Dearest community,
This week in the adolescent levels, we took a moment of silence to
commemorate the one-year anniversary of the unexpected passing of one of our
teachers last year. Jay Peterson was our chemistry teacher, and in his short
time at great River school he formed many close friendships with colleagues -
and a wonderful rapport with students as a guide and mentor. His humor, calm
demeanor, and care for the school were exemplars of the work we aim to carry
out as adults at the school.
Seeing our community grieve together after that loss was one of
the strongest examples of community strength I have seen in my time at great
River school. Teachers and students alike made space for each other to be
honest, to be whole - to feel both the grief and sorrow of a loss, and share in
gratitude and remembrance of joy.
To identify an emotional tool to cultivate for the situation, I
spoke last year to the adolescent levels about gratitude. Often the grace that
we all seek - to address deep and challenging feelings - is most easily
accessed through thankfulness and expressing the care that we feel for the
things we love. And so together in community meetings last year we practiced
thinking of things we are thankful for, thinking of the deep care we have for
them, and cultivating to literal feeling inside of warmth and care and
gratitude for the people and experiences we love.
Implied in this practice is the idea that joy and sorrow are two
sides of the same coin. In fact neither extreme can exist without the other. We
must deeply care and deeply enjoy the aspects of our relationship and our
experiences before we would ever feel deep loss at their passing. And, in a
complementary way, we must know how to feel and express sorrow, and how to express
vulnerability. One vulnerable skill we cultivate is how to be able to talk
about loss and feel sadness. For, if we are not able to go deeply into the expression
of sorrow and loss, our capacity to experience joy and love will be limited.
The two feelings are from the same emotional well, and the
deepening of that well depends not only on the vulnerability to care about
something - but also the readiness and safety to grieve for that thing as it
grows, as it changes, and as we experience an unexpected loss. And so we practice
together experiencing success, and sometimes failure, in ways small and large at
Great River School. Both extremes of experience, the joy and sorrow we venture
to feel are brave parts of our humanity – and all feelings are welcome and have
space in our classrooms.
We practice ways to express our feelings of sorrow, of conflict,
and of sadness and disappointment of all kinds, and it makes space for deep
gratitude because the practice allows us to accept our whole selves.
This practice is a key aspect of the social and emotional learning
we aim to do together in the building community, and practicing the
interpersonal peace that we hope our students can bring to the world in the future.
I am deeply grateful to be a part of this community, and a witness to the
healthy and strong emotional learning we have done together as a school over
this past year.
Thank you for taking part in that, and for helping provide the
strength as a family and for your student to help create a healthy and peaceful
world for the future.
