Be My Valentine

In the coming week, the Practical Life area in the Birch room will be filled with reds, pinks, and purples in celebration of Valentines Day. The children will busily engage in tweezing and spooning brightly colored heart shaped beads and other colorful items. Pouring works will be filled with colored water and colored dry materials.

We will celebrate Valentines Day Thursday the 14th. Each child will have the opportunity to decorate a mail bag for a card exchange. If your child chooses to participate in the Valentine Day card exchange please make sure there is a card for every child in the classroom. A class list will be in your child's coat cubby in case you need it. We will share a special Valentines Day story during closing circle. Children will bring their card exchange bag home to enjoy and share their cards with you. Thanks so much.

"Responsible independence." This is what each program at Hilltop is working to help children achieve, to the best of their ability. In Lower El, there are work schedules for children who would like to map out their day. A teacher guides them in how to do this, to create a "balanced diet" of work. Math, reading, cultural work, and other language works - whether grammar, word study, and/or writing - complete the morning work cycle. Time for lessons, choice work, and snack must be considered, too. Some children are able to move through their morning without a schedule, staying focused and accomplishing a great deal of work. Others need a bit more assistance in remembering to do their subtraction, or to know when it is time to temporarily halt the Super Bowl discussion and move on to the morning's work. Flexibility is part of this time management lesson, too. Sometimes a child is passionate about a new work, and wants to concentrate on it all morning. If they have just learned division and are eager to master it, they are not interrupted in this pursuit. 

There are good days, and there are less productive days. The important thing is that the children are striving towards independence, learning from their mistakes and their accomplishments - just as their teachers are. They are given the time and opportunity to figure things out for themselves, with a teacher available for guidance if, and when, they need it.

We are constantly reminded of the great intellectual and emotional depths that adolescent students can plumb and how beautifully they articulate their insights. On Thursday, I had the delightful opportunity to watch Nora conduct a seminar on an excerpt from Darwin's Descent of Man as part of the students' exploration of science, truth, and race. After a quick examination of the numerous vocabulary words Darwin employed, the students plunged right into natural selection, the difference between species and breeds, and the factors that affect the development of either. The students are finding connections from earlier readings, especially those that explored the "truth" of racial differences. This morning we looked at the brilliant, humorous, and disturbing chapter from Steinbeck's Travels with Charley titled "Ain't Those Cheerleaders Something?". This chapter chronicles Steinbeck's witness of the mob mentality and entrenched attitudes of thousands of people who gathered every morning to mock and denigrate a very young black student (accompanied by Federal Marshalls) and the only white family who chose to stay in a formerly segregated public school in New Orleans. We wondered where that kind of courage came from and compared it to the Little Rock Nine.

Tomorrow we will be exploring the Freedom Rides in preparation for a visit from Mr. William Leons on Friday morning at 9:30 who is a veteran of that remarkable time and spent, along with hundreds of other advocates of justice both white and black, an extended sentence in Mississippi's infamous prison, Parchman Farm. Mr. Leons has a remarkable life story beginning as a hidden child of the holocaust who now lives in Brattleboro. You are most welcome to join us.

In our continuing quest to raise funds for the just around the corner Odyssey to Alabama, the students have created the Morning Café in the main lobby. Every morning fresh Mocha Joe's coffee and Middle School baked muffins are available by donation. Please avail yourself of this wonderful and tasty opportunity when you drop your student off in the morning. Speaking of the Odyssey, we are having a parent information night on Tuesday, March 26.

Some photos from Winter Sports!