The Most Natural and Obvious Way
Kate Akers, National Executive member, New Zealand Association for Environmental Education

The Flow Learning strategy is so potent, so gentle, that it feels like the most natural and obvious way to communicate nature education to children and adults of any age. It works in harmony with people’s innate states of being, channeling their energy and contemplation at the most effective times for learning and appreciating.
One of my favorite aspects of Flow Learning is watching a group of strangers become physically and mentally attuned to one another and their natural environment within minutes of beginning the first stage of the program, where the Flow Learning strategy’s purpose is to awaken enthusiasm. Nervousness and shyness melt away as children and adults alike adopt a playground playfulness, and the group unites in a childlike spirit of innocence, inclusivity, and fun. They are now so open and willing to learn.
At heart, I believe people of all ages truly appreciate opportunities to return to the simplicity and beauty of the young child’s world, and the Sharing Nature activities and games allow and encourage us all to do that.
One of my favorite aspects of Flow Learning is watching a group of strangers become physically and mentally attuned to one another and their natural environment within minutes of beginning the first stage of the program, where the Flow Learning strategy’s purpose is to awaken enthusiasm. Nervousness and shyness melt away as children and adults alike adopt a playground playfulness, and the group unites in a childlike spirit of innocence, inclusivity, and fun. They are now so open and willing to learn.
At heart, I believe people of all ages truly appreciate opportunities to return to the simplicity and beauty of the young child’s world, and the Sharing Nature activities and games allow and encourage us all to do that.
Flow Learning for Voice Impact
Martha Gleason, Voice and speaking expert at Martha Gleason Voice

Finding your voice is a journey of finding your highest self. Whether you are presenting at a business conference, engaging online, or singing in a concert, the first step to amplifying your voice is connecting with your calm, inner center.
When I share Flow Learning’s Nature In Me exercise*, my voice clients learn a powerful tool for calming the chattering mind and starting their voice work from a calm center.
The powerful centering principles of Flow Learning guide my clients into the present moment; there they can connect with their calm center. Your calm and centered voice is an intimate expression of who
and what you are. It lives inside you and flows out into the world.
Your voice reflects your deepest feelings and inspirations. Flow Learning exercises guide my clients back to a still and joy-filled center. From that awakened place, they can find their true voice and ignite their impact.
When I share Flow Learning’s Nature In Me exercise*, my voice clients learn a powerful tool for calming the chattering mind and starting their voice work from a calm center.
The powerful centering principles of Flow Learning guide my clients into the present moment; there they can connect with their calm center. Your calm and centered voice is an intimate expression of who
and what you are. It lives inside you and flows out into the world.
Your voice reflects your deepest feelings and inspirations. Flow Learning exercises guide my clients back to a still and joy-filled center. From that awakened place, they can find their true voice and ignite their impact.
Flow Learning in the Academic Classroom
Carol Malnor, co-founder of the Education for Life Foundation, curriculum developer, and children’s book publisher and author

