Friday. April it. um i. . 340, the usual supply of emergency ad- dresses and telephone numbers and one week. The class split into small groups to travel beyond Houston, some taking a week to get to Mexico City and some going directly. Several students hitch hiked, and the rest took buses. Students such as myself who rode in buses be came well impressed with the necessity of learning Spanish for efficient sur- vival in Mexico. Crossing the border on foot with backpacks and then getting proper bus connections to Mexico City required some fancy dictionary-page flipping for “nnn»Spanish speakers" such as myself. illliiiilliiiililliiillliiilllliiilliilillllllllllllillillilllillillliiiIllliiilliiiilllliiilllliilliliillliiill Everyone I: oq uaf lillllllilllllllllllllilllllllllliillllllllllilllllllillllillllllillllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllililllilli The concept of each roll class as I community is strongly stressed, This is not only an efficient necessity since each class is independent of other classes, truly living as an independent unit for four years, but it is a mnnue mental learning experience of itself. How can one expect to work toward a world community until one has learned to truly act out of love towards one’s neighbor? As much as possible in a given cultural context, our class at- tempts to regulate itself as a social entity. We've spent more time in "com- munity meetings" than in any other collective activity. For many this has been the most significant experience thus far. Following someone else's rules without considering their foundations is the easy way out A FWi community meeting is carried out “after the man- ner of Friends." Every one is equal; everyone has a voice The issue is dis— cussed. REALLY discussed. until the “sense" of the meeting is achieved. True communication is almost like magic it eliminates the need for ever voting on an issue. After honest dis- cussion the decision, if one is required, is obvious to everyone. Someone may well disagree with a decision arrived at in a meeting but they'll recognize through the discussion why their opinion cannot and should not he accepted by the rest oi the meeting. Needless to say, these meetings are often long and difficult, but they're rewarding. After leaving Cuernavaca in the next few days my class will divide into two separate groups, going to two different Imali and relatively obscure Mexican villages We will assist with work pr0< )ects already begun in these villages under local leadership. in the case of my village, this will mean building a road which means carrying crushed rock from a nearby quarry and spread- ing it on the roadbed. My village will 'iho Gtinmii REPORTER have no electricity, 3 minimum of water, and a population of about 1.500, the majority of whom have never been exposed to North Americans in any form. We'll be living in adobe huts and cooking our own meals.'For six weeks we’ll have direct and inescapable ex- posure to the subsistence level of living shared by twothirds of the population at the world. We will be teaching classes of art and English in the local school and, in general, having an experience not unlike the Peace Corp. Because my special interest is in photography I look forward to this village experience as a unique change to intimately portray in photographs as much as possible, the essence of peasant culture in Mexico. IiiHIIIHlllliliillllililliiiilliliillliiiillliilllliiilllliilillltiilllliiilllliilllliiillliiillliiilllliillti Camping In New Hampshire IllillllliilllililllliilllliilllliiIllliiiilllliilllliilllliilllllillllliillllliIlllliiIilliiIlllliiillliillliii During the first semester at FWI my class spent a week camping out in New Hampshire just when the leaves were turning. This was a quiet and beautiful trip as well as an educational one; it culminated a series of seminars back at Mitchel Gardens on Man and Nature and intelligent useol natural resources. on this “New England Study Trip" we camped near an experimental forestry station and attended seminars concerned specifically with forestry conservation, This was a restful time with lots of copies of Walden available, singing around the fire at night and lots of free time for individual meditation. It was an experience on many levels; I watched beavers working on a dam and learned how to prune a tree; i learned how valuable beavers are and the ne- cessity uf pruning for proper forest con- servation and most important or all, 1 learned that forest production over most of the world could be doubled and consistent production in the future guaranteed by the mere application of already understood techniques of forest- ry conservation. We run into that kind of thing quite often at FWl, an aware ness that in any number of contexts the sacrifice of an extra bit of effort combined with a proper bit of knowl- edge can provide ior the future welfare of mankind rather than lGNORiNG it. perhaps atter four years at FWI all that l'll really be aware of for sure is that two thirds of the population of the world is barely surviving from one day to the next simply because of hunger, and disease, while the other third of the world has the means of both helping to correct this situation and of literally destroying the whole world. But of course. , .everyone knows that. . . . in its upplied philosophy of A COMMUN- ITY MEETING or swarms AND FACULTY during the school's visit to Florida. Friends World insti. into, it n i i it e Grinnell, makes a serious at- tempt to cre- ate a real com- munity or all ihose arsoeiai. ed with the fell-col: rocial "reguidii o n r“ a i. d academic planning at. considered to be vital com- munity con- cerns. Photo by John Phillips education, however, FW! makes an in- teresting distinction between knowledge and awareness; KNOWLEDGE is what you have when you’ve mastered facts and theories while AWARENESS is what has happened when an individual is somehow motivated to act on his knowl- edge in a rational and human way. Awareness has an extra and almost mysterious element: you might call it emotion, or even love. i . FWI is dedicated, as an educational institution, to the increased awareness of its stu- dents to the very real problems which presently face mankind. At the same time, FWI hopes that its students will become motivated to achieve in what- ever way they are able, the hard facts required for the execution of the spe- cific discipline through which they want to express their “awareness." This is openly recognized as one of HIV: major problems at present. While the “freedom” from requirements is con- sidered a necessity for a student's growth to be correctly motivated and for him to learn to TRULY think for himself= this freedom demand: of the “l ' Page Fiv: student the maturity to develop self» discipline with regard to his field of special interest. in light of this lt’o anticipated that a more formal education may often follow the FWI experience The beauty of this, however, is thai such graduate study will be geared to specific ends and motivated by individ- ualistic and humanistic ideals rathel than being executed out of habit as an aimless extentlon of a formalized under- graduate patiern which has often been motivated by little more than a desire to achieve an arbitrary social antler financial status defined by parents and contemporaries FWI believes that one. takes a real chance to promise himself ihat he will act on his knowledge in a truly constructive and unselfish way after receiving a formalized education, Uninvolvement is a difficult habit to shake. In the words of director, More rls Mitchell, FWI is a school designed to produce “agents of social change" and in the process teach the "joy of purpose.” The JOY of purpose. If you can give someone these sorts of oriem tation then formal. traditional education will become a means to specific ends and not a "necessary evil" or even worse, an end in itself. The problems that our generation faces, if it once face them, are war, race prejudice, waste of natural resources, hunger. housing, education, population explo- sion, pollution of air and water, poverty amidst affluence and in general, a dis- astmus intolerance of and insensitivity to both local and foreign cultural pat- terns which in any way deviate from the familiar. These problems are the subject matter of FWI. The fact that students in general in the United States have one of the softest and least influen- tial voices of any student group in the entire world is frightening testimony to the apathetic and often times down- right selfish attitude that American ed- ucation is giving to its products. Ever increasing affluence in the US. is used as a sort of perverted excuse for ever escalating greed rather than being taken as a responsibility and opportunity for the furthering of the humanity of men everywhere Whatever disadvantages its approach may involve FWI hopes to avoid this trend and give to its stu- dents an awareness at the truly cone structive potential of both wealth and knowledge. AN OUTDOOR DARKROOM IN CUERNAVACA, MEXICO — [L in R) John Phillips, Laura Jones and Stove Rait, all iiudsnts at FWI. A basic educational in of of ille school it in develop individual talents and ofentiai creativitios of each student in I way that best suit! him. Phii~ ipl lo. been working in photography and creative writing so well al regular curriculum rtodien iii . are no "grader" given to student. or ill- , school. - ' ’