Head of School message on Public Health and SPPS Teacher Strike

for a version of this letter as a PDF, click here

Hello Families of Great River School, 

We enter March 2020 -  and the approach of spring -  and we find ourselves in the midst of a busy news cycle. From public health concerns on COVID-19 and a possible teacher strike at Saint Paul Public Schools, there’s news that brings questions from our families. I’ve placed summaries below for families to keep us all up-to-date on how Great River is planning ahead, and keeping prepared for serving our students and community. Please read below and keep in touch with us if you have questions. 

Possible SPPS Teacher Strike 

What you need to know: Great River plans to hold school as expected through the 2020 school year. A SPPS teacher strike will not change our school calendar. 

You may have heard about the announcement of the Saint Paul Public School (SPPS) teacher strike, possibly taking place on March 10th, 2020. Great River School is an independent school district, our teachers are not a part of the SPPS union, and our district is not a part of the impending strike, negotiation, or solution.  On the second page (attached) I have provided more information and context regarding the possible teacher strike at SPPS, as well as information about our school board and our teachers. Please read on in the attached page if you are interested in more background! 

Public Health Concerns & Coronavirus

What you need to know: We have no recommendations from Minnesota agencies to change our operations  as of 3/1/2020, and we will continue school as normal.

We have received many inquiries from families regarding preparation and planning for public health concerns in the midst of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). We follow national and state agency recommendations, including MN Department of Education.  Great River is planning for many possible scenarios. I’ve included more details attached below. Please always wash your hands often, especially in the winter cold/flu season. Also please keep your student at home if sick -including fever, vomiting/diarrhea, or unexplained rash. We reference common school criteria - see guidance on “when to keep my student home” here from our neighboring district. 

Sam O’Brien
Head of School 

To see the extra details on SPPS Strike and/or COVID-19 preparation, click here, or read below

Saint Paul Public Schools & Teacher Strike 

BackgroundContext & Great River School

Background on the situation at SPPS
Teachers in Saint Paul Public School’s district have a union that has agreed to a strike if demands for increased resources for mental health and teacher compensation are not met by the district. Below, from one news source: 

“Superintendent Joe Gothard said in a statement that the district is offering wage increases in each of the two years of a new contract and investments of more than $1 million in additional student support positions. But he said the district is grappling with declining enrollment and underfunding from state and federal sources.”

Relationship of SPPS  to Great River School

Our school board is independent of SPPS - we are not a part of the Saint Paul Public School district. As an independent charter school, our board is responsible to all the mandates of every public district in MN. Our school board is also responsible for making sure we don’t spend more money than we have as revenue. We get our funding from the state of MN, and unlike SPPS, we have no levies or additional revenue from a local tax base. Great River School is also generally underfunded by state investments, and our costs rise faster year to year than the revenue we get from the state. 

What does this mean for our school & our teachers? 

Great River School faces the same challenges of under-funding that SPPS mentions above. To be clear: our school carries out the programs, the experiential trips, the innovative curriculum, with 86 cents for every 1 dollar that SPPS spends. We prioritize mental health support and interventions for students, and we do everything in our power to make Great River an excellent place to work for our employees. However, low teacher compensation is a result of the systemic underfunding of schools at our state and federal level. Our teachers are exceptionally dedicated, and on average our pay is 20-30% lower than SPPS salaries. Teachers work at GRS because they love the work, the students, and our mission. Our school board wants to increase teacher compensation, however, we lack the necessary funds. We are seeking ways to increase teacher pay, and any meaningful increase for teachers requires a significant increase in revenue. 

How can you help Great River’s Teachers?  

We ask for you - as Great River Families - to: 

• Tell your state representative that all MN students deserve the same funding - and to fund charter districts equally with public districts. Click here to find your state representative’s contact information. 

• Support the school by volunteering for committees, the board, PEG, and the GRS Foundation!

• Tell your loved ones and each other about the importance of becoming sustaining donors to the Annual Fund to support and continue GRS’s pioneering programming http://www.greatriverschool.org/give

Public Health & Coronavirus School response planning

We understand Great River School  families may have questions and concerns regarding the much-publicized global coronavirus outbreak. We are  proactively outlining actions that would be taken in the event of significant student or staff absences during the school year. Our planning is twofold: First, actions to be taken in the case that school is open, and how to address significant student or staff absences. Second, schools in the State could be closed by the Department of Education.  In this case, we will work with the department to address student education needs as well as possible alternatives to the school calendar. 

