and
craft strategies for changing oppressive conditions in their lives. The Latin American
popular educators who have so inspired my own work in this field also always work in
circles, and our own initiatives in Canada, like The Moment Project, used this as a
primary structure for our workshops (sometimes creating 6-8 circles within a bigger
circle, to facilitate small groups representing different sectors within the broader social
movement). (insert photo of Moment workshop in circle)
But my practice and thinking about circles has perhaps been most profoundly influenced
by my experiences in the past two decades with Indigenous educators and
communities. In 1991-1992, The Moment Project received major funding to organize a
series of workshops on the theme “Recovering Stories of 500 Years of Resistance,” to
counter the official celebrations of “Columbus’s discovery of America.” We began
planning several months in advance, with a steering group of 14, representing several
Aboriginal groups as well as organizations of diasporic populations who had
experienced colonial histories around the world. We held the three-hour monthly
workshops in Toronto’s Native Canadian Centre, and privileged Aboriginal ways of
organizing and learning in several ways: sharing a meal beforehand (by an Aboriginal
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chef), starting and ending every session with a drumming circle (connecting to the
heartbeat of the earth and our own heartbeats), and sitting in a circle (with more than 50
regular participants, it was a large one). Though we did have guest speakers, Aboriginal
leaders from across the country who offered diverse (and lengthy) stories about the
history, we listened to them in this form, and many walked around to connect with parts
of the circle. The series was transformative for many of us, as we learned for the first
time from Aboriginal voices about the dynamics of colonization, assimilation and cultural
genocide, on the one hand, and about the resistance and recovery of Aboriginal
spiritualities and world views, on the other.
(photo of drumming circle)
We decided that we wanted to continue this dialogue a second year, but focusing more
specifically on the racism that both Canadian Aboriginal peoples and racialized
immigrants faced in the present context in Toronto. At one point in our monthly steering
group meetings, it was suggested that, to share specific common interests and create
safer spaces, we divide temporarily into groups based on skin colour privilege, more
specifically three groups: Aboriginal (many of whom see ‘race’ differently than racialized
immigrants), White people, and People of Colour. This proposal generated great
debate, and in the heat of it, Jackie Alton, an Aboriginal elder, rose and drew on a flip
chart a circle with squares within it, charging that we were trying to put boxes in circles,
closing off a process that can only happen within the circle. She suggested that
everything is shared there, the pain, the tension, the differences, and only through this
process can we come to understand each other.
I’ve had many other experiences with Aboriginal circles since then which confirm this,
but also reveal the challenges of this model in a frenetic and time-bound western
culture. An opening circle at the founding gathering of NAPAAE (the North American
Popular and Adult Education Network) in Alberta in 1994 involved almost 300 people in
a smudging ceremony that went on for a couple of hours. A gathering of Community
Arts Ontario at Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island in 2007 (?) brought key
artists from all over northern Ontario to form a network to support their work over such
distances; participation in the circle by those from southern urban Ontario who may not
understand their realities produced very real tensions, but it was still all ‘kept within the
circle.’
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Like many of my colleagues in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, which advocates
alternative education philosophies, I use the circle as a basic structure in most of my
classes. An exception is the first hour lecture of my Community Arts for Social Change
course, with 100 students, but even then I may break them into smaller groups or invite
a guest to facilitate an active Theatre of the Oppressed Workshop with all one hundred,
upsetting the hegemonic structure of the classroom and creating new spaces for
participation. It may be easier to argue the use of the circle in courses related to popular
education and community arts, because these classes are preparing students to work in
community settings, where this practice is common, and it is a way to ‘walk the talk’ of
what we are reading and discussing.
But over the years I’ve also become aware of some of the limitations or dangers or
cautions about the circle. First of all, power relations do not disappear in a circle, and so
they are also reproduced, challenged, or negotiated within this more open context
(though not always with transparency). Sherene Razack, in her classic “Storytelling for
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Social Change,” suggests that when dialogue around differences is encouraged, some
people (especially those who have directly experienced some kind of oppression) take
more risks than others, and so there is no guarantee that a circle is a ‘safe space.’
There is no room to hide in the circle, and it remains hard work to talk across these
differences.
Nor do all people feel comfortable speaking their mind (and heart) in a circle, no matter
what their experience of oppression. And circles take time. Especially if one adopts a
practice such as the ‘talking stick,’ in which the conversation moves around the circle
and, when holding the stick, each person gets to speak or to pass, while others only
listen (not interrupting or responding). There can be ways to limit the time each person
takes, but if it is left somewhat open, there is a tendency for some to take a lot of
airtime. This can be frustrating for some, and clearly challenges the time-bound nature
of university classes. The size of the circle also influences this process. And it is often
ideal to move around the circle twice, because some may not speak during the first
round, and also because the first round may generate a deeper collective conversation,
giving participants new ideas about their own thoughts and contributions to it they can
offer in a second round, nurturing resonances between the participants.
Nonetheless, I have often found that a round (or two) in a circle is usually worth the time
it takes, as it can open up participation of quieter people, honour everyone’s voice
(rather than a few dominant ones), push the analysis to a more complex level, deepen
the dialogue, and create deeper connections and sense of community.
