Gateway Middle School welcomes Global Lives Project for a video exhibition created to foster cross-cultural understanding from Tuesday, April 15th to Friday, April 18th. Gateway Middle School students invite all community members for a public showing Tuesday, April 15th, from 3:30-5PM in the school Cafetorium at 1512 Golden Gate Avenue.
Global Lives Project is a video library of life experience, designed to cultivate empathy across cultures. The team curates an ever-expanding collection of films that faithfully capture 24 continuous hours in the lives of individuals from around the world. Global Lives will install eight 42-inch video screens that will play these films throughout the day for students at Gateway Middle School and Creative Arts Charter School.
“I visited the exhibit earlier this year and found it astonishing,” said Michael Bell, a Gateway Middle School Humanities Teacher and conduit between Global Lives Project and Gateway students. “Viewing other’s lives can bring different ideas, languages, cultures, and ways of understanding the world into focus. When I shared the experience with my advisory students, they picked up the ball and ran with it. The exhibition and the students' commitment to it speak to their growing awareness as citizens of the world and the responsibility they have toward their neighbors. It’s a terrifically good group of kids.”
Eighth grade students at Gateway Middle School are required to fulfill a community service unit within the curriculum. For the Global Lives Project, they split into three committees: fundraising, outreach, and planning. Besides the initial connection made between Michael Bell and David Harris, the Founder and Executive Director of Global Lives, the students remain solely responsible for the outcome of the exhibition.
“We are inviting Gateway High Schoolers and community members to the event on Tuesday to get the word out about this terrific learning opportunity,” said Kayne and Tommye, members of the outreach committee. “This is one of the first times we have had an event at Gateway Middle School that was appropriate for our larger community members to come to, and we think it will be a great one.
About Gateway Public Schools: Gateway Public Schools’ mission is to prepare a broad range of learners for success in college and beyond. As a model, public charter school organization, Gateway Public Schools is committed to serving a student body that reflects the diversity of San Francisco including a special emphasis on students with diagnosed learning disabilities, and helping each and every one of our students get into college and thrive.
Gateway Public Schools believes that all students are capable of learning at high levels when schools pair high expectations and a school-wide understanding that students learn differently. Gateway combines a rigorous academic program with an approach where the individual talents, strengths, and needs of learners are identified and supported.