A Bahá'í Perspective: Sherlock Graham-Haynes

Sherlock grew up in Jaimaca and graduated from Williams College with a BA im Moral Philosophy and he got his Masters Degree in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard. He has developed a program called href="http://www.slideshare.net/miles_lane/the-rose-garden-forum-and-the-five-shifts-the-work-of-sherlock-grahamhaynes"Rose Garden Forum. The Rose Garden Forum was initially designed as an education and community development program to close the academic achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in US high schools. It accomplished this by addressing the root causes of this gap, namely by working to bridge the more fundamental ldquo;gapsrdquo; between students of different ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds, between teachers, parents and students, and between schools and communities. The Rose Garden Forum intentionally brings together diverse groups of students, later joined by parents, teachers, school administrators and community members, for guided conversations to establish a new paradigm of communication. The Forum creates a ldquo;safe spacerdquo; in which participants develop relationships that transcend race and class. Participants experience what it means to be ldquo;seenrdquo;, to be ldquo;held-wellrdquo; and to be ldquo;met,rdquo; possibly for the first time. Building on the foundation of this experience, the Forum then guides participants to co-create solutions to the challenges they face in their school community. The Forum helps schools foster a climate in which excellence in character, caring and academic achievement is encouraged through a variety of means. We talk about the Rose Garden Forum in the interview.