In any event, parents always retain the right to determine if their child will attend school or not. (If you are curious about law regarding excused absences, see guidances from the MN Dept. of Ed here > click for pdf) 

As we develop plans for Great River School, we will consider the following issues including:

• Reporting of student and staff absences

• Attendance policies, academic credit, and grading considerations

• Flexible learning days

• Co-curricular contests and events

• School cleaning & disinfection protocols

• Prevention strategies and education

• District communication to families (multiple scenario plans) 

In addition, our licensed school nurse continues to meet and work closely with us at school and with public health officials. We reference the Minnesota Department of Health and will follow their recommendations. For more information, visit www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/schools.html

As always, we do ask that if your student stays home until 24 hours after these symptoms have passed: 1. Fever over 100*F; 2. Vomiting and/or Diarrhea; 2.Unexplained or new rash. We reference the same criteria used by Saint Paul Public School district - listed here. (click for link) .

Last, we are passing along guidance from the CDC for parents, families, and schools: 

Need to know links: 

• Need to know about coronavirus(COVID-19)

• What to do if sick with coronavirus (COVID-19)

• Stop the spread of germs 

• CDC Information on COVID-19 and children

Links regarding travel: 

• CDC information for all U.S. school staff, students, and their families who have recently traveled: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel (also will apply to any families *planning* to travel) 

Public Health at Great River School

Dear families, 

Educators across the country, and here at Great River School, are noticing the heightened anxiety in the headlines regarding coronavirus showing up in the lives of kids at school. The increased volume of emails, inquiries, and questions about handshakes prompts us at school to share and declare some specific actions we’re focusing on to keep our physical and mental health in mind. We recognize that some families have concern about our daily ritual of handshakes to start the day, as well as other concerns about public health. We are focusing on keeping calm and being prepared to do our work.  This includes keeping routines at school and keeping focused on what we can influence. Please stay in touch with us if you have questions by emailing office@greatrierschool.org.  Below are resources! 

Thanks all!
Sam O’Brien
Head of School 

Some things to keep in mind as a community amidst real challenges to physical and mental health:

1. Handshakes & Handshake alternatives: 

   1. Elbow-bump! So popular! Eye contact, smile, and tap the elbow to greet or say goodbye!

   2. Thumbs-up! Classic. Don’t want to shake hands? Give a thumbs up and a smile. :-)

2. Focusing on age-appropriate information and best practices. (See NASP recommendations)

3. Sharing resources for you as a family:

• A cartoon in the form of a ‘zine booklet for kids and families (click for link) 

  • https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PYrKYfOBa4p-azI5z_46KJMbi1FSmL_Y/view

• A resource for parents from the National Association of School Psychologists (click for link)

  • https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-climate-safety-and-crisis/health-crisis-resources/talking-to-children-about-covid-19-(coronavirus)-a-parent-resource

• Hand washing reminders for “how to” in these times of attention to sanity and sanitization

  • https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=teaching-kids-to-wash-their-hands-1-972

To be sure, to be sure

Dissecting the flower to make sure it blooms. Or, unwrapping just a few early green sprouts on the maple tree to make sure the leaf is really coming from that verdant little nubbin. Or opening the tomato seed under a magnifying lens to check in on the tomatoes. None of these are good ideas, if we are respecting the process. 

Ok you say, but what about a recipe? How about checking the oven while the cake is baking? Just a few times, perhaps - just to get some assurance we are on track. Annually? Just each spring? Maybe just at the important points when we want to make sure the cake is in line with all the other cakes we read about in that beautiful cookbook of successful cakes? Especially if we want to be conscientious caretakers of the cake we are entrusted with... it would be so nice to get just a measure... to know. 

 It is hard to appreciate the cake and check on it. Specifically, appreciating would be allowing the process of maturity to take place. Any interfering in the process starts to look much more like tinkering or monitoring. I’ve written about this before in past posts, noting the differences in philosophy between formative observations and summarizing tests.

Looking on with gratitude and wonder - or at least observation and understanding-  is the act of appreciating. A monitoring aspect of parenting is so useful when applied to a situation of danger - for setting boundaries and noting what’s safe and where our job is protection. But monitoring children in their test scores often can look, smell, feel and taste a whole lot like tinkering. Control. Needing to know, rather than observing in care and wonder. Sacrificing the flower for dissecting the bud. This kind of monitoring is not useful in the learning process, and we have to take care to know our adult selves before we intervene in a species-successful project of human development.

Child development is something to trust, not to assess. Observe, respect, love, and understand. Notice, yes. Provide care and resources when a child needs, yes. Often, though, adults are intervening before the need is present. It is all too often we look to the test as an indicator of the success of our care for our children, rather than the snapshot it is of how engaged the child was in their experience. This is the real sign of danger.