The circle not only facilitates a more participatory process of learning and dialogue, but
also represents a cosmovision or world view that reflects the theory as well as the
practice of a more holistic popular education. With the blessing of an Aboriginal
colleague, I have adapted the medicine wheel, for example, as a model for the design of
my third year Community Arts Preparatory Workshop. I first introduce them (through
Aboriginal websites and writings) to the origins and various Indigenous interpretations of
the Medicine Wheel, which is all encompassing and multi-layered. Ideally I bring in an
Aboriginal teacher or elder to offer their understanding of the wheel. There are still great
debates in the air about cultural appropriation, at the same time that many are saying
this is the moment to learn from our Aboriginal colleagues.
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As a circle with four quadrants, the medicine wheel represents balance at many levels,
and one of its many layers refers to four aspects of our selves (and, I think, our ways of
learning): the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional. These dimensions are rarely
taken into account in the dominant practices of university classrooms. In fact, Anishabe
elder and scholar Marlene Brant-Castellano, in speaking to my popular education class
over a decade ago, drew a distorted medicine wheel on the board (insert drawing),
revealing the prioritizing of the mental aspect of learning in academia, with the other
three dimensions squeezed into tiny quadrants. Based on western concepts of learning
that emphasize rational, text-based knowing (and perpetuate Enlightenment dualisms of
mind/body, matter/spirit, reason/emotion), the academy still doesn’t leave much space
for holistic learning, that take into account our physical needs, our emotional states, and
our spiritual experience.
Even popular education, which in its Latin American manifestations has integrated
diverse forms of communications and artistic expression (such as theatre, music,
drawing, etc), has its roots in the European colonial intellectual tradition (i.e. Marxism),
and has often perpetuated the dominance of the critical and analytical. It has taken
challenges from feminist as well as Indigenous popular educators to promote what they
call integralidad – or a more holistic and interdisciplinary way of thinking and working.
So I have found that the medicine wheel can serve as a template for designing classes
that are more integrative of all aspects of our selves and of the many ways that people
learn. Since 2011, I have used it to design four components of each three-hour
community arts class: the physical (set-up, snack and clean-up), the spiritual (a
creativity warm-up at the start of the class that involves everyone and focuses on the
day’s theme), the mental (critical questions and ways to engage the class in discussion
of the day’s readings), and the emotional (a 5-minute summary at the end of the class,
offered by process observers). Each of the four activities are designed and facilitated by
pairs of students (as real practice, or experiential learning), and over the course of the
term, everyone should have had the experience of being responsible for all four. The
evaluation template below is also given to all students at the start of each class, and
throughout they may write their own observations of how we are doing in the four areas.
These are collected at the end of the class by the process observers, who synthesize
the comments and upload them on to a course website. By including all voices, our
evaluation is more complex and complete, and we can revisit the next week any issues
that emerge from these comments.
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While this may seem to be a somewhat artificial way to construct a more holistic class
experience, students have noted at the end of the term that it has, indeed, helped us all
to feel we are bringing more of our individual and collective capacities to the learning.
Besides adapting the medicine wheel circle to frame the learning processes within my
classes, I have also adapted it to frame the broader theories that inform both my
research and teaching. In other words, there is a congruence between the content and
process of my work, and some convergence between Indigenous cosmovisions and my
own evolving world views. The VIVA! Project, the transnational research exchange I
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coordinated with eight partners in five countries from 2004-2007, was also very
influenced by the participation of our Indigenous partners, in particular educators and
artists from Nicaragua, Panama, and Mexico. Our annual gatherings (in Toronto,
Panama, and Chiapas) thus reflected an evolving analysis of our work within a frame of
de-colonization, recognizing the colonial histories that have shaped all of our work in the
hemisphere.
So when it came time to edit the collection of essays written by the eight partners, and I
was asked by the publisher to offer a more explicit theoretical frame for our common
project, I started by acknowledging the colonial legacies (as well as the legacies of
resistance) that characterized the context of our work. Then I suggested that the three
primary components and intersecting processes central to our project were popular
education, community arts, and participatory action research. I happened to share the
draft of this introduction with my friend, Rappapanock-Kuna Toronto-based actor
Monique Mojica, when we travelled to Nicaragua in 2010 for the launch of the Spanish
edition of the VIVA! book. Monique immediately observed how I was still working within
a western Christian paradigm of the trinity, by framing things in threes, and suggested I
consider the four dimensions of the medicine wheel to reframe our content and process.
I realized then that what I was calling the context of colonization in fact referred to the
overall process of decolonization that we are committing ourselves to, as we
acknowledge the land we stand on and the history that has shaped it and its inhabitants.
As another level of metaphor, to help frame these four processes, I titled them Place,
Politics, Passion, and Praxis – though understanding that each in fact involved all four
of those dimensions. Again, I found myself turning to the circle not only as a tidy frame,
but as a way of thinking, of knowing, of being, of acting.
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While the circle remains a potent symbol, particularly in response to a dominant culture
of 90 degree angles and much rectangular thinking (or what in Spanish might be called
perjoratively cuadrado, or ‘square’ and rigid), I also see some limitations in the fact that
it is a closed loop. For me a more powerful symbol, perhaps, might be the spiral, which
while mimicking circular motions, is open and constantly changing. What’s more, it’s not
limited to one plane and two dimensions, but can be understood as multi-dimensional.
The spiral also emerged in our collective thinking at the VIVA! Project gatherings, and
was used to describe both the content and process of our transnational research
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The spiral has become more than an intellectual framework for me, it has become
central to my whole way of seeing and being in the world. And it is perhaps best
exemplified by my spiral garden, where I can both honour the dead who are part of me,
as well as nurture the living – the trees, bushes, flowers and vegetables – which are
reminders that life is a continual cycle, or spiral – of birth and death and rebirth.