As a teacher and curriculum designer, I have found that Flow Learn-
ing is a valuable tool in the classroom. By teaching my lessons using
the Flow Learning format I have been able to involve all of my students in the lesson and keep discipline problems to a minimum. I’ve applied the principles of Flow Learning to math, science, social studies, language, and even art classes.
• Awaken Enthusiasm
Once a teacher gets students interested in the topic they are studying, the learning becomes easy and natural. Physical activities are one of the most effective ways to engage students’ interest and involvement in a topic. Many of Joseph Cornell’s activities can be adapted to academic subjects. For example, I’ve adapted Wild Animal Scramble for a math class by pinning numbers (instead of animal pictures) on students’ backs and having them guess which number they were.
• Focus Attention
Once the students are engaged, I can use other types of activities to focus their energy and attention on the subject we are studying. To
help students concentrate, I use as many senses as possible in an activity. For example, when students play a game like circle rhythm clapping
they have to watch carefully (the sense of sight), listen closely (the sense of hearing), and imitate the clapping rhythm with their hands (the
sense of touch). Content such as science terms, prepositions, or multiplication tables can be added to the clapping rhythm. Scavenger hunts, clue games, puzzle activities, whole body balance movements, and fine motor skill activities all engage students’ concentration and focus.
• Offer Direct Experience
In a classroom lesson, Direct Experience is the learning objective that the teacher wants to accomplish. It can be anything from conjugating verbs to solving equations to spelling words correctly to defining photosynthesis. Most teachers are clear about what they want their students to know. By including Awaken Enthusiasm and Focus Attention activities in the lesson plan, students are put into a receptive state of mind so that they can learn more quickly and easily. In addition, by giving students a meaningful interaction with the information to be learned, they can internalize it and make it their own. Then it isn’t just something to be memorized for a test and forgotten, but meaningful information to be used. For example, writing an article for the school newspaper has more meaning and relevance for a student than writing a paper that only the teacher will read.
• Share Inspiration
Giving students the opportunity to share their experiences increases the learning for the entire class. There have been times when I
have felt too rushed to spend the time with each stage of Flow Learning. I have always regretted it. Often the time I hoped to save was spent on managing discipline problems because students were off-task, or encouraging reluctant students because they were unmotivated. When the energy is awakened, focused, experienced, and shared, students as well as teachers have deeper learning experiences.
ing is a valuable tool in the classroom. By teaching my lessons using
the Flow Learning format I have been able to involve all of my students in the lesson and keep discipline problems to a minimum. I’ve applied the principles of Flow Learning to math, science, social studies, language, and even art classes.
• Awaken Enthusiasm
Once a teacher gets students interested in the topic they are studying, the learning becomes easy and natural. Physical activities are one of the most effective ways to engage students’ interest and involvement in a topic. Many of Joseph Cornell’s activities can be adapted to academic subjects. For example, I’ve adapted Wild Animal Scramble for a math class by pinning numbers (instead of animal pictures) on students’ backs and having them guess which number they were.
• Focus Attention
Once the students are engaged, I can use other types of activities to focus their energy and attention on the subject we are studying. To
help students concentrate, I use as many senses as possible in an activity. For example, when students play a game like circle rhythm clapping
they have to watch carefully (the sense of sight), listen closely (the sense of hearing), and imitate the clapping rhythm with their hands (the
sense of touch). Content such as science terms, prepositions, or multiplication tables can be added to the clapping rhythm. Scavenger hunts, clue games, puzzle activities, whole body balance movements, and fine motor skill activities all engage students’ concentration and focus.
• Offer Direct Experience
In a classroom lesson, Direct Experience is the learning objective that the teacher wants to accomplish. It can be anything from conjugating verbs to solving equations to spelling words correctly to defining photosynthesis. Most teachers are clear about what they want their students to know. By including Awaken Enthusiasm and Focus Attention activities in the lesson plan, students are put into a receptive state of mind so that they can learn more quickly and easily. In addition, by giving students a meaningful interaction with the information to be learned, they can internalize it and make it their own. Then it isn’t just something to be memorized for a test and forgotten, but meaningful information to be used. For example, writing an article for the school newspaper has more meaning and relevance for a student than writing a paper that only the teacher will read.
• Share Inspiration
Giving students the opportunity to share their experiences increases the learning for the entire class. There have been times when I
have felt too rushed to spend the time with each stage of Flow Learning. I have always regretted it. Often the time I hoped to save was spent on managing discipline problems because students were off-task, or encouraging reluctant students because they were unmotivated. When the energy is awakened, focused, experienced, and shared, students as well as teachers have deeper learning experiences.
Tears of Awakening
Tamarack Song, founder of Healing Nature Trails and author of Becoming Nature: Learning the Language of Wild Animals and Plants

