Project Worldview is a USA-based nonprofit educational corporation serving the global village

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Education for the Global Village 

About Us

 Our Mission                       Website Dedication 

Who We Are / How We Came to Be
The origins of  project Worldview can be traced to a late 1980s collaboration between Stephen P. Cook and Donella H. Meadows (co-author of The Limits to Growth) that resulted in the 400 page book Coming of Age in the Global Village (Parthenon Books).  Written before the internet existed in modern form, it almost anticipated surfing the web, with its accounts of "shopping in the Reality Marketplace" for a worldview.   This 1990 book published by Parthenon Books contained the version 1.0 structure for characterizing worldviews, employing twenty-six worldview themes.  After using it at Arkansas Tech University and the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Science where he taught, Cook decided to expand and refine it and project Worldview was born.  

With the 2006 website launch  it became possible to click on Take me to The Reality Marketplace, and have an internet adventure in fully exploring an updated version of worldview themes.   The version 2.0 structure implemented in 2006 uses eighty worldview themes on fifty-two individual cards or frames. Using the website in conjunction with an educational CD known as The Worldview Kit provides an enhanced, even fun, learning experience. 

By mid 2009, Cook completed a 202 page companion to the website: The Worldview Literacy Book . This is bundled with the continually refined and updated The Worldview Kit CD.  By January 2010 he started a blog called Worldview Watch featuring commentary and analysis of news from a worldview perspective.  Forty two issues of it appeared over the next five years. 

 2012 brought four new additions to the project Worldview web site: 
1) The Quick Worldview Analysis program--version 1.00, a tool to check your worldview's compatibility with someone else's or with that of a typical USA adult. 
2) Lengthy excerpts from The Worldview Literacy Book were added to web pages of all worldview themes 
3) A version 2.0 based program for sending tweets with your position on some issue spelled out with worldview themes 
4) The beginnings of the version 3.0 structure, with the 80 worldview themes broken into 320 sub-themes, each linked to Wikipedia articles, click here to see how the beta version is evolving...

2013 brought an expanded worldview theme descriptions and one additional worldview theme (80==>81) known as version 3.0,  a page for Home Schoolers, a simpler way to Characterize Worldviews, and a redesigned home page... 

Mid 2013—2014 brought Astronomy and Earth Science Education activities to the website, and saw Stephen Cook working on a new book.  Besides doing lots of song-writing during this period, he also developed a refined way of categorizing worldview themes based on a thinking / feeling / joining / doing. Out of this came TFJD codes and emotional volatility (VI) indices that can be used to characterize and contrast worldview themes.

2015 brought the publication of The Worldview Theme Song Book—Exploring the Feelings Behind Worldviews. While it also promotes understanding of what goes on in your brain as you think, feel, join, and do, at its heart are eighty-one songs—one for each of the eighty-one Project Worldview worldview themes. Using song lyrics and text, the book tells a personal tale that has a wildly improbable, worldview shaking, musically inspired climax.   Inspired by MIT physicist Kerson Huang and his wife, who produced a translation of and commentary on the ancient I Ching, the book also contains a modern (TFJD based) oracle that many will enjoy consulting. 

2016-2017 brought 1) an important change to worldview theme pages: two themes previously sharing a single webpage were now given separate pages,  2) expanding the "Connecting Group Beliefs, Religious, Spiritual, Ethical Traditions to Worldview Themes" page to include a "Patriarchal" entry, and 3) Adding a "Songs" link to each worldview theme page -- often linking to the lyrics and notes for a corresponding song in the The Worldview Theme Song Book—Exploring the Feelings Behind Worldviews. 

