6 Friends and World Council of Elders

Introducing 6-Friends

World Council of Elders Joins With 6-Friends

The 6 Friends organization has a mission to establish enduring relationships between people usually separated by distance and culture. We build Villages that are each comprised of 6 communities, one from each of the 6 populated continents. We connect these communities by first connecting the children. We connect the children by connecting their schools and providing opportunities for collaborative exercises between classes and information sharing about their different cultures. 6 Friends has partnered with the International Montessori Council and the Montessori Foundation to include their school in our program, allowing the students to have friends from all over the world.

Our next step for establishing enduring relationships between the communities in a Village is to connect the Elders within those communities and then to link the Elders with the children to share information across the generations. 6 Friends is proud to announce that we have engaged in a partnership with the World Council of Elders as our first Elders program. The World Council of Elders, Inc. is a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to preserving, sharing and integrating traditional indigenous wisdom with modern cultures toward worldwide healing, peace and sustainable living for future generations. They were incorporated in February 2000, based in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Since its inception, the WCOE has sponsored at least eighteen international Elders’ gatherings for healing ceremonies and sharing sacred teachings in more than a dozen nations throughout the world. WCOE programs have taken place from Canada and the United States in North America to several countries in Central and South America, and in Australia. To date, well over 70 Elders from dozens of indigenous cultures all over the world have been involved with these gatherings and other WCOE educational programs.

Elders have come together from cultures as diverse as the Inuit of the extreme north, the Maya of the mountains of Central America, the Witoto of the Amazonian rainforests, the Quechua of the high Andes, the Lakota of the plains and the Ojibway of the woodlands of North America and the aboriginal stewards of the lands of Australia. In addition, through WCOE’s events, more than 700 members of the public have had direct experience working with and learning from these humble healers and teachers.

Our plans at 6 Friends are to connect members of the WCOE with the children and share their knowledge, to reconnect with and restore the rhythms of the natural environment, and to reawaken and remember our own inner knowing that truly, “we are all related.” We truly believe that this unique opportunity will bring value to all of our lives. If you have not yet done so, please join with us at 6 Friends as we work to bring the world together, one Village at a time.

Introducing 6-Friends

An Exciting New World-Wide Program Designed to Teach Peace and Encourage Global Understanding, Compassion, and Leadership Skills Among Children Around the World

We are very pleased to announce a new partnership that has been established between the Montessori Foundation and the International Montessori Council with a new world-wide educational program called 6 Friends.

The 6 Friends organization was formed to promote global peace and understanding by connecting geographically diverse communities and offering opportunities for mutual learning, projects to help those in need, and promoting global citizenship and environmental responsibility.

6 Friends has found a natural ally in the Montessori schools around the world. They have been the first to join our programs and are some of the most active participants once they are involved.

Maria Montessoriís recognition of the basic goodness of humanity and our innate potential as individual human beings can be readily seen in children all over the world. It can be seen in their passion for collaborative activities in which they take responsibility for planning, implementation, and sharing their discoveries or new found skills with one another. Their natural learning potential is borne out in their thrill of discovery and desire to constantly learn more.

There is a natural fit between the Montessori community and the 6 Friends organization.

The Montessori Foundation, and the International Montessori Council which evolved from its work, were formed to build bridges of peace, understanding, and cooperation among all members of the Montessori community. They foster excellence in Montessori education, encouraging fellowship collaboration, and innovation among Montessori schools around the world. Through their new Center for Partnership Education, they also reach out beyond the Montessori Community

Like Montessori, 6 Friends recognizes that people in distant countries with very different societies rarely know much about one another; however, the more that they begin to understand each other, the more they appreciate their common values.

Like Montessori, 6 Friends operates on the principle that when people know each other as individuals, their differences are no longer a reason for misunderstanding and conflict, but are embraced and celebrated. When they are provided with the proper tools and opportunities, people raised in this way will naturally come together as global citizens to address the problems of poverty, disease, lack of freedom and unequal development.

This shared vision prompted the Montessori Foundation, the International Montessori Council, and the 6 Friends organization to decide to work together to help each other achieve their missions.

6 Friends will give priority to any schools affiliated with the International Montessori Council to join our program, ensuring that each Montessori school has the opportunity to connect with other Montessori schools around the world and work on shared learning exercises.

The Montessori Foundation and International Montessori Council will provide Montessori-specific curriculum for both Montessori and non-Montessori schools, ensuring that the teaching methods enjoyed by the Montessori schools can now be shared in an international setting.

The non-Montessori schools in the program will have the opportunity to learn more about the Montessori approach to learning and work on some Montessori-oriented projects. This is a wonderful opportunity to spread the word about Montessori!

