|
 Back to map
Los Angeles, California
Full-Circle Learning Alumni Club
Students in Los Angeles honored their Kenyan
learning partners by turning their letters about
the Masai wedding ceremony into a choreographed
script. They sang, danced and performed
to share the wisdom of their Kenyan friends.
They were invited to perform at the International
Festival at McKinley School in Santa Monica,
California.
They used the beautifully carved gourds sent to
them by the Kivaa School students in their performance.
The Alumni Club also sent back a challenge to
their Kenyan friends to build a harmony house
of environmentally friendly materials, to house
museum exhibits, storytelling activities
or other forms of learning relevant to their own
community.
To compare notes, they shared the materials they
had used for their own portable harmony house
(burlap sandbags used in Southern Californias
flood zones).
In another project, the students studied the impact
of moderation on the interactions of human
beings, on personal development, on the environment
and on life in the city. They conducted their
study at a retreat in Big Bear. The project included
studies of the relationship of the bark beetle
and global warming, the nature of forest service
burn policies, discussion of indigenous people and
their views on moderation, and an evening of role
plays and drama. The highlights also included
moderation problem solving by 1) team cooking,
2) team canoeing, and 3) hiking to a polluted
mountain lake. The students created an informative
book for their global partners in Kenya with
blank pages for comparing local practices and
creating a transcontinental study on the impact of
the human quality of moderation on local communities
and habitats.
One alumni, Melissa Douglas, illustrated a book
for use in preschool programs around the world,
to help children learn the connection
between aspiration and learning. She was one of
several Full-Circle Learning students to offer their
skills in visual arts to help beginning readers
learn to read and to serve.
Efforts are now underway to start a charter school,
based on the requests of the alumni club parents.
These founding families are assisting in the effort
to help other families benefit from a full-day
school that will offer integrated education, with
each class linked to a global learning partner in
another country. The school, if it achieves its goal,
will open in 2007 serving K-5 students and will
add a grade level each year to become a K-8
school. Grants have been pledged for the Full-
Circle Learning Academy once the petition is
approved.
Click here to return to the map of FCL sites.
| 
