After I wrote this story, I felt like it was too personal. I wondered if, although supported my thinking, it might not be worth publishing. Then I had a moment of serendipity. Nassrin and I were talking about her first few weeks at our school, and she shared her reflection that when Caroline teaches, it’s …
In order to read the world, we must be moved by what we see.In order to create, we must have a strong desire to examine what has moved us.In order to sustain this world we have made and seen and read, we must understand why we were moved.We cannot be moved without relationships. L.C., teacher-participant …
My recent post, Say What You Mean, began as this post — but I got so tangled up in thinking about the relationship between knowledge and meaning and learning and relationship and power and vulnerability that I realized I’d better split these posts in two. In this post, I’ll share the experience I had recently …
It’s been a stunning, bewildering, shocking ten days. I’ve heard people across the political spectrum call the rapid-fire developments chaotic and confusing. It’s hard to know how to respond. Today I listened to an interview with a musician born in Syria who has been living in America for sixteen years. Out of the country to perform …
I imagine that, for many of you, the holidays included time for reconnection, reflection, and play – and lots of reading. I found myself immersed in the varied and layered traps of “civilization” that people across time and space find themselves enmeshed in. The challenges Cora, Yeong-hye, Alexander, and all of us face are varied – and their efforts …
K was engaged at the light table. He seemed unaware of what was happening around him. His full attention was on his creation. He had carefully chosen a yellow dot from the many colors of dots and one of the small transparent figures presented on the table. His eyes were fixed on the figure as …
Don’t for heaven’s sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense. -Ludwig Wittgenstein As Opal School staff reconvened last week to launch the new school year, we were inspired by and found connections in two essays. In Zadie Smith’s Speaking in Tongues, we saw our drive to support children …
This post by Susan Harris MacKay first appeared on the Living in Dialogue blog. In these times, when the demolition of a place as historic as Sesame Street can be thwarted by editing for shorter attention spans and conversion to pay-per-view, it can be difficult to remember what all the fuss was about during the …
Read more “Why we don’t do art in school (and why we should)”
As we aim to create a school founded in a strong image of the child, we need to constantly consider our image of childhood and its relationship to adulthood. What might it mean to create curriculum based around the unique gifts of childhood? How can we embrace children’s capacity to see beyond the limits of the …
This morning, Opal School students, families, teachers and friends gathered in the theater for the weekly gathering. Opal 3 shared poems they’ve written, each revealing aspects of friendship. After reading several entries, members of the class stood at the door with baskets filled with their poems – gifts for each member of the community to leave with. …