2019 brought the beginnings of version 4.0 worldview theme structure with a) the previously eight "Basic Choices" used to identify 16 meta themes (four in each thinking / feeling / joining / doing realm or playing card suit); b) seven new worldview themes added to the existing 81 (with the descriptions and even titles of some of those revised) resulting in a total of 88 worldview themes (twenty two in each thinking / feeling / joining / doing realm or playing card suit); c) a "Choices We Make" activity based on fifty two playing cards with the 88 + 16 = 104 themes appropriately paired on flip sides of these playing cards to indicate choices--with new analysis programs providing % correlation with a second person's worldview and eight generic worldviews. 

2020  July brought the version 4.1 quickly followed in September by version 4.2 worldview theme structure: both revisions of the version 4.0 structure and corresponding update of analysis computer programs. The 104 theme / paired into 52 choices format was maintained but certain themes were consolidated, a few new ones added, others slightly revised. Also, self tests to check understanding of the "Related Words, Beliefs, Background" for each of the 52 choices were added as part of a new Worldview Literacy and Emotional Intelligence Course. Work on an early edition of the Choices We Make booklet  was completed, and work continued on a sequel to the Coming of Age in the Global Village book. 

2021  Version 5.0 of the theme structure--with related revisions of the worldview analysis programs-- was finalized in late November (Click here for review of our Worldview Theme Structure Development). A new educational game--Choices We Make A Not So Trivial Pursuit was developed.  A 36 page booklet to update the 1990 Coming of Age in the Global Village was produced. Work on a new independent study course Nurturing Global Citizens was complete by year's end.  

2022 The new year began with publication and marketing of Choices We Make in the Global Village--the long awaited sequel to the 1990 Coming of Age in the Global Village book. And with promoting use of the Choices We Make booklet with free digital or at cost printed copies. By February, version 5.0 theme structure based updates of the "Top Cards and Discards" program and a program for sending a tweet were also put online--these also liberated that theme structure from the paired into 52 choices structure for those wanting this flexibility. 
As May started we put online two structures that Wikipedia fans should especially like: 1) an  update (based on version 5 themes) )to the old wiki Worldview Themes structure for characterizing worldviews --it now includes links to roughly 1000 Wikipedia articles;  2) an alternate 52 choices structure built on those roughly 1000 Wikipedia articles: wiki Worldview Theme Choices. 

2023  January saw hundreds of copies of Choices We Make in the Global Village, Coming of Age in the Global Village, and the Choices We Make booklet were mailed to libraries across the USA. In late November the version 5.0 theme structure morphed into version 5.01 with a reworking of theme #9B. 




Project Worldview Mission Statement
We are a non-profit, non-sectarian, educational corporation devoted to encouraging people to examine—and better understand—- what’s behind their beliefs, values and behavior, and make sense out of  "the confusion of existence." We provide a framework, methodology, tools, books and educational media to aid this effort.  In doing this, we strive, where possible, to show respect for a wide range of (sometimes contradictory) beliefs, values and behaviors, and abide by a "Neutrality Pledge" that contains a "we won't force our beliefs on you” promise. This pledge is qualified by a commitment to expose / call out lies and misinformation.  Embracing global education, which focuses on whole systems and emphasizes the interconnections and interdependencies that narrower educational approaches often ignore, we recognize that humans are thinking / feeling / joining / doing creatures. Accordingly, while offering a free inquiry based systematic approach to individual worldview development, we also encourage people to better understand themselves and others by exploring the feelings behind worldviews.  And, where conflict exists, to similarly approach the search for common ground and conflict resolution by examining the underlying conflicting worldviews. Finally, we wish to humbly express the hope that all people come to have healthy worldviews and make good choices: ones that bring happiness and promote planetary well-being. 

Dedication
  To honor both her important early contribution to project Worldview and her life work promoting global citizenship, systems thinking and building the sustainability movement...
                   This website is dedicated to the memory of Donella Meadows. 
Unfortunately by the time project Worldview was formally launched at the end of 2006,  this pioneering environmental scientist, longtime Dartmouth College professor, and 1994 MacArthur Prize winner, was no longer around, having suddenly died in 2001.   Click above and/or here to read more about her...

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