Often the most challenging parts of our Learning Journey takes place after we have returned home to our loved ones. This is especially true after a trip like the one we just took to India. The span of the journey was just two short weeks but in that time so many new experiences cascaded around us and touched us sometimes in unexpected ways.

Interview with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

Our journey was one of extreme contrasts that often followed one right after another: In one moment we were navigating the crowded markets of Chandi Chowk in Old Delhi where humanity presses up against you in a chaotic dance of life. In the next we stood in the spacious grand elegance of the American Embassy compound near the wide grassy boulevards of Shati Path. Touching the outstretched hand of an impoverish child reaching for coins gave way in just minutes to dignified Member of Parliament with palms pressed together in front of his heart in a traditional Indian greeting. We traveled crowded two lane highways where head-on confrontations with mammoth trucks and busses were common.

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Interview in Dharamsala by Tim Shields

“You don’t teach curiosity, but you create the context in which it’s important to show up. Because staying curious is the best way to learn, it’s the best way for self-development, and curiosity is connected with compassion. When you judge people there’s no compassion in it, but when you’re curious about people there’s a possibility of understanding who they are.”

 – Ward Malliard

A few days ago I was privileged enough to tag along with Malliard and his senior high school class from Mount Madonna School in Santa Cruz, California, a class of just 15 students. Over the course of his career in teaching, Malliard’s students have interviewed leading global thinkers and world leaders across several continents, and during this trip alone, his class has interviewed Timothy Roemer, U.S. Ambassador to India, Mani Shankar Aiyar, a member of the upper house of parliament, Samdong Rinpoche, the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in Exile, Rinchen Kandho, head of the Tibetan Nuns Project, and His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama. His students were poised, intelligent, and mature, while at the same time they managed to retain the youth and innocence of adolescence.

As the son of United States Congressman, he “went over the wall,” as he says, but never strayed too far from his upbringing. He is driven by political awareness and social service, yet at the root of it all is his desire to do good in the world and “to be on a journey that I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”

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Ward Mailliard Program Leader

On Saturday April 16th at 6:30am, a plane will lift off from San Francisco International Airport carrying fifteen students from Mount Madonna School (MMS). The students will be on their way to meet a connecting flight in Chicago to take them half way around the world to New Delhi, India.

This departure will mark the beginning a journey of a lifetime. For each student it will be a significant outer journey to another culture, where they will experience a civilization that is far older and significantly different in almost every way from what they know: different in language, history, values, food, religion and social customs. At the same time, it will be a unique inner journey for each student to discover something about themselves as they engage in the many unique experiences of the journey.

The trip, known as the Vidya Dharma (Path of Knowledge) Project, is part of the School’s two-year “Values in World Thought” program, an innovative high school social studies curriculum developed by faculty member and trip leader Ward Mailliard. In Delhi, the students will be meeting with U.S. Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, and a member of the Lok Sabha (Upper House of Parliament). Later they will be meeting with the students of the Heritage School in Gurgaon.

Next, the Mount Madonna students will board a train for the city of Haridwar and spend several days meeting and learning with the children at the Sri Ram Orphanage and school. Their itinerary also includes a train ride to Amritsar to visit the famed Golden Temple, and the infamous site of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre during the British Raj. From there they will make the climb by jeep to Dharamsala in the Himalayan foothills, home to the Tibetan community in exile. The students will visit the Tibetan Children’s Village School and speak with His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama.

It is impossible to predict what each student will learn on this journey, but it is a surety that they will learn more about themselves and about another culture in the two weeks of this trip than they ever could from years in the classroom. This journey is part of a continuing experiment in what can happen when we create open context for learning, in which the student simply learns what they are ready to learn.

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Program Leader Ward Mailliard was recently interviewed by Mary Claybon at BlogTalkRadio.com, click here for the full interview.

Chautauqua 2010

Thanks to everyone who attended our Sixth Annual Chautauqua. It was the most successful yet. Our purposes for the Chautauqua, which we hold at Mount Madonna each year are to engage in meaningful conversation about our own learning and to discover experience new ways of transforming our work in education. This year we used the three phases of the “learning journey” which are, the “call” the “journey” and the “return” to set context for our discussions. We also conducted the gathering with the intention of bringing art and music more to the center of the learning process. With group facilitation from Peter Block and Vivian Wright, artistic facilitation from Mary Corrigan, Mariah Howard and Avril Orloff and Musical facilitation by Barbara McAfee and Michael Jones and Bob Caplan we accomplished our goals.

Click here to visit the Mount Madonna Chautauqua website.