So, you want to start a pandemic pod? There may be some pitfalls.

Meagan Welch is an AMI Montessori trained guide with a master’s degree in education who serves as the director of Julia’s Garden Montessori Family Learning Center. She has a passion for sharing the insights of Dr. Maria Montessori’s profound discoveries into human development with children and families. Below, she shares her candid thoughts and concerns on the emerging phenomenon of pandemic learning pods.

The “pandemic pod” phenomenon has exploded with an immediacy never seen before in education, and things are getting strange. There are pods hiring lawyers to write up contracts with Covid-19 infection contingency plans. People are ponying up serious cash to hire teachers directly. Freelance teaching is now “a thing.” There are internet forums and websites functioning as ad hoc HR departments to help connect families with similar exposure levels. Strangers are attempting to create very intimate learning environments for children run by parents with no educational background at all. What could go wrong?

Just to be fair, I would want a pod, too. If my children were still young, I would be trying to find a small group of families with children of similar age to make a little network that would allow the children to learn and play safely with friends and give parents time to do important adult things, like take showers, or make a living. As a school leader, I receive regular requests that go like this: “We are looking for a 5-year-old girl for our pod. We are being very careful. My husband works from home, and we only receive curbside groceries. Do you know anyone?” I want to help, but . . . I mean . . . really? Let’s do some unpacking.

COVID Careful?

Can I just say that my teenage daughter’s version of being “careful” and my version of being “careful” regarding exposure to the virus are really different? If she wears a mask in the car with her friend for 10 minutes she was being “like, sooo careful.” No more explanation needed for this one, really. People are hiring lawyers. There is the pesky life-or-death risk to every single thing we do right now. Pandemic pods included.

Personality Dynamics

Have you ever tried to have dinner with another family? How many times have I met another mom whom I badly wanted to befriend, but our daughters were like oil and water and our husbands ambivalent? Or the children loved each other, and we adults were miles apart politically. Personality dynamics are no joke in an average-size classroom, and in a very small group they are even more intense. I worry that parents have this idea of the perfect child to complement their own child’s needs—someone to be their best friend and inspire them to learn in just the right ways. In reality, children are complicated, just like adults are, and they come with their own conditions.

Parents are naturally tolerant and protective of their own children. To say it mildly, we are irrationally biased toward our offspring. I often find that parents are lost when guiding their children in a typical playground conflict. Negativity bias influences how children process healthy conflicts, and parents are particularly vulnerable to their own child’s struggles. How many times have I listened to an irate parent convinced another student is “bullying” their child, when in reality the two children are best friends? Parents’ anger comes from love for our children, but bias can cloud our judgment and make us ineffective. Teachers are experts at using personality dynamics as opportunities for social-emotional learning. They know how to teach important conflict resolution skills on the fly. Parents will need to skill up and check their bias if they are going to create an emotionally safe environment conducive to learning.

Safety (not just from COVID-19)

Childcare centers and schools go to great lengths to create a safe environment. Are people doing safety risk assessments in their homes? What’s safe to do in your backyard when your Dad is watching is not necessarily safe for your friend because they may not have the same skill set. Is the backyard playscape age-appropriate for all the children in the pod? Setting limits on playing safely with other people’s children will take some practice, and preparing the home to prevent accidents is a good idea. What about first aid and CPR certification? Is there an emergency action plan?

Shared Values

A school is a community of families with some level of shared values. Whether you choose traditional or alternative, the school your child will attend says a great deal about your values. Pods that have a connection to a larger community network, like a school, may be more successful because they will have an educational philosophy to help them create agreed-upon parameters. A shared vision will carry communities through conflict and struggle. Families will need a philosophical backbone to lean on when the going gets tough.

City and State Regulations

It may surprise some families to know every state and city already has a set of guidelines and minimum standards for in-home childcare. The State of Texas has three categories—Licensed Child-Care Home, Registered Child-Care Home, and Listed Family Home—each with specific minimum standards, reporting expectations, and possible inspections. Most of these regulations are lowest-common-denominator type requirements meant to protect children from the worst of the worst scenarios, but it may be worth noting that some pandemic pods may already fall into the state’s categories and need to follow specific guidelines. If the pandemic continues on for a protracted period of time—very likely—and schools remain closed or remote, more people will turn to these smaller learning models, and state regulators may play a bigger role than ever before, for better or for worse. Find Texas in-home child-care regulations here and Covid-19 opening guidance here.