Kelly was a petite, silver-haired classical violinist. She and her husband left Chicago thirty years ago for their cottage nestled into the forested shoreline of a pristine Northwoods lake. On this particular day, I was guiding Kelly and three of her friends on a nature walk. We meandered down a trail that took us through groves of elder pines, out on a beaver dam, and into the mysterious world of a floating bog.
We started out by taking off our shoes, so that we could walk barefoot on the moss-carpeted trail and take advantage of the anti-inflammatory energy from the earth: a practice known as grounding.
We then crushed a few balsam fir needles in our hands and inhaled their endorphin-like essences, which are used to treat melancholy.
A short way down the trail, I looked back to check on how everybody was doing. Kelly was smiling, and at the same time tears were making their way down her cheeks. “I’m alright,” Kelly replied to my questioning look. “It’s just that I’ve been living here for years now,
and I’ve got the forest right outside my door, and I go hiking regularly, but I realize now that I’ve never really experienced nature. I didn’t
smell nature, I didn’t taste nature, I didn’t touch nature. Sure, I got out in nature all the time, but I didn’t feel her. I was just an observer—I
never got to know that nature could be so healing, so comforting.”
It’s moments like this that a nature guide lives for. I had just witnessed one person’s ecstatic reawakening to relationship with nature—a profound expression of the first stage of Flow Learning. What more vibrant symbol of Flow Learning could there be than flowing tears of joy?
We started out by taking off our shoes, so that we could walk barefoot on the moss-carpeted trail and take advantage of the anti-inflammatory energy from the earth: a practice known as grounding.
We then crushed a few balsam fir needles in our hands and inhaled their endorphin-like essences, which are used to treat melancholy.
A short way down the trail, I looked back to check on how everybody was doing. Kelly was smiling, and at the same time tears were making their way down her cheeks. “I’m alright,” Kelly replied to my questioning look. “It’s just that I’ve been living here for years now,
and I’ve got the forest right outside my door, and I go hiking regularly, but I realize now that I’ve never really experienced nature. I didn’t
smell nature, I didn’t taste nature, I didn’t touch nature. Sure, I got out in nature all the time, but I didn’t feel her. I was just an observer—I
never got to know that nature could be so healing, so comforting.”
It’s moments like this that a nature guide lives for. I had just witnessed one person’s ecstatic reawakening to relationship with nature—a profound expression of the first stage of Flow Learning. What more vibrant symbol of Flow Learning could there be than flowing tears of joy?
Teaching Art Techniques
Nischala Cryer, co-founder of Ananda College of Living Wisdom, author of The Four Stages of Yoga

I learned about Joseph Cornell’s Flow Learning about twenty-five years ago. It’s probably the most effective tool I’ve used in offering high school and college students a deeper, more conscious experience of my presentation.
When teaching art techniques, for instance, Flow Learning offers a natural sequence that engages the entire class. Each day and each class is different, but I always start with something that will trigger students’ interest through the Awakening Enthusiasm exercise.
With the students’ interest peaked, I next move to the Focus Atten-
tion part of the lesson. I have the studio set up so that the tools are at each artist workstation.
Next comes the most dramatic part of the art lesson: Offer Direct Experience, which will take up most of the class. At this point I ask the students to work in silence. I might guide them in a meditative visualization to get them into a calm state that allows them to access their intuition.
At the final bell, we move into the fourth part of Flow Learning—Share Enthusiasm. By this time, students are ready to talk with others in the class and share what they have discovered. Students are encouraged to talk rather than to show their art. (Showing their art could lead to comparing their work to other people’s and being competitive.)
Every teacher knows that students’ input and their own experiences are very important in the learning process. I believe Flow Learning is a holistic way to organize a class, or even a presentation. Having taught using the Education for Life method for twenty-five years, I would say that Flow Learning is the main tool I use for planning my classes.
When teaching art techniques, for instance, Flow Learning offers a natural sequence that engages the entire class. Each day and each class is different, but I always start with something that will trigger students’ interest through the Awakening Enthusiasm exercise.
With the students’ interest peaked, I next move to the Focus Atten-
tion part of the lesson. I have the studio set up so that the tools are at each artist workstation.
Next comes the most dramatic part of the art lesson: Offer Direct Experience, which will take up most of the class. At this point I ask the students to work in silence. I might guide them in a meditative visualization to get them into a calm state that allows them to access their intuition.
At the final bell, we move into the fourth part of Flow Learning—Share Enthusiasm. By this time, students are ready to talk with others in the class and share what they have discovered. Students are encouraged to talk rather than to show their art. (Showing their art could lead to comparing their work to other people’s and being competitive.)
Every teacher knows that students’ input and their own experiences are very important in the learning process. I believe Flow Learning is a holistic way to organize a class, or even a presentation. Having taught using the Education for Life method for twenty-five years, I would say that Flow Learning is the main tool I use for planning my classes.