Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with Service

Over the past few years, we have chosen to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. with service. Each class found some way to be of service for a portion of the holiday or at other times close to the holiday. For instance two years in a row, Ms. Shaffer's class (which graduated last spring) worked at the Bonner Community Food Bank prior to the service day, since it is closed that day. They thoroughly enjoyed stocking boxes and shelves and commented on how rewarding it felt to be of service. When the weather cooperated, other classes have shoveled out the driveways of senior citizens or the parking lot of the Sandpoint Senior Center. Still other classes have played board games with residents at assisted living homes or presented songs and verses to them. Each year for the past few years, older classes have helped at the Panhandle Animal Shelter. One year one of our kindergarten classes also went to the animal shelter to deliver catnip cat toys that they had made.

This year our service will have to look different, because we cannot visit many of these places. We will find other ways to be of service: the teachers will be discussing ideas this week, such as holding a food drive, writing cards to the residents in assisted living or nursing homes, and yes, if it snows, shoveling snow. If you have any ideas of ways we can be of service, please contact me.

Traditionally, our eighth grade class has offered a Martin Luther Kind, Jr assembly. As part of the history curriculum in eighth grade, the students study the civil rights movement. Anyone who was here last year will remember the stirring presentation of "I Have a Dream" speech that the eighth grade presented both at assembly and at an evening assembly. This year, however, we cannot gather in an assembly, so we will find other age-appropriate ways to honor Dr. martin Luther King, Jr.

It is good to remember as the entire world faces the challenges of these times this quote by Dr. King. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stand in comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." My experience of our school community is that each one of us is discovering new ways to be flexible, to take on new tasks, to resolve conflicts, and in this case, to discover new ways to honor Dr. King and the work which he began that so urgently needs to be continued.
Submitted by Julie McCallan

Artwork created by our 2020 8th grade graduates last year.

The Reverent Act of Beeswax Candle Dipping

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The warm scent of melted beeswax is the smell of Christmas and the symbol of Waldorf education for me.  Years ago when I was a freshman at Earlham College, my first roommate was a graduate of Green Meadows Waldorf School.  She introduced me to Waldorf education and changed the trajectory of my life.  She had the poise, confidence,  and can-do attitude that is characteristic of many Waldorf graduates and taught me some of what she learned as a Waldorf student.  She taught me to knit in our first month of school and from her descriptions, I was inspired when I went home for Christmas to build a bed and make candles.  The first project  had to be finished by my grandfather and ended my attempts to be a carpenter, but the second one became a yearly tradition.

Today leading the candle dipping with the Fourth and Fifth Graders, I was filled again with the wonder of candle dipping.  Most people doubt that children have the ability to walk around in a circle for 45 minutes, dipping their wick once at each pass.  However, they are fully immersed in the activity and many do not want it to end.  They exclaim as their candles gradually grow bigger and they note the change in color.  When the candle first emerges dripping from the hot wax vat, it looks like the pale, off white glaze on a donut. However, by the time the children have walked half way around the circle, the wax begins to harden and assume a deep golden color. 

Watching the candle change color reminded me of how  teachers get to know their students or how any of us really come to know another human being.  At first, there is only the initial impression; like the glaze on the candle, we are only seeing a superficial outer aspect.  However, as time passes, especially if we provide a loving space and feel reverence for what we are beholding,  the many, many layers of the person are revealed and the rich colors of who they are shine forth, just like in the candle the many layers of wax create the deep rich golden color. 

The children have much to teach us about reverence, about being present in the moment, about finding wonder in simple tasks like candle dipping.  I took a lesson home with me today from our candle dipping:  we can call forth the light in each other by beholding each other in reverence, especially in the dark of winter and in these troubled times. 

Submitted by Julie McCallan

A Culture of Care

A culture of care

How a Sandpoint school survives and thrives in a pandemic

· SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

By Ammi Midstokke
Reader Contributor

At a Sandpoint Waldorf School board meeting in mid-August, a group of faculty, parents and board members tried to have a civil discussion about the future of their children. They also tried to talk about the livelihood of the children’s parents. And the health risks posed to elderly members of their family or the community. And masks. And the financial viability of a private school during a pandemic. 