Parents are being asked to do so much with so little knowledge in child development theory. I feel compelled to help them. At my little Montessori school, we have decided it’s just not safe to bring teachers and children back to campus until the virus is under control. Who knows how long that will be? In the meantime, we are offering the parents as much support as we can. If you are interested in getting support for yourself, your child, or your learning pod, we are here to help. Find us at juliasgardenmontessori.com or e-mail me at meagan@juliasgardenmontessori.com.

Meagan Welch

The pros and cons of beginning college virtually for students with learning challenges

Janet Price of College Living Experience

Guest contributor Janet Price is the National Director of Admissions and Outreach at College Living Experience. She has 10 years previous experience as an educational advocate and has co-authored two books, Take Control of Asperger’s Syndrome, winner of the 2010 Legacy Book Award, and Take Control of Dyslexia, as well as numerous articles. Janet has been a guest lecturer for graduate programs at Towson University and American University and frequently presents at national conferences. 

By now we have run out of superlatives to express the unprecedented sense of sadness and loss experienced by our Class of 2020 high school seniors. In addition to navigating the fear of a pandemic and disruption of life at every level, our young adults have had to do without the milestones that typically mark their transition to college. No graduation. No prom. None of the typical rituals of closure marking the end of their secondary school experience.

For students with special needs, transitions can be challenging under the best of circumstances. So, is it a good idea to continue with plans to attend college if that college is going to be all virtual this fall? There are pros, there are cons, and most importantly, there are options!

First, the pros. There are a lot of good reasons not to put the future on hold and to continue with post-secondary plans.

• Maintaining forward momentum. Beginning college classes, even virtually, feels like a natural progression forward. Waiting until campus life returns to what it was pre-COVID-19 means that the next step toward independence and adulthood is indefinitely on hold.

• Maintaining routines and good study habits. Once a student, especially a student who has challenges with executive functioning, gets out of the routine of studying and following a schedule, it can be very hard to re-establish good study habits.

• Learning about college expectations. Exposure to the rigors of college, even virtually, provides an opportunity for practice so that the student will be more prepared when life on campus does resume.

Of course, there are cons as well. Many of these concerns are the same types of challenges that we all experienced with distance learning over the last semester.

• Motivation. If my high school senior was not motivated to tune into his Zoom classes or complete assignments, how do I know that they will be motivated to do their college classes online?

• Family harmony. Many families experienced significant tension trying to balance distance learning for their kids and working from home. How much support will your college freshman need to stay on track? Can you use the same strategies to hold a young adult accountable for homework that you did when they were in high school? Should you?

• Accommodations. How will the college provide classroom accommodations in a virtual model? Will this be sufficient?

Virtual independent living skills ‘cooking group’ session

Fortunately, the decision is not a zero-sum game. There are options that lie between taking the risk to try virtual college classes without support and postponing college until things reopen safely. Some colleges offer additional fee-for-service supports that go beyond the limited accommodations available to students with special needs. Enrolling in a program like this can help your student to build a rapport and have someone to rely on to navigate supports on campus once in-person classes resume.

If your college does not offer such a program, there is also the option of hiring an executive function coach who can meet with your student virtually or socially distanced in-person a set number of times per week.  An executive function coach can teach students to prioritize assignments and plan their study time, as well as help them maintain their effort. If neither of these options offers enough support to address all the concerns listed above, you can also consider looking into a more robust post-secondary support program with wrap-around services.

College Living Experience in Austin, Texas (additional locations in Washington, DC; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Nashville, TN; Denver, CO; and Costa Mesa and Monterey in CA), is one such program. CLE offers support to young adults 18 and over in the areas of academics, career development, social skills, and independent living skills. Students live in apartments close to the CLE center. They have support in the apartments, from a Resident Advisor who is available after hours to Independent Living Skills instructors who help them manage their space, meal plan and cook, and even pay their own bills. The center itself consists of individual tutoring rooms where students receive daily academic support both in content and executive function. Students also receive support in career development and participate in supervised social activities.

