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What can crack cement? A vision and a root.
SAN FRANCISCO STUDENTS DEDICATE A LIVING LIBRARY,
VISIONARY PROJECT IN EXCELSIOR DISTRICT
Mayor's Office Grants $30,000 for Future
Expansion
Hundreds of Students, Teachers and Community
Leaders Will Gather to Celebrate the Living Library Streetscape
Transformation, Artwalk, Garden & Think Park linking three
adjacent San Francisco public schools on
Friday, April 20th @ 10.45 AM at James Denman Middle-School.
241 ONEIDA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO
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What: Bonnie Sherk, working with
students, teachers and staff at San Francisco schools, is breaking
all the current entrenched ideas about how we learn, in a project,
nationally recognized by the Smithsonian and the Arts & Healing
Network. Three Excelsior/Outer Mission schools - Balboa High
School, James Denman Middle School and the San Miguel Child Development
Center are crowded with students struggling with academics. The
Living Library has been a significant vehicle for teaching
math, science, language, history, art technology and community building.
The integrated learning investigation of the site a few blocks from
a freeway overpass, lead the students to find the riverbed that
shapes the land under the clamp of tarmac. Drills, shovels, maps,
seeds, art and technology are tools used for this innovative urban
transformation and educational revitalization.
The Living Library frames the world around us. The project
offers the students opportunities for transforming their environment.
Richard Madison, a 7th grade student proclaims " The Living
Library is a place where I can learn and relax at the same
time." Former S.F. School Superintendent Linda Davis supported
the Living Library because it is " an opportunity for students
to engage in active learning by taking an ecological setting and
integrating it into the curriculum, motivating them to higher
levels of academic achievement."
Bonnie Sherk has a successful history of transforming physically/visually
dead spaces into animated environments. She is praised as the
founder of The Farm in 1974, a significant community environmental
and arts center adjacent to the Army Street Interchange, and continues
her work as an environmental architect, artist and educator. The
OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park is the result
of three years of work by Life Frames, Inc. a non-profit
directed by Bonnie Sherk. A Living Library proves that
a school in a bleak urban setting can accomplish a transformation
of place and spirit.
MEDIA VISUALS, Brooks and Children, Art, Flowers, Vegetables,
Orchard & Native Trees. The pride of the students' accomplishments
will be shared by Community Leaders. Expect a public celebration,
a classroom in a garden, song and dance, and a few surprises.
Come see a Before and After Miracle.
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