Yet, here we find ourselves living in a time and place where monitoring & assessing have all been blended up into a recipe that overlaps and often mistakenly includes appreciating, caring and love as the elements of responsible parenting. Most accurately this need for parenting control of our child’s development surely looks like anxiety from us as parents.  Where does that leave us adults in supporting children into their maturity, if we are busy trying to first prevent the discomfort of our own anxiety?

 Montessori education is grounded in the understanding that human development is an inevitable consequence of being alive. Simply by existing as a child - including adult understanding and appreciation of that child - and making our way through time do we earn the right to expect that stages of development will follow. Notice here how I’ve included a few key elements to define being a child: the experience includes “adult understanding and appreciation”. Unfolding and unveiling will reveal a process over time where every gift that an individual has to offer will  bloom into plain view for all to appreciate.

And this comes into full, head-on, oppositional tension with the world of academics and MCA tests that we operate within in the public school system.

Now, it’s difficult - in the  moments of utter adult frustration and impatience - when we find ourselves demanding some answers, landmarks and assurances on the path to being “OK“.   Specifically, this often happens for me at bedtime. Or when we have to get out of the house to be somewhere on time. Or when I’m concerned that perhaps my child will not be prepared when it’s time for them to meet a real world test of readiness.  

And I note that each of these situations has to do with the realm of time and the test of my own belief in the process of whether or not I can trust that all will be well for my child in due time. Time!

I’ve written several times about MCA tests, and talked throughout my career with parents regarding whether or not standard assessments are appropriate for elementary or junior-high aged students.

Great River School hosts parent education evenings to discuss (and present some learning on) what is it that we can do at home as families and parents to create an environment in which the assessing and testing orientation of our culture does not interrupt the developmental process of our kids. We know that a home in which children think of themselves as learners, as problem-solvers, and as capable people are homes that are doing everything necessary to prepare their students to be successful adults. Benchmarks on knowledge and skills are not useful indicators at age 7 or 9 or even 12  for what the child will be capable of as an adult at age 25 or 35 or 40.

Whether or not that child has a mindset and understanding of them self as a learner and capable problem solver is a much more reliable indicator.

So, Families and parents, be well in these winter days of March - And do let us know if you have specific questions that we as a school can answer with resources and experience that we have the joy and honor of sharing with your children at Great River.

A Tracey K. Smith Poem on growing up. Spring Arriving Slowly, looking toward the end of the year - summer and beyond

Hello Great River Community ~

The month of May is upon us! While spring slowly arrives, we watch the snow thaw from April, and see our garden seeds sprout bravely into the cool mornings. We also see our students growing into their new year - as it seems that student growth spurts and emotional leaps forward often coincide with spring weather.

Our own school has undergone quite a period of growth these past two spring-times and we are also coming into a new awareness of our selves in our building, and in our fully realized arrangement of a first through twelfth grade institution. If you haven’t yet, please give us feedback on our family survey! (click to link) This survey is key in telling our school board how the school is doing well, and how we can better build community, meet student needs, and serve our mission. Thanks for giving us the time and feedback.

Also, our Parent Engagement Group and the School have decided to take a break from the “spring fest” fundraiser of the past several years. We are re-assessing how we can best create community events that are purposeful and inclusive. And I (as Head of School) do look forward to being in a dunk tank again - that was enjoyed by students. :-)

Below, a beautiful poem by Tracy K. Smith on seeing an adolescent move through the transition points of maturing. The move from day to night, through a period of dusk, and all the ways that seeing that transition from the outside can be compelling, unnerving, and invite a parent to consider their own need for reassurance. I think of this poem each spring, as we move through another transition, and often watch our children grow up and out and sideways in means and methods that are outside of our prediction.

Be well to all!

Dusk

BY TRACY K. SMITH

What woke to war in me those years

When my daughter had first grown into

A solid self-centered self? I’d watch her

Sit at the table—well, not quite sit,

More like stand on one leg while

The other knee hovered just over the chair.

She wouldn't lower herself, as if

There might be a fire, or a great black

Blizzard of waves let loose in the kitchen,

And she'd need to make her escape. No,

She'd trust no one but herself, her own

New lean always jittering legs to carry her—

Where exactly? Where would a child go?

To there. There alone. She'd rest one elbow

On the table—the opposite one to the bent leg

Skimming the solid expensive tasteful chair.