Socially distant and masked CLE student advising session

Because students are living in apartments and not in dormitories, they are able to continue with the program and continue receiving supports virtually if necessary, even if campuses need to close. At the college level, that means that students are following a set schedule, taking their online classes independently, and receiving support from professional tutors, whether that is virtual in their apartments, or whether they are permitted to come to the center and use an individual tutoring room to replicate the experience of going to a classroom. This also removes many potential sources of conflict from the home, from arguments over chores to parents feeling responsible for making students do their homework.

As challenges continue to mount for now, remember that other options exist besides the extremes of continuing a distance learning model that may not have been successful last semester at home and doing nothing. Whether through exploring additional supports on campus, utilizing executive function coaches socially distanced or virtual, or moving to a post-secondary program geared toward supporting all aspects of independence, a new normal calls for a look into new strategies that allow our young adults to progress.

Janet Price

An honest look at the fall

Pam Nicholas is an extraordinary educator who serves as executive director of Huntington-Surrey High School. Below, she shares her candid thoughts and feelings about the challenges and uncertainties of the coming school year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic that is currently surging here in Central Texas.

I, like many other parents and people in the education community, have been glued to any news or information about what school district plans are looking like for the fall. As both a teacher and an administrator for our small private high school, I have so many emotions running through me about the idea of returning to school in the fall.  I know that many kids learn best when they are face-to-face. I miss hugging my kids (okay, students) every day. I miss seeing them face-to-face, and I even miss going on my occasional Starbucks runs for them. It was hard to see them only online in the spring and to know that they too were emotionally struggling with so much going on in the world.

On the other hand, having my own personal health issues, I am not one to take my health or anyone else’s for granted. I was proud of the fact that my school managed to both help flatten Austin’s curve in the spring and provide our students with an excellent virtual education with no missed days of school. Now, these summer months are leaving me with time to reflect on what went well, what could be improved, how we can keep our students engaged, and how we can best support our kids, our teachers, and our families in these very disconcerting times. 

With hospitals in Austin getting close to being overwhelmed, it is troubling for me to hear elected officials talk about having schools return to face-to-face classes in the fall. There is so much talk about how the virus is mild in children, but the facts of the matter are that some children do get quite ill and children can transmit the virus between one another, to their families, and to their teachers. There is no way to predict right now which one of us will have a mild case, who will have severe illness or ongoing medical issues to contend with, and who will die. As a private school administrator, could I ever live with the fact that I did have the “luxury” of keeping school virtual but I chose not to, and someone were to get seriously ill or die because of that choice? I know some of my parents are really wanting to return to face-to-face instruction because, of course, it is the best way for their kids to learn and there is nothing like face-to-face social interactions with their friends. However, I’m not one to gamble, and I am certainly not feeling comfortable gambling with the lives of the people in my community. 

As a private high school, we were and are extremely privileged in the sense that our kids are old enough to be home by themselves, if need be, and our kids are already extremely familiar with technology. With our very small student-to-teacher ratios, we could still pay a lot of attention to each student during class times and were able to be available to them outside of regular class times for extra help. I won’t say everything went perfectly transitioning to live, online classes (we were Zoom-bombed only once, thank goodness!), but I know that our kids knew we were there for them, got to have some pretty interesting conversations, still managed to learn new skills, and were able to practice those skills with the live support of their peers and teachers. 

So, what were some lessons learned, and what can we, as parents, educators, or, like me, both, do this coming fall? All of us need to have some positive interaction during the day. Having good, interesting conversations, even virtually, keeps kids engaged. Teaching using Socratic methods also helps to keep them engaged. We’ve learned that some kids are still going to struggle, especially those with ADHD. Our ADHD students can spend hour upon hour on a screen playing Minecraft, but it is quite different from taking an online course. We have found that having them attend class via cell phone in a well-lit room with just a table or desk really helps with mitigating the temptation to use other apps during class time.

Parents helping kids stay organized and on top of their homework as they adjust can help a lot, too. When kids were out and about during the day, it was easier to make sure they were doing their independent work at a regularly scheduled time. Now with them home all day, it is easier to assume they will just get it done. That really isn’t the case. Parents with children of any age can help their kids find success by having them on a consistent routine, including time slotted specifically for homework. Regular sleep times, physical activity times, and homework times can go a long way.

