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.