And even though we were together, her eyes

Would go half-dome, shades dropped

Like a screen at some cinema the old aren't

Let into. I thought I'd have more time! I thought

My body would have taken longer going

About the inevitable feat of repelling her,

But now, I could see even in what food

She left untouched, food I'd bought and made

And all but ferried to her lips, I could see

How it smacked of all that had grown slack

And loose in me. Her other arm

Would wave the fork around just above

The surface of the plate, casting about

For the least possible morsel, the tiniest

Grain of unseasoned rice. She'd dip

Into the food like one of those shoddy

Metal claws poised over a valley of rubber

Bouncing balls, the kind that lifts nothing

Or next to nothing and drops it in the chute.

The narrow untouched hips. The shoulders

Still so naïve as to stand squared, erect,

Impervious facing the window open

Onto the darkening dusk.

~Tracy K. Smith, "Dusk" from Wade in the Water.  Copyright © 2018 by Tracy K. Smith. Graywolf press

Poem of the Month

This month, a poem to greet spring:

To One Coming North
By Claude McKay

At first you'll joy to see the playful snow, 
  Like white moths trembling on the tropic air, 
Or waters of the hills that softly flow 
  Gracefully falling down a shining stair.
 
And when the fields and streets are covered white 
  And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw, 
Or underneath a spell of heat and light 
  The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,
 
Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song 
  Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry, 
And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong, 
  Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky.
 
But oh! more than the changeless southern isles, 
  When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm, 
You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles 
  By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.

“To One Coming North” from Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay (1922)

How can we be sure?

Dissecting the flower to make sure it blooms. Or, unwrapping just a few early green sprouts on the maple tree to make sure the leaf is really coming from that verdant little nubbin. Or opening the tomato seed under a magnifying lens to check in on the tomatoes. None of these are good ideas, if we are respecting the process. 

Ok you say, but what about a recipe? How about checking the oven while the cake is baking? Just a few times, perhaps - just to get some assurance we are on track. Annually? Just each spring? Maybe just at the important points when we want to make sure the cake is in line with all the other cakes we read about in that beautiful cookbook of successful cakes? Especially if we want to be conscientious caretakers of the cake we are entrusted with... it would be so nice to get just a measure... to know. 

It is hard to appreciate the cake and check on it. Specifically, appreciating would be allowing the process of maturity to take place. Any interfering in the process starts to look much more like tinkering or monitoring. I’ve written about this before in past posts, noting the differences in philosophy between formative observations and summarizing tests.

Looking on with gratitude and wonder - or at least observation and understanding-  is the act of appreciating. A monitoring aspect of parenting is so useful when applied to a situation of danger - for setting boundaries and noting what’s safe and where our job is protection. But monitoring children in their test scores often can look, smell, feel and taste a whole lot like tinkering. Control. Needing to know, rather than observing in care and wonder. Sacrificing the flower for dissecting the bud. This kind of monitoring is not useful in the learning process, and we have to take care to know our adult selves before we intervene in a species-successful project of human development.

Child development is something to trust, not to assess. Observe, respect, love, and understand. Notice, yes. Provide care and resources when a child needs, yes. Often, though, adults are intervening before the need is present. It is all too often we look to the test as an indicator of the success of our care for our children, rather than the snapshot it is of how engaged the child was in their experience. This is the real sign of danger.

Yet, here we find ourselves living in a time and place where monitoring & assessing have all been blended up into a recipe that overlaps and often mistakenly includes appreciating, caring and love as the elements of responsible parenting. Most accurately this need for parenting control of our child’s development surely looks like anxiety from us as parents.  Where does that leave us adults in supporting children into their maturity, if we are busy trying to first prevent the discomfort of our own anxiety?

 Montessori education is grounded in the understanding that human development is an inevitable consequence of being alive. Simply by existing as a child - including adult understanding and appreciation of that child - and making our way through time do we earn the right to expect that stages of development will follow. Notice here how I’ve included a few key elements to define being a child: the experience includes “adult understanding and appreciation”. Unfolding and unveiling will reveal a process over time where every gift that an individual has to offer will  bloom into plain view for all to appreciate.

And this comes into full, head-on, oppositional tension with the world of academics and MCA tests that we operate within in the public school system.

Now, it’s difficult - in the  moments of utter adult frustration and impatience - when we find ourselves demanding some answers, landmarks and assurances on the path to being “OK“.   Specifically, this often happens for me at bedtime. Or when we have to get out of the house to be somewhere on time. Or when I’m concerned that perhaps my child will not be prepared when it’s time for them to meet a real world test of readiness.  

And I note that each of these situations has to do with the realm of time and the test of my own belief in the process of whether or not I can trust that all will be well for my child in due time. Time!

I’ve written several times about MCA tests, and talked throughout my career with parents regarding whether or not standard assessments are appropriate for elementary or junior-high aged students.

