Our Story
Tracing the beginnings… present… and future vision of Circle Ways.
Circle Ways is a movement: of educators, students, families and leaders who envision a world where conflict is replaced by cooperation.
Circle Ways are also practices: empowering everyone with the courage to face one another, open to one another’s lived experience, and generate collective wisdom to address the multiple crises that face humanity.
One circle at a time: we are making a world of empathic care.
Join us.
The story of circle Ways…
While circle practices are pan-cultural and have existed since the beginning of human history, we trace our beginnings to one classroom in 1986 when Joe started using circles to teach poetry to his middle school students. The movement toward what we are now began in 1992 with the acquittals of the officers involved in the Rodney King beating and of the shop owner who killed Latasha Harlans. The reaction to these events in Los Angeles shifted the atmosphere in area schools. Diverse campuses, like Palms Middle School, saw a return to student-initiated racial and cultural segregation. Assistant Principal at that time, Lana Brody, seeing a deterioration in the usually buoyant relational field at the school, took this concern to a Council circle for school administrators called New Visions for Educators.
These circumstances prompted two of the participants in that circle, Jack Zimmerman of the Ojai Foundation (now the Topa Institute) and co-author of The Way of Council and Paul Cummins, founder of Crossroads School in Santa Monica, where Council had been a staple of their Human Development Department, to replicate the Crossroads program at Palms.
palms middle school and rippling outwards
The following year, with funding support from the Herb Alpert Foundation, facilitators along with teachers received training from the Ojai Foundation and began to offer circles in all 6th grade classes with volunteers co-facilitating with teachers. In 93-94, the program expanded to include the 8th grade as well, and by 1997, every student, over 2000 at the time, participated in one of one hundred weekly circles. The program was recognized by the the California State Department of Education Auditors and by the Clinton Administration’s “Initiative on Race.”
Nearly 100 adults, professionals and service providers participated in a two-year internship at Palms to learn how to facilitate circles with children. Many of the people who honed their craft during that time have remained on our team today. School administrators, leaders from emerging democracies in Eastern Europe (through the American Jewish Committee), and others came to witness the program. Program coordinators soon began to give presentations about the Palms model as a “violence prevention” program. In 1996, the program received the first institutional award given by the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission.
lausd
In, 2006, with support from the Herb Alpert Foundation, Joe and Monica Chinlund, PSA, moved into the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to coordinate the Council in Schools office (CIS) within the district's Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and School Support (OCISS). From there, they and other team members trained teachers throughout the district and provided specialized trainings for the Dropout Prevention Program, the Early Childhood Program, the Impact Program (for students at-risk), as well as teachers of students with special needs and second language learners. In 2013, they assisted with the rollout of Restorative Justice districtwide. As many schools did not have set aside times for circles and social-emotional programs, educators were trained to integrate a circle-based pedagogy into all subject area disciplines. The CIS program thrived until the winter of 2013.
deepening learning
In 2016, Circle Ways was established as an LLC and began offering public and school-based trainings in California and internationally in Israel/Palestine, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Belgium, and the UK. Since 2020, we have offered trainings and support for a circle-based pedagogy and restorative practices online to educators around the world. We trained in Restorative Justice with Dr. Lauren Abramson founder of Baltimore's Community Conferencing Center (now Restorative Response Baltimore) and with Dr. Beverly Title author of Teaching Peace.
Connect With Us
We would love to hear from you! Looking for more details and pricing, have questions about our offerings or the process, need referrals to administrators who have sustained the program...or anything else? Contact us.
Email
info@circleways.org
Phone
(310) 502-7214.
