Wow!!!! What a woman Ruth was, I met her last in 2000 at the pre-school in 5th city, and was impacted again then.

John and I add our deep thanks to Ruth and all her colleagues for their pioneering work, and will be with you in spirit at her service. Lela has agreed to put together a tribute to Ruth and Imaginal Ed for Wind and Waves.... no doubt with input from others...so we may well collect up stories over the coming months for W&Ws.

In fact the W&W team is thinking about devoting a whole issue/series of articles to IE..so would appreciate thoughts on this.

How could I stay out of this Imag Ed. conversation!!!!...a relational way of life! ..a conceptual framework...transformational image/ paradigm change, ( inquiry-based learning, relational, restorative practice - all with its roots in Imag. Ed.) is how I have used and translated this wonderful gift of IE over my years in schools.

Together with few other colleagues on this list, and others, some of us are in process of establishing a Community of Practice around Creative Education for 21 C (This began to get some legs out of conversations at the Nepal Conference in November... We are about to have another conversation next week on this. We would like to see how this connects with the IE team work.

The real task, is indeed, as Jack says below

Jack, we would like to know more of what the IE team is doing and how we might link and participate?

Lynda, Katie Kretzmann in Chicago may be the person you are referring to...she is a part of this CoP think tank, as is Steve Harrington......we are still at beginning steps, but maybe this IE team is the link we need.

----- Original Message -----

From: Jack Gilles

Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 12:49 AM

Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Ruth Carter -- Iron Woman Gift to Minister ofEducation in East Timor

The work Ruth and so many others with the Fifth City Preschool is part of our Imaginal Education collection of the archives. Although many things are not scanned and available for download, we do have hard copy of hundreds of talks, models, manuals and constructs. We are working on how people can visit the site and request documents for a small fee.

Here is the link to the collection if you haven't seen it. <http://wedgeblade.net/wordpress/imaginaleducation>

But the real task of the IE collection team is to figure out how to reach a new audience, a new group of pioneers who are working on how to transform the task of education at all levels. (Check out Tim Dove interview to see how IE is transformative in a Middle School). How to communicate the insights and the life stance that is required to be effective in the Imaginal Education task. We want this to be global and we would like to ask one or both of you to consider being part of our IE team. We're just at the front end of this task and we can really use any wisdom, contacts, relationships and passion you have "down under".

This is an open invitation to anyone on this list serve.

Good luck with the meeting.

For the Imaginal Education Collection team.

On Jul 31, 2013, at 9:30 AM, "Lynda Cock" <llc860@triad.rr.com> wrote:

Dear Telfords, What wonderful work you two are doing in the Blue Mountains of East Timor. We celebrate with you!!!

I don't know if Elise is on this list or not, so I am making sure.    The first item that came to mind as a gift to the minister of education would be a statue of the Iron Person, standing tall, along with this wonderful story of Alice Baumbach's about the gifts of local people being trained to do the jobs they care so much about, except lacking credentials. Also Lela Jahn's & Karen Bueno's reflection yesterday about those early years. Since we only have 24 hours, I would suggest a framed copy of the Iron Person ( Great one on cover of 2010 Directory about the right size). I also thought of the current work that Elise is doing with Early Childhood Education. Don't know what is downloadable, but could certainly be pointed to as an ongoing program. There is someone at Kemper who is Elise's teammate who might have ideas. Pam or Jean or Marge could possibly direct this to her if Elise is out of town.

Our best wishes for a successful and meaningful meeting with the Friendship Committee. Keep us posted.

With fond memories of our work down under many years ago.  (Jeremiah was 8 months old so that makes it 35 years ago. Surely not!)

Lynda  Cock

From: oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of the telfords
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 2:44 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Ruth Carter -- Iron Woman

Dear Colleagues
Although I never actually met Ruth, her name and her contribution to our common mission is lodged in my memory.

Now, a question - was the curriculum which was developed in 5th City the foundation for what later became known as Imaginal Education?

This coming weekend the Blue Mountains East Timor Friendship Committee, which Elaine & I are members of, are hosting a visit by Dulce Soares, the East Timor government's Vice-Minister for Pre-School and Basic (primary) Education - the ET Government has recently launched a new Pre-School initiative to establish pre-schools widely across the nation and I understand they are at the stage of putting together a curriculum.

I was meeting with a couple of members of our organising team this morning and we were discussing what would be an appropriate gift to give to the Vice-Minister, and having just read about Ruth and the 5th City curriculum before I went to the meeting, I said I could possibly come up with a gift related to that.

Is there something I could download which at least would give her an introduction to our approach to early learning/development?

Any suggestions you can make in the next 24 hours will be most welcome.

Grace & Peace
John