Great River School hosts parent education evenings to discuss (and present some learning on) what is it that we can do at home as families and parents to create an environment in which the assessing and testing orientation of our culture does not interrupt the developmental process of our kids. We know that a home in which children think of themselves as learners, as problem-solvers, and as capable people are homes that are doing everything necessary to prepare their students to be successful adults. Benchmarks on knowledge and skills are not useful indicators at age 7 or 9 or even 12  for what the child will be capable of as an adult at age 25 or 35 or 40.

Whether or not that child has a mindset and understanding of them self as a learner and capable problem solver is a much more reliable indicator.

So, Families and parents, be well in these winter days of March - And do let us know if you have specific questions that we as a school can answer with resources and experience that we have the joy and honor of sharing with your children at Great River.

Friendships aren't for trading or comparing - healthy behaviors are habits we carry for life

Hello dear community of families ~

In the midst of these cold days, we are warm with the work of wrapping up the midpoint of our school year. Our first semester comes to a close this week, slightly delayed by the historic 4-day weather closure of local schools. We keep all our families in mind when we make a decision to cancel school, and we have you in our thoughts wishing for safety and security on days as cold as we witnessed.

We are entering a time of year too when we often revisit our social contracts in classrooms and in our community meetings. These agreements are the norms we expect from ourselves and each other. Often these agreements determine how we expect to be treated, and how we commit to treat each other. The foundations of our academic success derive from creating a set of agreements that allow every student at school to know they are necessary in the community, and that they have a duty to uphold the dignity of others.

We know that there are strong correlations between these social contracts and our student outcomes. Students at Great River report higher than average measures of security, support and belonging at Great River as compared to the typical school. (We compare ourselves to other schools using research-based standard measures such as the Olweus survey.) Students answer questions such as “How many adults do you trust?” “How many classmates can you go to with a problem and know that they will help?” “Do you know peers who will intervene if they see bullying?”

We talk often at Great River across the age groups about being an upstander. (The opposite approach of “bystander”.) This “upstander” term is widely used in violence and bully-prevention work internationally. Being an upstander means speaking and acting to stop situations where the social contract is being violated. Respecting self, work, community, and the environment means acting with purpose when someone or some thing is being degraded or treated poorly.

When we look at our school and the data, it’s clear to us that being above average in the categories of belonging, trust, and responsibility are good, but they are just a start. It is our understanding that mean-spirited language will be heard at our school, and it is how we prepare ourselves to act that counts. We prepare to react, to de-escalate, and to speak up. We prepare to speak with respect when we hear disregard. We prepare to speak with love and assertiveness to demand respect.

This is work that is hard, and is not about holding hands with everyone or simply being “friends” with everyone. This is work that must be echoed in the home to resonate - and it requires a simple but diligent attention to how we as adults role model healthy behaviors for our children. Below are links to several documents that we use with our students and families to explain how we begin a practice of healthy behaviors that are signatures of disrupting disrespect.

Expected Healthy Behaviors poster primarily used in elementary programs.

(and a similar poster for 7th&8th year students and families)

These behaviors are indicators of an internal emotional life that tolerates others, that celebrates differences, and that demands that we are not treating our relationships like something to be traded, hoarded, or pressured. It’s important for adults to keep an eye on phrases like “best friend” or any identifying of someone who is “worst” or being excluded. There are ways that we (as adults) can reinforce a vibrant emotional life for our students by encouraging the behaviors of inclusion, of patience, and of good boundaries with our children. These healthy behaviors will pay dividends for them in the long run of life.

Next month: a few stories on how these behaviors are a practice in self-interest, and how these healthy behaviors result in biological longevity, hormone balance, more dynamic adult temperament, and flexibility that will serve our children in their profession and personal lives as adults.

Be well all!
Sam

Great River School - now and into the future!

All families of Great River and to all that care for the young inside these school walls - welcome to 2019!

The gymnasium is finished, and the floor is beautiful. The students enjoying the space, the activity, and the thought of open gym and playing at full heart-rate inside are even more beautiful. We will see the first seasons of Lower Adolescent plays and Adolescent musicals perform in our black box theater upstairs. The first games of basketball, volleyball, and classes in Kali will be experienced in the gym, and the first tasty hot meal is coming out of our kitchen in mid-February. What a sight to behold! And some changes - to names, to approaches, and some reinvestments in our values as a public Montessori learning community.