Another way to help our kids in an online environment is for teachers to record their classes. Our school will be posting them online so that if a student wasn’t able to focus, for whatever reason, the class is there for them to see at a better time. We are also continuing our study halls during the school days so kids can get their homework done with a teacher live to help them and make sure progress is being made on assignments. It’s important for schools to be able to provide one-on-one help if they can, even if it isn’t academic help. Our teachers will continue to simply check in with each of our students to find out how they are coping. Offering frequent “just for fun” opportunities can help, too. This summer and beyond, we will continue to offer online social opportunities for our kids to virtually get together. Working hand-in-hand with our parents, students, and faculty, we will give our students the best possible educational experience we can provide.

Times are tough right now for most of us, and alt-ed schools have a lot of difficult decisions to make over the coming days and weeks. The balance between the grown-ups having to work, the children needing in-person attention, and everyone wanting to help keep everyone safe is an exceedingly difficult one to find. I know we are all going to try our best, and hopefully working together with a lot of patience and empathy, we will make the best of what seems like an impossible situation.

 
Pam Nicholas

MusicAlly: Bringing musicians and remote learners together

Here at Alt Ed Austin, we always—but especially in these difficult times—find joy in shining a spotlight on educators and artists who are using their time and talents to meet the evolving needs of learners in creative and generous ways. This guest post, from MusicAlly’s Caeli Smith, is music to our ears.

On March 12, 2020, I played what would be my last performance for a very, very long time. I savored the time on stage at Miller Theater at Columbia University, performing with internationally renowned pianist Simone Dinnerstein. It was an all Bach concert, and I luxuriated in the music and the feeling of communicating with my colleagues on stage. With no conductor, we used our bodies and eyes to send signals to each other and play in tandem. The evening had a special gravity. We all knew what was coming.

The next day, wham—my entire performance season was obliterated. I deleted everything from my calendar, too sad to remember what I was supposed to be doing that day. I spent a few days lying glumly in bed. It was obvious I needed a productive, creative project, and quick.

My passion has always been at the intersection of music and education. I’ve been teaching for 15 years, both privately and in New York City schools (and now as an adjunct professor at Juilliard, my alma mater). When Covid-19 hit, teaching was the only part of my life that continued uninterrupted. My students were game to move our work online. To my surprise and delight, I realized that one-on-one instruction with a dedicated student translates rather well to Zoom.

In fact, online teaching has made me a better teacher. I’m more concise with my instruction; more precise with the notes I type up to send to students after the lesson. And my students are better, too: more responsible, focused. There are some things I can’t do for them now. So they do it themselves.

Teaching on Zoom got me thinking about accessibility. In an instant, a student anywhere in the world can be connected to a world-class teacher in New York City or Paris. No waiting for the bus, no getting home too late to finish homework. An hour-long lesson is truly an hour’s investment, for both the teacher and student.

This summer, kids are stuck indoors, in many cases without access to summer camps, school programs, or outdoor play. They desperately need art, structure, and invested mentors. So I founded MusicAlly, which connects kids around the world with online music lessons and peers.

Classical music has a notorious accessibility problem. To break into the circuit, you need an instrument, weekly lessons, maybe summers away at Interlochen. It’s not cheap.

Everyone needs an ally when they’re studying an instrument – whether that comes in the shape of a teacher, a fellow student, or a dedicated parent. I realized that if my program could charge market rate for lessons with the highest-caliber teachers, we could use half of that money to fund a second lesson for another student who wouldn’t otherwise ever have quality private instruction.

All kids who study music know that the best part of playing an instrument is meeting and playing with other musical kids. The first time I played chamber music, at age 11, with three other middle schoolers, a lightbulb went off in my head. (Actually, it was more like fireworks.) This was the stuff. It was what I would do forever.

I designed a PenPal program to match MusicAlly students by age and experience. Our PenPals send weekly “what’s up” emails and twice-weekly practice videos as well as recording duets over Zoom. The correspondence keeps students accountable for their practice and encourages and motivates them in their progress.

MusicAlly has received applications from kids (and adults) in Japan, Romania, and across the United States. My dream is to build a global network of music students who connect with the best caliber of teachers, build relationships with other musical kids, and, most importantly, develop a life-long love of music. Even though live performance is on the shelf for now, music is never postponed.

