Intensive Learning @ MFS
The World At Your Fingertips
Today we visited the BAPS Mandir in Robbinsville, New Jersey. BAPS is a Hindu religious, humanitarian, cultural, and peace-oriented organization that focuses on humanitarian causes, spirituality, and building strong character. The Mandir, which is a Hindu place of worship, was started in 2005 and will not be finished until 2020. There are 5 different buildings that...
Continue readingWe spent the morning in the library reading an article by Donna Haraway called “Teddy Bear Patriarchy.” This is a sophisticated piece of cultural analysis that looks closely at the messages embedded in the American Museum of Natural History, where we will visit tomorrow. Our conversation as we read took us a number of...
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El 26 de marzo en Holguín, Cuba We started the day off a bit earlier than yesterday, 8am! After, we got all dressed up, and went to María’s church, the one where we are residing. The group sat in the service briefly before dispersing into smaller groups, one with the little kids, and one with...
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Today was awesome! We had a great day, beginning with a nice breakfast around 8:30 and a 45 minute ride on the bus with our driver, Antonio. We arrived at the girls orphanage run by the same organization as the Orfanato de Niños de Cristo which we had visited on Saturday. There are 60...
Continue readingToday was our first day at Pendle Hill. We started by meeting our awesome yoga instructor, Alex, and then practiced our first (very intense) yoga session. After a nutritious lunch, we traveled to Wissahickon Valley Park to experience nature through a very mountainous hike. We picked up some stones to create intention stones later...
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We began the second day of Intensive Learning with a brief recap of Day 1. We discussed the important factors of our first day, and our major takeaways from our trip to the APS. Each student talked briefly about the document or artifact they examined at the library, and we filled in an absent...
Continue readingWords of wisdom for the day delivered by a recipient of food at the Cathedral Food Pantry “Live the Golden Rule. You can say it, but do you live it?”...
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Today was our second day of sewing for babies. We kicked the day off with watching a video about the organization to which we are donating the clothes. After this inspirational video, we returned to the Greenleaf to continue our projects. After a couple of hours, we enjoyed a delicious snack which consisted of...
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The weather this morning did not want to cooperate. Thick fog slowed our journey back to Harriton House. Once back at the forge, we learned the proper way to start a blacksmith fire, complete with acetylene torches. Five fires were blazing by 10 so we spread out and got to work on our projects....
Continue readingWe sat in a lovely room on the second floor surrounded by glass cases filled with Benjamin Franklin’s personal library. Among the documents we examined was this first printing of the Declaration of Independence. We also looked at original copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and John Dickinson’s Letters from an American Farmer. The...
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Today the Asian culture group visited the Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy in Philadelphia. We were first given a quick overview about his group and what Islam is all about. The pastor told us his story about how he crossed over from Christianity to Islam and how he thought they were similar but Islam felt more...
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“Celebrando a los mujeres en su mes” Today we traveled to Southwark Elementary, a bilingual school located in South Philadelphia. When we arrived to Southwark, we split into groups that each worked with students in grades Kindergarten, first, and second. The day was spent reading books and playing games with our new...
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Journey through Morocco Day 5: Salaam alaykum/Bonjour de Morocco! Today was the long haul drive. At first, we took a quick detour to retrieve Mrs. Smith’s long-lost bag from the Fes airport. Mrs. Smith’s elation was enough to sustain the group morale for the whole day. We drove through the Atlas Mountains, during which...
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Today the Design Thinking group was down a member: Andrew Rowan. He will return on Wednesday, though! Yay! After mourning the loss of our award-winning blogger, we spent our morning eating donuts, among other activities. We began our “Spark” with a storytelling exercise, and we soon were placed in our design groups for the...
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We hit the ground running today. We left the hotel and headed towards Kings Palace Gateway and took some jaw dropping photos. Then we were off to a panoramic view of Fes. We learned about the different mosques throughout the city. We also learned Fes is split up into three different sections: New City,...
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