First, the former early spring “soiree” has changed its name to the “Blue Heron Bash”! Mark your calendars for March 23rd, where the gymnasium will be turned into a festive and fun community building atmosphere that raises funds to support the programs and school that so well serves our children. Parents organizing the event through the Great River Foundation take the lead on the Blue Heron Bash, and are key to the success of our school. Whether you’re a family that has funds to contribute, time to contribute, or struggles with financial resources, please know that all are welcome at the event on March 23rd. Look for opportunities to volunteer and request access tickets in the announcements and emails coming later this month from the Great River Foundation.

I want to thank all the parents who have such dedication, find the time, and volunteer to make these events happen so that teachers and folks like me can focus on supporting kids. This year, Heather Thomas and Kelly Martinson are heading up the Blue Heron Bash. One essential part of the FUNdraising effort is Great Gatherings. Michelle Walseth and Sarah Goldammer are facilitating the signup for Great Gatherings ahead of the Blue Heron Bash - and they (we!) need your support to make the event a success! See signups here:

Sign up to Host a Great Gathering

Here is a list of last years GG if you think it would help others get ideas.

Previous Great Gatherings from 2018

Second, Our kitchen is finally complete, certified, and ready to make the best food our innovative school possibly can. I made a commitment to make sure our food program would reflect our curriculum, our values, and be affordable for families - and we are following through on that commitment. In December we hired new talented staff on our Nutrition team. Leah Korger (they/them) is joining us as our new School Chef, coming from a long list of organizations centered around sustainability and supporting local agriculture. Jenny Breen (she/her), author and co-owner of Good Life Catering, has come aboard as our School Nutritionist. We are delighted to welcome them both to GRS and look forward to the delicious food our kitchen will prepare.

Third, our afternoon elementary physical expressions class (also known as PE… and sometimes confused with “gym” class) is engaged this month with the privilege of studying and experiencing a southeast asian martial art called Kali. The tapping of rattan sticks has been heard across the building today, and is a wonderful example of a skill that trains the mind, the body, and emphasizes interdependence of the pair and group working together.

Next HoS blog post will be on healthy relationships. A deeply influential Montessori quote in my career is: "Peace is the true work of education, all politics can do is keep us out of war...." Never has this been more truly demonstrated - and as adults I’ll reflect on some ways we might look, this winter, to role model what it looks like to emphasize and understand our responsibility to bring healthy behaviors to our own relations with the world.

How much? Can’t buy enough

I’m so thankful to write this message to the community. We are in the closing days of 2018. Our time together this autumn has rooted the new building spaces in care and love - it is a wonder to behold. As adults, we should not take for granted the highly unlikely prospect of so many students ages 6 through 18 find meaningful agreements and respect across that 12 year span. The wonder of our school sprouts from the manner in which students regard each other generally with respect, with care, and with understanding across the community.  These meaningful relationships - spreading out as families, and as school faculty - tie us together as roots that feed the life of the building we inhabit. In many ways, I look at this fall 2018 as a time that is much less about moving into a building, and much more as a time of settling into and discovering so many newly formed and forming relationships.

In January, February, and March I’ll be sharing several posts of data and student outcomes actress ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Our school does better than most in the state and nation at supporting academic growth among all types of students. High performing or not, struggling before the year or not, coming from affluence or not; Great River provides a space where we see that students make academic growth at a higher rate than the state average. I believe this is the result of an emotional world where we are less concerned with counting points and more concerned with commending humanity. 

And so we are in a season of winter. Shorter and shorter days of sunlight, and longer stretches of the moon in the frosty sky, until the tilt returns sunward for us northern dwellers. Also a time of tension between celebrating humanity, spirit, gratitude for our loved ones, and the material mania of gifts. With ripe invitations and consumer encouragement abounding, I was shocked to learn of so many more ‘special’ days to purchase something for someone I love. Especially on ‘Green Monday’ or ‘Local tuesday’ or ‘if you care at all Thursday’.

And, frankly, my virtuous desire to abstain from materialism broke down last night, as it often does this season. Honestly, the virtue of abstinence in this scenario is completely self-serving, as my kids are as gaga for shiny new things as anyone around. I found myself contemplating which snowglobe would elicit exuberance from my kids while I stared at a Target shopping display, when I realized the advertising copy of the tinsel sign was above, asking me “How much can you show your love this holiday season?”

And I thought of the words “How much” in purely actuarial terms of estimating quantity. And what befell me was such a depth of grief for the difference between the boundless quality of my love for my kids, and me participating in a “How much” game of actuarial science represented by a snow globe choice. This led me to consider the differences between quantity and quality, and membership vs. collection. For we have membership in a family, and in a community, and in friendships.  We have collections of objects, resume points, and things. I would venture to say that this very tension of material vs spiritual in December is along the same train track of difference that lies between accounting for academic points, and commending learning as a lifelong practice of relationship.  