International Childrenís Peace Villages: In addition, the Foundation and International Montessori Council will work with the Montessori schools who participate in 6-Friends to support the Village mentors and classroom guides, and to organize programs by which the children can come together as they become old enough to travel overseas to participate in International Childrenís Peace Villages with their fellow student friends and other villages from around the world. Here they will learn peace making skills, meet outstanding peacemakers from around the world, explore themes and potential joint initiatives to be carried out by villages working together in the year ahead, and strengthen their sense of global understanding, the great universal values (such as compassion, nonviolence, courage, and nonviolence), and service to the world. This is a vision that was Dr. Montessori fervent dream in her later years, and has been one of the Montessori Foundationís program goals since we were founded in 1992.

Cost

There is no cost to be part of this program. If your school is interested in joining our program, please contact info@6-friends.org and let us know of your interest. Please include the name and location of your school, name of person to contact, email address and phone number.

Donations

6 Friends and the Montessori Foundationís 6-Friends/International Childrenís Peace Village Project depend on grants and donations to fund its programs. Both organizations are US registered 501(c)3 non-profit organizations and all donations are fully tax deductible in the United States. Rotary Clubs International around the world have begun to respond to 6-friends with great enthusiasm. If you belong to a Rotary Club that would be interested in sponsoring a village, please let us know.

Donations to the 6-Friends Organization can be made by checks, money, or credit card to 6 Friends, P.O. Box 132, Larkspur, CO 80118 USA 303-681-2464

Donations to the Montessori Foundation can be made on line at www.montessori.org or by sending your donation to
The Montessori Foundation
6-Friends/International Children's
Peace Village Project
2400 Miguel Bay Drive
PO Box 130
Terra Ceia Island, FL 34250-0130


Please include your name, email address and any comments with your donation.

So what happens when a Montessori school joins the 6 Friends program?

The 6 Friends program starts by connecting diverse communities, one from each of the six populated continents, into a Village. First, the schools from the communities are connected. The students and teachers get to know their partner communities by working on common projects that concentrate on realizing and embracing differences between the various communities. They identify special needs of one of their member communities and work together to address those needs while the children learn together, building lifelong friendships.

6 Friends offers both structured and informal learning opportunities to Village students. Collaborative and interactive activities bring together students from diverse backgrounds to solve common problems, facilitating learning about local and global issues. 6 Friends learning opportunities are:

Collaborative, enabling Citizens in a 6 Friends Village to work together across geographical and cultural boundaries

Interactive, making use of the Internet to connect people and projects

Focused on the environment, at both the local and global levels, and dedicated to promoting awareness of environmentally sustainable practices

6 Friends is currently offering structured learning programs in three topical areas

• Global Citizenship

• Interrelationship of All Life on Earth

• Environmental Processes

6 Friends facilitates collaboration through its state-of-the-art Intranet using the latest collaborative tools called 6 Friends ShareNet.

6 Friends ShareNet allows our Global Citizens to create and share information and work together on projects regardless of geographic location.

6 Friends ShareNet is a network of web pages: the basic structure provides for a Village website, 6 Community websites, school websites, senior centers and other Community organizations. Additionally, every student has his own website.

Unlike most web creation tools, everyone can develop web-based materials in 6 Friends ShareNet using fully-illustrated user guides. With a few simple mouse clicks in ShareNet, it is easy to create document libraries, picture libraries, discussion boards, community calendars, lists and many other information-sharing web page components. Actual school and class homepage are shown below.

School Home Page

Class Home Page

What does a learning project between two different schools look like?

Some of our Villages are working on the Council of All Beings project. Each student selects a living Being and investigates that living Being by looking at the world from the perspective of the Being they selected.

They explore the answers to questions familiar to any Montessori student: What are the needs of your Being? What other Beings are key to its survival? In this example, the Being selected was a thrush and each student investigated the thrush from his local area.

• The students collaborate and fill in key information for their Being (movement, respiration,shelter, food, etc.).

• Over time, the students in each Village build a complete ecosystem centered on their school and expand outward. This approach builds an appreciation for how all Beings are interconnected and interdependent. While Beings vary slightly around the world, they are similar in more ways than they are different.

• This ecosystem sets the stage for follow-up studies. For example, one class is studying the impact of pesticides on school yard lawns. The impact of less bugs can be traced directly to an effect on birds and other related living Beings.

• In this example, students used ShareNet discussions boards, picture libraries, characteristic lists and lists of links to build this web-based project.
  

A partnership between the International Montessori Council and 6 Friends makes a lot of sense. Together we can strengthen each other, be more effective, and reach out to more children, teaching them the world is one of inclusion, not separation.

If your school is interested in joining our program, please contact info@6-friends.org and let us know of your interest. Again, there is no cost to be part of this program. Please include the name and location of your school, name of person to contact, email address and phone number.

We will immediately get back to you with an information packet that will get you started on this exciting adventure! Together, we will build a global community one Village at a time.