For so many tender subjects to be placed on the same table in the same moment seemed to pose perhaps the greatest health risk. No punches were thrown, no names called, no arguments had. Perhaps it was because everyone was there for the same reason: To do their best to ensure a safe learning environment in which the students, staff and families could thrive. 

Waldorf teacher Christopher Lunde instructs eighth-grade student, Isadora Gilchrist, on observing the physical properties of water. Photo by Ammi Midstokke.

To this end, the school created a COVID Task Force in the spring. The task force spent the summer months researching, problem solving and calling every single family in the school to ask for their personal input, concerns and needs when it came time to return to school. 

The responses from families were everywhere on the spectrum from demanding a more sterile environment to refusal to wear masks. While the task force knew it would not be possible to meet all needs, the common thread of keeping the children in school would become their priority. They took the information they had carefully collected and created a plan.

As it is with COVID-19 policies, they generally mandate Plans A, B and C because the scenarios are complex, often require urgent response, and must consider diverse and changing needs of a community. Their plan was created with the shared intention of keeping students in a classroom and group learning environment as much as possible, while also preventing the spread of the virus through the school and larger community. This meant determining ways in which to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Panhandle Health District guidelines on social distancing while simultaneously educating an entire school of pre-K through eighth-grade students.

It is fair to say that this community has a unique demographic spread in which its members’ values are widely different, if not sometimes in opposition. As the plan developed, the conversations about implementing the plan were interwoven with a delicate sharing of opinions. Delicate, because opinion-stating can seem rather a dangerous act these days. 

Something different happened in that meeting, though. Parents lamented raising children in fear. Administrators worried about the social and emotional development of children associating mask wearing with shame. The task force responded with the theme of creating a “Culture of Care.”

A Culture of Care is an idea that has been used in the corporate world to improve employee relations throughout a hierarchical organization. It was arguably a shift in consciousness when statistics and research pointed out what we inherently know as humans: If you take care of people they are happier, have improved work performance and ultimately they care about the organization thus making the business more successful.

This isn’t new to Waldorf education. In fact, much of Waldorf education theory is based on the importance of the individual within the community, where a Culture of Care is not second nature, but fundamental. A verse read at assemblies states it with gentle lines:

The healthy social life is found, when,

In the mirror of each human soul,

The community finds its reflection,

Care is, or should be, all-encompassing and one must not meet particular criteria, political sway, age or ideology in order to be deserving or worthy of care. The extreme division that we see in our current socio-political and economic climate requires more care. This is expressed when consideration and interest in those humans, value systems and needs takes place, and then manifests into a culture of inclusion. 

Thus the Sandpoint Waldorf School applied its mission to its foundational Culture of Care and came up with a plan that considers the emotional well-being of students; their educational development; the health risks of teachers, parents and the Sandpoint community; the financial implications for families staying home to educate; and more. 

We can see the result of this in the back field of the Litehouse YMCA, where the organization has allowed the school to install an outdoor learning lab for students. The classes, small in number, are spending their days in rather romantic white structures where colorful silk scarves blow in the late summer breeze. The odd potted palm tree rustles. Wooden benches with bright pillows spaced widely apart remind one more of a decadent tea party than a classroom. Were it not for the clean chalkboard, teacher’s desk and occasional row of beakers, one might mistake the classroom for a humbly decorated wedding venue. 

The children sit happily in their pods, remaining with their classroom throughout the day, and free from the burden of wearing a mask — unless they are required to be in the school building, where all staff, students and visitors are required to wear them. (Indoor schooling, for example, was necessary this week due to the pall of wildfire smoke blanketing the region.) The students laugh and play, sing and learn together as they always have, only the setting is far more picturesque — perhaps even fairytale-esque. 

The curriculum has been carefully adapted to allow for distance learning should students, classes or teachers have a need for quarantine. The first weeks of class in the upper grades have included additional typing and technology lessons to enable students to easily transition from a classroom to a home environment. Additional teacher assistants have been acquired to help students who are educating from home to ensure a successful learning experience for all. 