Remember & Recollect

I was out too late one night this past October. It was early in the month, and I was visiting a conference, and had made new friends. I was just walking the line between late enough to not be worth sleeping before my red-eye flight, and an elder told me “This is what you’ll remember from this time with these people - not the days, not the notes, not the words, but this feeling of being a member of this time. This is to remember. This is what will be with you when you are on a deathbed or in a time of deep care - this time we are spending with each other. It is different from recollecting. Remembering is the feeling of knowing the people who are members of your personal network. You don’t recollect memories of people. You remember people. Stay up, and make this a time you will remember each of these faces before you leave.” 

Well, a typical end-of-professional development it was not. “Re-member” is what we are miraculously able to do with each other. Re-member is to go through your experience and re-connect the relations of your life through stories. If we were to get picky, we would note that recollect is something we do with facts, figures, and things. We don’t “collect” people, we create respect for people as members of our life and the place we live. They have membership in our lives.

You could look at the language of gift giving and recognize that we have deeply entwined our connection between things and people. Collecting items for ourselves and holding regard for a member in a community are different in the heart, and different on the tongue. I’ll invite you to consider how that “recollect” and “remember” difference plays out in your own life. And gifts are wondrous ways of showing that love and care… it’s just likely that the most loving gifts can’t be purchased. They likely display some part of the heart that isn’t often seen.

May it be so that we are able to show how in manner we love our families and students and teachers this winter, and be a little less concerned with how “much” we show that quality of love. 

 Be well all!  

Parenting in a crazed age… undoing the spells that work on our minds as parents

Great River Families,

Student conferences are upon us at the end of the month - a time when we plan for students in years 5 through 12 to present their work to their families. Guides and adults support students in that presentation. In years 1 through 4, parents and classroom Guides meet without students present to discuss work and role in the community. Want a summary? See a reference document on student conferences for families here.

I received an email last week from a parent who was taking the 3B bus downtown for a meeting. Specifically, the parent rode along with a large number of Great River students heading from the west toward school. After the students got off the bus, and had departed - leaving a much emptied vehicle behind them - I can only imagine the bus was quieter, less crowded, and carrying only the few commuters who ride down Front avenue toward the capitol. The parent writes

“[I was] meeting downtown this morning and took the 3 with a large group of GRS students. After they got off at school, I heard the driver and a passenger talking about the students. The driver said the students are so nice and respectful and that this is the best school run he’s ever had. I had heard at least ten of the students say thank you as they got off the bus.”

I am extremely proud of our students, and most often it is this kind of feedback that offers the biggest demonstrations of our work as a school. Our students have formed skills they take into the world as civil and thoughtful people. We are fortunate to share this school and this time with each other. These are the life skills that are part of what I know our students bring into the world as gifts. This is an example of what I know will grant our children the resilience,

And, as you hear me - from my Head of School role - conveying the glorious impact of our social and emotional learning at Great River... I want you to know that I am a parent, I do live in the world, and I am deeply concerned about the state of things between adults in our modern-North-American-globalized-economy-culture. I believe the ‘state of things’ casts a spell upon my thinking. This spell shows itself in some ways subtle, and in many ways a deafening blare. In a world where less and less appears assured each day, the invitation to come to terms with the mysteries of parenting and loving children with abundance is upon my doorstep. The insidious temptation for me is to want my child to somehow demonstrate through their success and stability that things are working out in a way that may allay my concerns about the ‘state of things’.

“Assure the very best for my child” could be one chant of the spell. “Fulfill their potential to the absolute fullest” could be another. “The world is an unassured place, and my job as a parent is to give my child every possible resource to succeed” is another.  These phrases are so user-friendly, so tenuously perched upon the concept of winning, and so absolutely crazen What I mean by spell is that my ability to perceive is so shaped by repeated drone of “this is what’s necessary and important” that I am caught unaware that the spell shapes how empathetic I can be with my own child if they are struggling, challenged, or overwhelmed. And, my desire to love my children by wanting assuredness often causes in them anxiety that rightly belongs to me, as the adult and parent who is the sole proprietor of the fence that may yet hold out adult concerns for the state of the world and allow a childhood that produces ripe ground for wonder, a love of learning, and a zeal for living that can buoy a heart through trouble.

