Making Sense of the News

Monday, November 16, 2015

Dear parents,
While we work hard not to overwhelm you with extra e-traffic, I feel compelled by the tragic events in Paris on Friday to reach out to you today.

How do we respond to this horrible news?  And how do we relay the facts of it to our children in a way that sets a healthy tone within our families and our school community?

One of the key precepts of Waldorf education is that during the precious first seven years of life we are actively cultivating an image of the world as good and beautiful for our children.  We want these children to be happy that they have arrived here to live their lives now.  Of course, as they grow older they will become aware of all of the difficulties this world holds for them and for human kind.  But for a brief interval, we work to keep suffering at bay as best we can.

I ask that you join me in protecting the innocence of the youngest members of our school community.  Children of kindergarten age or younger, as well as those in the lower school grades, should be protected as much as possible from knowledge of an event such as the tragedy in Paris. Please ask your older children not to discuss their knowledge of the situation at school, to protect the youngest and those who don’t yet know. If your younger children do hear about it, then they should be spared the details if at all possible. If you are in a family with only very young children, this should be possible at home by eliminating any media use around the children, and by not leaving newspapers or magazines where they can be seen casually.

If your child asks you about the event, the first thing is to stay calm. Ask them what they know about it, rather than telling them more. Don’t focus on trying to answer “why”, but listen to their feelings, and provide reassurance that they will be safe.  Please give only age-appropriate information, without belaboring the details.  Even older students do not need to know all of the grisly details.

Thank you for being conscious of your own speaking: be aware of what you are saying and who might be nearby listening.   Meanwhile, make sure to take care of your own feelings of grief, anger, frustration, despair by gathering with other adults to seek comfort and companionship as needed.

By upholding the principle of tending to the needs of our youngest students first, we can collectively bring healing and hope to our community and the larger world.

In gratitude for the gift that each of you is to our school,
Missi

--originally published as a letter to our school community on Nov. 16, 2015

Lanterns Walks Bring Light As Days Grow Shorter

The sunlight fast is dwindling.
My little lamp needs kindling.
It beam shines far in darkest night.
Dear lantern, guard me with your light.

Helle Heckmann Visits Madrona School

Join us for a special parent enrichment opportunity right here on Bainbridge Island! Helle Heckmann will speak at Madrona School on Saturday, November 14 at 10am. We'll meet in the Thimbleberry / Salmonberry classroom (lower archway just off the north parking lot) for a lecture entitled "The Five Golden Keys in Early Childhood."

Helle Heckmann is visiting us from Denmark where she founded the outdoor daycare and kindergarten, Nøkken. She brings over 30 years of experience working with young children and is a powerful, internationally-renowned voice for the protection of childhood. This talk will offer practical advice for parents, and an understanding of the young child's basic and most important needs. Helle Heckmann has been a mentor to many Waldorf teachers, and we are honored to welcome her to Madrona School!

All interested adults are most welcome!

Madrona School's Alphabet (C)

Our amazing class teachers are at the heart of Madrona School!

In our mixed-age preschool and kindergarten classes, a young child can expect to have one teacher for the duration of the program, sometimes over multiple years. This continuity of care is comforting to the young child, and it means that when it is time for grade school, the teacher is able to offer a full developmental picture to the incoming 1st grade teacher.

In the grade school, the class teacher loops up each grade with his or her class through the 8th grade. While not necessarily unique to Waldorf education, "looping" teachers are relatively rare in American schools. A class teacher has been a fixture of the Waldorf grade school since Rudolf Steiner founded the first school in Germany at the close of the first world war, however. Steiner believed that the strong relationship forged between a teacher and a student was essential to a robust education and healthy child development. Students in a Waldorf grade school begin each day and have main lesson with their class teacher, who becomes a familiar and beloved part of their school lives, even while they have a chance to learn from other teachers throughout the day in specialty classes. When a teacher spends this much time with his or her class, the education is truly child-centered, allowing a teacher to bring developmentally appropriate and emotionally engaging education to a constellation of students. Teachers and students build long-term relationships, and a teacher can truly foster community building within a class. It is the essential work of the teacher to know and see each student and to meet them where they are in any given year of their development -- no small task, but beautiful to witness as a parent of any grade schooler could tell you!

--edited from our weekly school newsletter, September 17, 2013 and April 28, 2014.

Parent Enrichment with Susanna Reynolds

We are so pleased to welcome Susanna Reynolds back for her second of three workshops this school year. All interested adults are welcome to join us in the 3rd grade classroom on Thursday, November 5 at 6:30pm. Susanna's workshop, entitled, "Seeing our Children in the Dark and in the Light: Becoming More Comfortable With The Polarities of Growth With Your Unique Child(ren)."

Susanna will work with us in conversation and with art to explore the struggling steps and triumphs in grade school children's growing minds and bodies, even as we celebrate their colorful expression and feeling lifes. When we become more comfortable with the fluctuating steps that occur in growth, with can better weather constant change.

