The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential and Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen tells the untold story of Esalen Institute's Gazebo Park School. It shares a unique pedagogy that encompasses the belief that Human Potential Movement begins in childhood. The book is focused on the core principles and practices of the Gazebo program such as Gestalt Practice, the role of the teacher, the philosophical view of the child, nature education and pure play.
The Gazebo approach honors the child as highly capable, and encourages independence, self-agency, and responsibility. The possibilities offered through Gazebo pedagogy expand the boundaries of education through conscious learning and teaching giving children a strong foundation for self-awareness and empowerment. Through the Gazebo lens, children are given opportunities to experience calculated risk, to work through conflict, and to learn about healthy boundaries which empowers them in ways that carry over into later life.
With the Gazebo approach, teachers are facilitators, and allow children to lead their own learning propelled by their curiosity and informed through exploration and expression. Essentially, teachers are guides in experiential learning. Furthermore, teachers have many opportunities to learn to do self-inquiry themselves through the relational field of learning where there is an exchange by which both teacher and student are learning through their connections and interactions.
At the Gazebo School, teachers and students used Gestalt practice to develop interpersonal and intrapersonal awareness and emotional literacy. This book looks at Gestalt and somatics and at Gestalt language and Gestalt approaches to conflict resolution with children. Also exposed are the application of Gestalt practice with adults and how self-inquiry allows for the teachers to navigate their relationship to self, colleagues and to their students. Thus, Gestalt practice can be applied through children and teachers inner work and through relational learning.
Gazebo pedagogy was built firmly on belief that the environment itself is a powerful teacher. Concepts of land stewardship, eco-literacy, outdoor education, and emergent curriculum are all aspects of nature education that are embedded within the changing rhythms of each day and each season. Through nature education, the cultivation of observation and awareness skills bridge mind-body concepts. Furthermore, the importance of indigenous wisdom in nature education and noticing interconnection in the delicate is an important part of nature education.
Pure play is an important element of the early education and especially in the Gazebo philosophy. This book explores the importance of play and how it connects to mind-body concepts and affirmed through today's neuroscience research. Emergent curriculum and calculated risk are important topics explored through the lens of play. This book investigates experiential learning and the natural process of social-emotional development through play.
While this book shares the history and philosophy of Gazebo Park School, the core principles of the pedagogy can be applied intuitively in different education programs, home schooling, parenting, and in how we relate to children. Gazebo Learning Project offers a new paradigm through somatic education and experiential learning that align the mind and body and bring learning to life. This model teaches us how children cultivate independence, self-mastery, emotional literacy and conflict resolution skills, as well as a great love of nature and learning.
About the AuthorHoran, Jasmine Star: - Horan has a BA in English with a concentration in Writing from Southern Oregon University, and a M.A.T from Oregon State University. As a poet, Horan's love for writing began at a young age. She began her studies in the craft of poetry as a youth attending Southern Oregon State College writer's conferences, attending writer's guild meetings in San Luis Obispo, and later as a young adult studying writing with Ellen Bass in Santa Cruz. She held live poetry readings as a youth went on to produce a spoken word album entitled Rhyme, Rhythm and Revolution. After graduating from her Master's program, she came home to Big Sur to teach at the Gazebo Park School. Through this experience, Horan began to see her own childhood through adult eyes as a writer and educator. As Horan began to conceptualize her experience as a child, she was inspired to create Gazebo Learning Project as she recognized how unique her education experience was and wanted to share it. So, Horan set the intention to reveal the pedagogy of Esalen's Gazebo school in the hopes it will be an inspiration for the world in developing similar programs and ways of being with children. This book also set Horan on a path of writing non-fiction and she feels called towards offering both alternative education curriculum and cultural and historical preservation; particularly encapsulating the essence of Big Sur through its undocumented cultural legacies. Fascinated by personal narrative and people's stories, with her work as a writer, Horan also hopes to expose the profound beauty and excruciating struggle of being alive through both the banal and the wondrous. Horan was an intern at Caveat and White Cloud Press in Ashland, Oregon and supported local authors Peggy Horan and LaVerne McLeod with their editing and publishing processes. Embarking on her own publishing path, she founded Silver Peak Press in January of 2020.