The creativity, effort and collaboration that has gone into keeping the school a viable option for the community is a testament to a Culture of Care. It demonstrates both the flexibility and adaptability needed as a nation struggles to respond to a pandemic. Most of all, it is a refreshing reminder of how caring about each other can be the foundation of a solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem. 

Ammi Midstokke is an author and columnist for the Sandpoint Reader, The Spokesman Review and other publications. Her daughter attends eighth grade at the Sandpoint Waldorf School.

Sandpoint Waldorf School expands its outdoor learning to mitigate spread of COVID-19

BONNER DAILY BEE
| September 12, 2020 1:00 AM

At the Sandpoint Waldorf School, as at most schools across the country, returning to school in the midst of a pandemic looks quite different.

After almost six months away from their campus, SWS students arrived on Wednesday for the first day of school to classrooms inside spacious tents in the field behind the Litehouse YMCA. Instead of heading into the school building, students in first through eighth grade found their classroom tent with benches, desks, bookcases, chalkboards and, in some cases, log rounds as seats. A gentle breeze wafted through the tents allowing for easy ventilation.

Each tent is eight-sided allowing for a flexible, open and airy classroom. When the teachers wanted the students to engage in movement activities, they only had to step outside the tent where there was ample space to form a large circle.

“The choice to move the classrooms outside was a quick decision when we looked at the COVID transmission rates in an outdoor setting. With so much of our curriculum involving movement and time outside, it seemed to be a very natural and gentle transition for both students and our faculty,” said Julie McCallan, the school’s educational director.

Although the decision was easily made, the act of creating this simple arrangement required a lot of coordination and collaboration. From the moment, the school suggested the concept of the outdoor learning lab in tents, Tammy Campbell, branch executive of Litehouse YMCA, was very supportive.

“I believe this kind of creativity, and these partnerships, will allow us as the YMCA and our community to thrive and succeed.”

The YMCA will be able to use the tents when they host the high school swim meet later this summer for parents and teams.

The parents were also a major player in making the outdoor learning lab possible, SWS officials said. They built and painted chalkboards for each tent and brought in log rounds for the benches. The week before school they erected the tents. When the Labor Day wind storm blew in, the parents came running, literally, to help drop the tents in the morning and then returned to put them back up again in the evening, even repairing and replacing some of the poles that bent in the process. By Tuesday, the day before school, the tents were ready for the teachers to move in, each adding their personal touch to them.

The transition to teaching in tents has required a lot of creativity and flexibility from the teachers, as they figured out what is essential for each day’s instruction and how to utilize the outdoors to broaden the student’s experience of the world.

Fourth grade teacher Clare Stansberry said she views it as a time to connect students with nature in a deeper way. “Outdoor education is an opportunity to connect students to the place they live and expand their resilience in the face of all the elements,” she said.

The faculty are thinking out of the box and turning adversity into an opportunity for change and growth. Rather than having students crowded indoors in the woodshop, woodworking teacher Shaun Deller took his students on a walk to the nearby slough to identify trees. The wind storm had blown down a large cottonwood tree which provided the students with limbs to carve. For her first botany lesson, fifth grade teacher Yvette McGowan took students on a walk to a nearby garden where they could observe mushroom propagation. Upon their return to their tent they wrote their observations in their journals.

The pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students return to school on Thursday. While their classrooms are still indoors, they will be spending much of their day outside playing. Ryan Rayniak, one of the mixed-aged kindergarten teachers is planning two full days away from campus each week, these adventure days will allow the students to explore the park, the slough, and the nearby wetlands and forests. Dressed in layers and rubber boots, and carrying snacks, water, and extra clothing in their backpacks, the children will be ready for whatever the weather brings, SWS staff said.

Schooling during a pandemic is fraught with unknowns and challenges, but the Sandpoint Waldorf School is hopeful that being outdoors as much as possible will help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 while offering the students a rich and creative learning environment.

In this, they said the goals of the YMCA and the Sandpoint Waldorf School align: to offer programs that help build a healthy spirit, mind and body for all. Both organizations are nonprofits that are committed to making our community and the world a better place to live, work and play.