Susanna is the Director of Sound Circle Center’s Parenting Programs, and in private practice at Seattle Sensory and Structural Integration. We are always pleased to host her across the water!

Madrona School's Alphabet (B)

What makes a Madrona School education unique and special?
During the 2013-2014 school year, we celebrated what a Waldorf education offers both our children and our community as we strive to graduate creative and eager lifelong learners. Using the alphabet gave us 26 aspects to celebrate! 

B is for...Bread Day! Why do we bake bread in our early childhood classrooms? The obvious answer is because it tastes amazing and fills our hungry young students with a warm, nutritious snack. Yet, the process offers so many benefits, eliciting a robust sensory experience, even as it provides an anchoring weekly rhythm in the early childhood classroom. The activity of baking bread engages the sense of touch through kneading and shaping the silky dough, it engages the sense of smell as the bread bakes, it engages the ears though the songs sung throughout shaping ("Five hot buns in the bakery shop...."), and it enhances class community as the children come together to shape their buns and to eat them warm from the oven. Baking bread also provides an outlet for the purposeful work that young children crave, an activity that they can easily see and participate in from start to finish over the course of a morning. And of course, it is fun and imaginative; sometimes dough gets shaped into worms, bugs or as some grade school students fondly remember, bunnies, hearts or a plate (more room to spread on butter and jam!). 

We all look forward to 'Bread Day' at school. Some children routinely save a bit for a sibling or a parent, spreading the anticipation. And, ask any of our older students, and they will tell you their fond memories of  kindergarten bread. Each year, our older students (and frankly, many teachers) make it their business to know which days are bread days, and they might peek in at lunch, hoping for leftovers. It becomes very nostalgic, and offers a real reminder of the beginning of their respective school journeys. There is a lot baked into each week's bread!

Want to bake at home? Here is a copy of one of the recipes used in our preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

--reprinted from the weekly school newsletter, September 23, 2014.

The Madrona School Annual Fund for 2015-2016

Jump In!

Our annual fund for the 2015-2016 school year is underway, and will run through mid-December. Our goal this season is a short and sweet $50,000 in 50 days. As in other years we're aiming for 100% parent community participation, at whatever level feels comfortable for your family. 

The annual fund supports the current year's operating budget, allowing us to continue to provide a joyful and creative education to around 130 students. Furthermore, the Madrona School board is in the first of a three-year effort to raise teacher salaries to be commensurate with island public and independent schools.

New this year!: Give directly through the Madrona School website -- it's quick and easy to give either a one-time or a monthly gift. Gifts can be processed through your bank account, or your debit or credit card. And, all your family and friends can give this way too.

We are so grateful for your gifts -- at any amount. Thank you for supporting Madrona School and Waldorf education!

Madrona School's Alphabet (A)

What makes a Madrona School education unique and special?
During the 2013-2014 school year, we celebrated what a Waldorf education offers both our children and our community as we strive to graduate creative and eager lifelong learners. Using the alphabet gave us 26 aspects to celebrate! 

A is for...Academics--academics infused with art, with movement, with music, with attention to social well-being, and through hands-on activities. At Madrona School, we enrich the teaching of reading, writing, science and math in a myriad of ways.  The goal of a Waldorf school is to educate the whole child, graduating students who become balanced, curious and creative adults.  One of the ways that we accomplish this is to bring academic material to the children in a way that meets their developmental needs.  In the early grades, children are strongly compelled by their emotional life: that is, if they feel love, joy and excitement about what they are doing, they remember it well.  As they mature, their thinking capacities grow, and presenting material in an intellectually invigorating way captures the imagination of middle school students.  Our students are taught to employ all of themselves to their lessons: their artistic, physical, intellectual, and writing capacities are engaged on a daily basis; cultural stories and history from around the world offer ongoing lessons in our common humanity. Thus we offer a rigorous, engaging curriculum that changes over time to prepare students, developing their capacities, not only for high school and further schooling, but also for life. 

A couple of examples: In second grade, our students work on math facts including the multiplication tables. They do study, memorize and are "tested" on them, but they also chant and clap them in different rhythms, and draw them into patterns in their lesson books. This "body-based" learning and memorizing is where the whole child is engaged, and ensures that these foundational facts are well in hand. In middle school math then, they are able to re-do multiplication tables in different bases, pushing their understanding of number sense.

In the sciences, a student's developing capacity for observation begins in early childhood through the simple awareness of the changing seasons. In early grade school, basic experiments such as the sprouting of a seed, charting the growth of a field of wheat or a pumpkin on a vine, hone a student's attention to detail. Once a student reaches middle school, an awakening capacity for independent thought offers the ability to observe experiments in chemistry and physics and to extrapolate and reach conclusions with fellow students and the guidance of their teacher; these observations and learnings are recorded in precise and beautiful detail in their main lesson books.

--edited from our weekly school newsletter, January 28, 2014.

Learn more about Madrona School by scheduling a tour; additional information on Waldorf education is available here.