Meet Our Community ———————————————— |
Patricia Webb, Nurse, Writer, Teacher Julie Knapp, Artist, Teacher, Healer George Hogan III, Artist, Designer, Youth Mentor, Community Organizer Larry Patrick, Teacher, Naturalist Melanie Cosnek, Teacher, Community Organizer Our Board of Advisors Larry Patrick, PhD |
Patricia Webb, Nurse, Writer, Teacher Patricia founded the Learning Shire in 2005, integrating a vision years in the making – to offer holistic, life-changing processes of adult learning that nurture not only the mind, but the heart, the body, and the spirit. She is presently completing her Masters Degree in adult & community education through Indiana University of Pennsylvania, after which she enters doctoral studies at Pennsylvania State University. As a nurse, writer, and health educator for over 20 years, Patricia brings a wealth of practical understanding to each program she designs and facilitates. Specializing in the mental health field since 1992, she has published and presented on topics from risk management and chemical dependency… to women’s health and postpartum depression … to environmental illness, complementary medicine and the ethics of “managed care”. She has also consulted in the creation of patient-centered psychiatric practice settings, incorporating self-led patient learning as a central element in the spectrum of care. As an artist, Patricia is a published poet and produced playwright. She has used short story, poetry, live drama, and film to facilitate personal development for 25 years, working with people as diverse as medical students, school-age children, and church groups. She has collaborated with local artists and educators in social and educational forums to promote community engagement with issues of violence, racism, the environment, and spiritual unity. Most recently, she partnered with a Quaker boarding high school, Olney Friends School, to create an arts-based, transformative learning curriculum built around the artistic, social and mystical dimensions of the short story and film, Brokeback Mountain. [Click here to read the published case study of this class.] She has also consulted and assisted in developing experiential learning workshops for business and professional clients built on structured interactions with horses and immersion in the natural world. Academically, Patricia’s writing, teaching and research efforts center on developing models for facilitating transformative learning that catalyze social, emotional and spiritual awareness and development. Her special interest is helping to develop models that bypass conscious verbal and logical ways of knowing, tapping into sensory, kinesthetic, intuitive, relational and mystical ways of living and learning. Her graduate research has focused on applying and testing these transformative approaches to the problems of social intolerance and violence on multiple levels, from verbal and emotional harm, to sexual and physical violence, as well as the veiled institutional and socio-cultural forms that violence and intolerance often take. Patricia was born and grew up in Cleveland’s east-side. She attended nursing school at Ohio State University and moved to Pittsburgh in 1981, where she completed the Writing Program at University of Pittsburgh. While raising her three children (along with an assortment of dogs, cats, mice, lizards, fish and a horse or two), she did freelance writing, editing and health education consulting, and worked as a psychiatric practice manager for six years. Patricia has also trained dogs in basic obedience and preparation for therapeutic visitation work, and has studied non-resistance ground training of horses with the Monty Roberts International Learning Center, as well as equine-facilitated learning processes with Linda Kohanov. Although missing the beauty of more rural surroundings, she loves the close-knit diversity of Pittsburgh’s established ethnic neighborhoods, where she has lived for 25 years. Patricia also enjoys hiking, swimming, gardening, café-hopping, live theatre and movies, and she reads widely in poetry, philosophy, ecology, and the evolution of human and animal consciousness. Julie Knapp, Artist, Teacher, Healer Julie grew up in Pittsburgh’s east end within a family of musicians, artists, and teachers. She began musical and arts studies as a small child, continuing into her teens when she began focusing on the visual arts. She attended Carnegie Mellon University’s pre-college fine arts program from 1994 to 1997, where she was awarded several scholarships. Julie volunteered in youth groups and local after-school programs throughout her teen years, fulfilling leadership and mentoring roles with other teens from a wide diversity of racial, ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds. She also began working with horses when she was 12 and spent four summers studying, then teaching horsemanship through the First Class level to campers ranging in age from 8 to 16 years old. As a riding camp staffer, she helped to care for close to 100 horses daily, as well as training and providing first aid and preventive care to riding school horses. A particular interest of Julie’s was working with horses that had experienced traumas and required rehab and desensitization training. Following high school, Julie traveled in Ireland for four months, then moved to northern Michigan in 1999, where she worked in medical office administration. In 2002, she returned to Pittsburgh to attend the School of Pain Management on the South Side, completing her training in myofascial trigger point release therapy in 2003 and passing her national certification exam later that year. Thereafter, she continued as an instructor in palpation technique and received high marks on student evaluations. Julie currently practices trigger point therapy and neuromuscular re-education with Pittsburgh area clients on a private practice basis. She is a lifelong learner with continued passions for the arts, as well as for her partner, Todd, her German shepherd, Jim, and for the healing presence of the natural world. She is a student of esoteric philosophy and reads widely in the fields of energy medicine, comparative religion, mathematics, physics, and the literary arts. She has had a long-term interest in religious reconciliation, and focuses her studies and community work on bringing together people of different faith backgrounds to enhance understanding and support spiritual unity. Along with her sensitive and perceptive nature, Julie brings to the Learning Shire a keen aesthetic sense of visual harmony. From our original pilot programs to our full weekend retreats, she helps to create workshop environments that support relaxation, creativity, and that nurture an experience of community among participants. Julie has trained as a listening-support facilitator for our transformative learning programs and also provides administrative office support. Melanie (Mell) Cosnek, Teacher, Community Organizer Mell currently works as a Facilitator-Trainer for the YWCA’s Greater Pittsburgh Center for Race Relations and Anti-Racism Training, where she collaborates with a wide variety of groups on anti-oppression education and outreach. A native of southwestern Pennsylvania, she received her BA in History and Social Studies from Carlow College, as well as her Secondary Education Teaching Certificate. Mell taught high school for several years in central Maryland, developing special interests in teaching African-American history, geography, political science and psychology. While in Maryland, she also completed her MA in Modern Studies at Loyola College. She served as a Teacher Advisor for the Harford County Student Government and worked with students to organize community food collections and blood drives. Mell brings to the Learning Shire a deep empathy and respect for others and for the many ways that people learn and grow. She has participated in pilot programs at the Learning Shire and has trained as a listening-support facilitator for our transformational workshops and retreats.
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