Dear Members of the WSSB Community,

If one's feeling dizzied by the hurly-burly of the modern world it helps to peek into the Grade One classroom at The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara.

There you will see children sitting at wood desks drawing ponds, crocodiles, and treehouses. On the chalkboard you will see the teacher's drawing of a boat and dolphins in the sea under sunlight. You will see the teacher's drawing of a kite. You will see "5 + 2 +2 = 9." And you will see these words (words from a Brothers Grimm tale):

One day the poor brother
was in the forest when
he saw a pure gold bird.

(What a sentence -- how it thaws the heart and enchants at once.)

In the Grade One classroom you will see four bouquets of flowers (every week the class receives fresh flowers, fresh fruit, and fresh laundry from various beloved fairies). You will notice a bamboo pole running along the ceiling that was used for hoshigaki (the art of drying persimmons). You will notice a balance beam that the children sometimes joyously walk on. And you will notice a teacher, Ms. Lama, unruffleable and grounded and smiling, helping a student here, helping a student there, deftly and surely creating a space for a "healthy, broad, reverent education that honors the head, heart, hands—the whole—of the child."

After the visit, you might think of philosopher Martin Buber and his distinction between an I/It approach toward being and an I/You approach. The I/It approach privileges distance and detachment, armor and efficiency. The I/You approach, on the other hand, privileges slowness and awareness, love and care, joy and play. The latter is the stance that makes for human glances and human words in parking lots and post offices. It is the stance that makes for healing schools with happy children in this dizzying modern world.

***

In other news, congratulations to Ms. Sleep and her Grade Two class on their marvelous play, "The King of Ireland's Son." And congratulations to Ms. Nelson and her Grade Four class on their marvelous play "Loki: Friend or Foe?"

From I to You,
The Admin Team

PS The To-Do List of the Day is from the Grade One classroom at WSSB:

"Wednesday, May 29th

Main Lesson
Snack and recess
Music
Handwork
Lunch and recess
Indoor play
Chores
Goodbye"

PPS The Poem of the Day is by Kim Stafford:
The Flavor of Unity

El sabor que nos hace unidos.

The flavor that makes us one cannot be bought
or sold, does not belong to a country, cannot
enrich the rich or be denied to the poor.

The flavor that makes us one emanates from the earth.
A butterfly can find it, a child in a house of grass, exiles
coming home at last to taste wind off the sea, rain
falling into the trees, mist rising from the home ground.

The flavor that makes us one we must feed
to one another with songs, kind words, and
human glances across the silent square.