Leadership

This past month has been fraught with emotions and fractious energy with this group of children. That's not to say it's all been negative or unpleasant, just extremely draining for the kids and for the teachers. So much has been bubbling away inside the children and issue after issue has needed sorting out, that it honestly feels like many weeks have passed since I last wrote. Leadership is the perfect forum for feelings, friendships and conflict to be explored as there is no curriculum beyond this. To be an effective leader, there must be a strong foundation of social emotional skills and that's what we've been working on. Mindfulness is the first tier here -- understanding oneself, the brain and the body in the context of how do we function and how can we control our thoughts and even our body systems (like heart rate) through intention and awareness. 

This is a complicated group of personalities and now that they are out of the somewhat insulated world of kindergarten, the issues among them have been harder to get a handle on for all of us teachers. I spent a full class period earlier this month reviewing the two golden rules from kindergarten "No hurting inside the body or outside the body" and "Make a friend of everyone in the class". Many of them actually remembered these "rules" which I found touching. Anyway, with this as a guide (asking oneself: "Is what I'm doing hurting anyone's feelings or their actual bodies?" and also "Am I remembering that my job is to be friends or at least friendly with every one in my class and even in my school and my world?") it's easy to know the right way forward. Our discussion touched on what is joking and teasing and when does this become hurtful, what to do if you can only invite a limited number of kids to your party or to play, what to do when you are laughing but you actually want someone to stop what they are doing (example: tickling) and when is lying ok (to protect someone's feelings, like not letting on that you don't like someone's drawing) and how do you even know when someone's lying anyway? Obviously, these concepts need to be explored constantly and modeling and discussing is a good way to do this.  It's important to remember that these are things that adults struggle with too -- the dynamics between humans are rarely smooth and getting along and being the best one can be is the work of our lives, so we can't expect children to just figure this out with ease. But in general, I wanted the kids to think of their classmates as their tribe -- these kids are a community and they have the potential to be fast friends through Orchard and even throughout their lives -- they are a team, a family.

To this end, we made friendship bracelets, as you know. Thanks for making sure they brought their beads. It was a lovely activity and the kids were kind and proud as they each presented their beads to the others. It was a beautifully serious ritual that felt important. Most clipped their strands to back packs and lunch bags and hopefully will bring them to school most days, if not every day.

We also discussed a certain hostile feeling that had developed in Roxaboxen, wherein people were being excluded and rejected from each other's homes. We discussed what families do when guests come over -- let them in, maybe give tea, offer snacks, offer a seat, be friendly and welcoming...we instituted an "open door" policy so that guests are always welcome. The caveat that was important to the kids was to emphasize that if a shop sign is flipped over, it means the store is temporarily closed. We also connected all of the homes and businesses by pathways or roads made with logs and branches. The large gems, of which there are only a couple dozen, where shared out fairly and a new rule was made -- if you bring gems from home, or anything, it must be shared out evenly.

A new president was voted in, Katha, with Maxine as vice president. In three weeks, Chloe and Leif, the remaining candidates who have not yet been elected, will automatically take on this leadership role. And then we will start a new cycle but as Chloe suggested, the balloting will be anonymous. We will discuss the reasons for this in greater depth when the new policy is instituted. Thanks Chloe for thoughtfully saving up things to bring up in leadership. Please encourage your kids to do the same. I would love to continue to have class meetings based on the issues the children feel like talking about. Also, if families have suggestions on leadership activities, please let me know. I'm very open to your ideas.

One of the new roads in Roxaboxen

In our mindfulness practice, we talked about how important it is to notice how other people are feeling and we went over how we know if someone is getting annoyed or upset and what is an appropriate and useful way to react. We also continued our exploration of the senses with mindful seeing and mindful tasting. I read a story called "The Seeing Stick" about a Chinese princess who is blind but is taught to "see" with her hands. In the photos below, the kids are pretending they are blind and seeing what it would be to only know how they look by how their features feel with their hands.

I also read Ruby's Wish, based on a true story about the first woman to get a university education in China and The Empty Pot, about a young boy who has the courage to be truthful and is rewarded handily for his honesty. 

To carefully think about smell, I filled little vials with different smells (coffee, lemon peel, grass, vinegar, bread, vanilla etc.) and the children had to identify these smells blindfolded, so only using their noses. Then we talked about how smells conjure up memories and the kids came up with sense memories for the different smells, like jumping head first into a pile of grass or juicing lemons in the summer or smelling their mom's coffee brewing in the morning.

For mindful tasting, I brought some tiny tasty morsels (orange, marshmallow, chocolate chips) and had the children really notice the smell and texture of the foods as they chewed them slowly and savored them to their utmost. We discussed the benefits of mindful eating like really enjoying food and noticing when you are full and properly chewing and digesting.

Some children made garden plots and planted seeds. Now we have to remember to water them more than just once a week on our Friday visits. Unlikely!