The ‘way things are’ is a topic that arises as the ostensible proof & foundation for many answers that I hear parents (myself included) offer children about work, money, economy, and why things are so busy, or expensive, or inequitable. I’d like to challenge that spell, and I often find the first step is noticing when I’ve jumped onboard with a full-paid ticket of my assenting to the enchantment that “it’s this way, always has been, and always will be”.... And that’s the reason houses are so big in some neighborhoods and so small in others - or that’s the reason that we work for pay - or that explains immigration globally- or that’s the reason why you have to do things that are inconvenient or harsh…

And so, I found myself asking a seemingly innocent question at conferences two years ago, about my own children, “Do you have any concerns we should know about or work on at home?” It was fully a year afterward that I noticed that the root of that question about my 8 year old was founded in my own personal need to know that I was doing ok as a parent - which is a lot of pressure for me to bring into the conference belonging to my daughter, and asking a lot of the teacher who received my question.

I’m reflecting more on how that spell enchantingly casts itself upon my parenting mind. “Ensure I’m loving my children into their fullest potential so that they can go into the world prepared and protected.” It’s a sometimes spooky spell, that awaits in my fears and cravings for assuredness. Here’s a little snippet from the internal dialogue I catch in my own mental meandering:

I want to know that my kid will not only be “ok” in the future, but also that they will have what they need to thrive. This concern that I have as a parent is reinforced on the daily cycle of the news or frankly in comparing the challenges and pitfalls of our society with how I’d like to assure safety, security, and a verdant future for our children.

And here’s where the wheels hit the pavement on the road to parent-teacher conferences: I’d really like some assurance from their classroom teachers that my kid is demonstrably living out indication that they are not only “ok” now, but thriving!

And frankly, if the teacher or someone could have some glossy photos of that happening, and perhaps some exemplars of the potential already achieved by my child, and perhaps just a short video (it’s ok if the sound quality is low) assuring me that my hopes and need for proof of “ok-ness” is really just a craving on the path to a full feast of assenting rewards that I can expect to reap as a successful parent of a successful grown child…

can I see a score and an indicator that it’s all going to be ok?

And also… this is foolish. I can dull the overt and craven nature of this foolhardy approach by joking about my own parental anxiety, and then fully igniting it in a blaze of questions for you, the teaching adult who spends more waking hours than I do with my kid 5 days a week?

I know, perhaps a bit overstated once it’s written or read aloud. And, perhaps a bit over the top to share on this forum. And then, however, this is exactly the dialogue that leads me to make a joking approach to the very request for self-assuredness from the teacher at my own child’s conference just two years ago.

I say, ostensibly lightening the mood,

“Ok ok ok… all this report on the role of community is wonderful - but is my kid going to be ready to apply Ivy League in 10 years?”

{Laughter at seemingly excessive question of parental control and influence follows…}

And then it comes out of my mouth - “Do you have any concerns we should know about or work on at home?”

My child’s guide, ever graceful, answers “Oh, I think we’ve spoken about everything - your child is centered, and really working on knowing what is their job to fix and what is other’s, and that’s a good work for life.”

And in deepening the conversation back into a human-centered life skill, my child’s guide deftly and expertly reminded me that my joke about Ivy League, and likely my concern, is an ego-centered, not human-centered achievement. And that regardless of the place my kids continues their education, the skills of relationships and boundaries are essential to their humanity in the rest of their life on this blue sphere. It’ll take me a year to realize that my question about ‘concerns’ also betrays that apparently I didn’t know the etiquette for trust also includes that my child’s teacher will absolutely tell me if there are ways I can work with my kid at home to reinforce what’s happening at school. And, if I can develop the capacity to listen, I likely would hear that.

It’s a courageous thing to be parenting in the state of affairs that is our contemporary culture. And I’ve been challenged to consider that my professional experience and my life tells me much more about how children grow through adolescence to be successful as adults than my parenting lens offers. My experience demonstrates that people aged 17 to 25 are much more sane, self-assured, and capable of enjoying their life when they have an internal measure of wonder and appreciation for the world around them. Rather than working for a better tomorrow, these self-assured young people are working for a better day today - in their relationships, in their want to understand justice and fairness, and in their desire to contemplate a way they can contribute to meaning, rather than just their own sufficiency or personal stability at the expense of others.

There’s a deeply unsettling implication in this story for me to realize: I do best as a parent when i am concerned about supporting my child’s health today, rather than seeking indicators of their thriving in the future. And I do believe the sheer volume of pressure on me, as a parent, to cultivate an assured future for my child - at the expense of hearing what’s going on with them today - is a common pressure shared by many of us parenting. That pressure is at the very heart of why it’s a challenge to role model community values in a time that is increasingly pressuring self-everything. It’s a challenge that I’m thankful to have graceful educators to support me in thinking through, and tolerating when I have fallen prey to a spell that is much more about me than the child I’m asking after.