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Tsédaak'aan Learning Community
​

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What does it mean to be a good human being?    

How do we live in harmony, balance, and beauty?


Tsedaak’aan Learning Community (TDK) emerged organically over time in response to the questions above. Most people say you just can't describe TDK, so we won't try. Quiet, humble and off the radar, TDK was a community-driven, community-based learning space that evolved without a "plan" (and we actually prefer it this way) based a caring web of friends, relatives, and neighbors working together to support the restoration of relationship...with ourselves, with each other and with the Earth. TDK learning community grew organically over the years out of the simple effort of simple folks to explore what it means to be a good human being and to restore hozhoin, which translates into "a sense of being and living as humans in harmony, balance, and beauty."

Home to numerous meetings, gatherings, and community projects, TDK served both visiting and local students and groups who worked together to build an adobe multi-purpose Sunhouse and a shadehouse, as well as an outhouse. TDK also included key features to support irrigation and organic farming. TDK evolved around the need to revive traditions and implement techniques for natural living that could serve as a model for others to experience and learn from including swales, companion planting, traditional foods and medicines, a rocket stove, beehives, and a compost toilet and following natural cycles of learning by relating to seasons, earth, sky, sunrise, and sunset. TDK was designed to promote a safe space from which to learn, think, be, feel, grow, and know.

Our efforts have been experiential, wholistic, natural, restorative, and relational, offering opportunities for non-modern being, learning, and knowing. Committed to nurturing kinship and community, and we are a place where learning never ends ... where life and learning are a participatory, 24/7 process, that Is likened to what a “traditional Indigenous multi-versity” might look and feel like .

TDK Learning Community was developed in partnership
between two educators committed to real-life, community-based learning
and ​rooted in indigenous ways of knowing, being, and learning,
Dr. Larry Emerson and Jennifer Nevarez
.

The video below is a montage created years ago for TDK students and visitors.
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Where?

Tsedaak’aan is a community on the Diné Nation. The Diné Nation is a sovereign nation and has its own political jurisdiction and laws, language, history, and culture. The Diné Nation is situated within what the Diné call the Four Sacred Mountains or Dinétah. These mountains are Sisnaajinii (referred to in English as Mount Blanca near Alamosa, Colorado), Tsoodzil (referred to in English as Mount Taylor near Grants, New Mexico) Dook’o’oosl77 (referred to in English as San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona), and Dzi[ Dib'nitsaa (referred to in English as Hesperus Mountain near Durango, Colorado).
Tsedaak’aan is about 5000 ft above sea level. The land is a high desert plateau situated at the base of the southwestern Colorado Rocky Mountains (Cortez and Durango). Tsedaak’aan is the name of a monocline sandstone formation just north of Highway 64. The farming community around the monocline is called Tsedaak’aan east of Shiprock and west of Farmington, New Mexico. The community is located in what is referred to in English as the “Four Corners” area of the United States.

What?

TDK is an informal learning community that supports indigenous teaching and learning and indigenous ways of knowing. We are developing Indigenous traditional farming methods and indegenous permaculture to rethink and decolonize the practice of food survival and local food production and sustainability. We have built an adobe outhouse and compost toilet, traditional shadehouse, and a low-cost, multi-purpose adobe building known as the Sunhouse that is used for meetings, gatherings, workshops, as well as sleeping, eating and sharing. The round earthen Hoghan, where some of the gatherings take place, is a traditional Diné dwelling, ceremonial structure, and gathering place that embodies earth woman, plants, flowers, rain, sea, moisture, sacred corn, and other foods. The Hoghan and Hoghan teachings are central to Diné lifeways and world view.

​
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How?

Principles:
TDK provides immersion and an educational and learning experiences that:
​
  • Follow natural cycles of learning by
    relating to seasons, earth, sky, sunrise,
    and sunset
  • Promotes a safe space from which to learn, think, be, feel, grow, and know
  • Is experiential, wholistic, natural, restorative and relational
  • Practices non-modern being, learning,
    and knowing
  • Practices community, learning community, and participatory learning
  • Is a 24/7 process
  • Is likened to what a “traditional
    Indigenous multiversity” might look
    and feel like

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Restoration
​of Kinship


A Ke'-based, safe, and nurturing place for community gatherings and meetings.

Diné Peacekeepers, Women in Circle, Men's Healing Circles, Youth Activitsts, The Walkers, Teacher's Forum, Traditional Weavers, Artisans, and Singers, Northern youth Council, Indigenous Researchers, etc
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Intergenerational Learning

An indigenous hoghan-centered  process for teaching and learning.
  • Family Camps
  • Service Camps
  • Peace Camps
  • Hoghan Dialogues


Following natural protocols of living and being in what we could describe as an" indigenous multi-versity" learning model.
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Language
​Revitalization


A  community-engaging opportunity to restore language and culture through real-life learning in real-life places linking youth with fluent elders, adults, and community wisdom-keepers.

Passing on the Diné language and culture to future generations through community-based learning.
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Decolonization 
& Resiliency

A land-based, hands-on learning opportunity for exploring de-colonization and sharing models of resiliency.

Models include: natural water catchment, companion planting, traditional foods and herbal medicines, building with earth, compost toilets, rocket stoves,
seed-saving, bee-keeping, composting, and more.

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Visit Larry Emerson's Memorial Website

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Community Learning Network
​
"building stronger communities through real-life learning"

info@communitylearningnetwork.org

505-699-1503
CLN © 2020.​All rights reserved.
  • Home
    • About
    • Circle of Support
    • Interns >
      • Fly-In Intern Program
    • CommUNITY Educators
    • Annual Update
    • Investors for Good
    • In the News
  • Learn
    • Digital Learning >
      • Make a Website
      • Blog Post basics
      • Digital Business Card
      • Digital Photo Basics
      • Digital Detectives
      • Snap Camera
      • Adobe Creative Suite
    • Learn and Use GIS >
      • ArcGIS Competition
      • GIS Careers
      • Indigenous Mapping
      • GIS NM Highlights
    • Real-Life Learning >
      • WPI Project Based Learning
      • NM Career Academy >
        • Native Career Profiles
      • Youth Ambassadors
    • Service Learning >
      • Photo Gallery
  • Connect
    • www.broadbandfornewmexico.org
    • Digital Equity in New Mexico
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    • Hotspots
    • Broadband-Spotlight
    • Connection Check
    • Connectivity Survey >
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    • Tribal Libraries
    • Digital Literacy
  • Nurture
    • Seed Advocacy
    • La Escuela del Agua
    • Native American Network
    • Indigi-Genius
    • Buena Gente
    • Love Where We Live
  • Mobilize
    • Tech
  • Gallery for Good
    • commUNITY voices
    • Crazy Hair Day Literacy Campaign
    • Global Entrepreneurship Week >
      • GEW Archive
    • History through Music
    • Human Reunion
    • Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2017
    • Interfaith Dialogue
    • Internet Society New Mexico Chapter
    • Guadalupe Project >
      • Guadalupe Improvements
      • Guadalupe Business Association
      • Guadalupe Street Reconstruction
    • Jicarilla Apache Youth FilmFest
    • LISTO for Teachers
    • Native Artists Panel
    • Film Prize Jr NM
    • Pandemic Response >
      • CommUNITY Relief
      • PPE Donations
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      • Spread Some Sunshine
      • ITDRC Project Connect
      • commUNITY rocks
      • Pandemic Projects Spotlight
    • SWAIA Project
    • Pueblo Connect
    • San Francisco Street Project
    • SEED: Climate Change Resilience
    • StartUp Generation
    • Storm Cloud Media >
      • AS TEMPERATURES RISE
      • MONEY & LIFE
    • TDK Learning Community
    • Walk in Beauty...Again Documentary Film
    • Water Matters >
      • ATLAS Youth Water Ambasadors
  • CLN Blog
  • Donate
  • Contact
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