Caeli Smith  |  MusicAlly

Media Monday: 6 Weeks to Mother's Day, a film about alternative education and unconditional love in Thailand

Media Mondays are back. There is so much interesting and important creative work in film, books, podcasting, and other media related to alternative education these days, we’d like to highlight it for our Alt Ed Austin community. One project that is uplifting and inspiring us at the moment is a documentary film called 6 Weeks to Mother’s Day by Marvin Blunte, currently available to stream on Amazon Prime and Kanopy.

The title doesn’t reveal the fact that the film documents a radical approach to education—a progressive, loving school in rural Thailand. The “mother” in “Mother’s Day” is the school’s founder, Rajani Dhongchai, known as Mother Aew. 

Moo Baan Dek, often called Children’s Village School, has been around for more than 35 years and is run on a democratic model, inspired by the Summerhill School in England combined with Buddhist teachings. They grow much of their own food, use solar energy, and have few modern amenities.

Most of the students Mother Aew and her staff nurture are poor, many are orphans, and about half have emotional, physical, or learning challenges. They study subjects they choose for themselves and make decisions in an all-school student council. They are able to pursue academics and practical skills that will enable them to live full and independent lives. In one especially powerful scene, Mother Aew offers warm, respectful acknowledgment of a student’s decision to transition from living as a boy to a girl. The school receives some support from the government but is sustained primarily by contributions.

The students are in tremendous need right now as a result of the pandemic. Even small contributions are tremendously helpful. Marvin let us know that he is still in contact with Mother Aew, and she’s always excited when a contribution comes in from outside the country and puts it directly to work providing food, clothing, books, and other materials for the kids. You can find information about the school here, which includes a page for donations.

I had the opportunity to talk with filmmaker Marvin Blunte while he was staying safe at his parents’ home in New York state a few weeks ago. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.


The film is a fascinating look into a beautiful community of kids and educators—and inspiring! One of the interesting choices you made was to have no narrator and no explanations of what is happening. Viewers are just immersed in the day-to-day life of the school. Could you talk about why you made that decision?

I’ve always been a fan of observational style filmmaking. The work of a French director named Nicolas Philibert is one of my models. He made a film called To Be and to Have, about a little rural school in France in 2002. When I was trying to come up with how to approach Mother Aew’s school, I went through a variety of options, including having a host or narrator to explain the place.

But if you look at a lot of films about other cultures and countries coming from the West, they’re often skewed with the filmmaker’s opinions. I didn’t want that. I wanted to present exactly what the school is like, and when the teachers and students saw the film, they seemed to think it was successful in that. They were initially worried about what I was going to film, and I warned them that it was my right as an artist to tell the story as I saw fit. But in the end they were thrilled.

I understand you kind of stumbled upon the school while working on another project. What inspired you to go back multiple times to make the film?

At first I didn’t understand anything because almost no one spoke English. I didn’t understand what was happening or how the school worked. One of the kids kept following me as I was walking around taking photos on my first trip. I kept trying to shoo the kid away, and I indicated to one of the teachers who spoke a little English that I was sorry about this student following me and not being in class. She said, “He’s following you because he’s interested in what you’re doing. Is he bothering you?” I said he wasn’t, and then she told me this is part of the democratic school process. He was learning what he wanted to learn. 

I left the next day to go to Cambodia to cover another story, but the school kept spinning in my head. The kids were in charge! They showed me around, served me my food, seemed to take full responsibility for me and, later, when I returned, for my crew. I went back for a short time to teach photography, so they could get to know me. I didn’t want to be a novelty—I wanted to become invisible while I filmed.

When you were filming, did you live within the community or go in and out?

We stayed in a traditional Thai home on the outskirts of the village. Part of the philosophy is that the students need to learn to farm and take care of themselves as survival skills for when they leave. I think you could put them anywhere and they would survive. But they do have some electricity that they generate so that they can have a computer lab—and so I could charge my cameras!

Beyond the portrait you show us in the film, what else would you like people to know about the school?

Well, I would encourage people to take a look at the school’s Facebook page for updates. I left some cameras with the students who were interested in photography last time I was there, and they’ve taken to social media.

Now, with the pandemic, they’re unable to get many donations and aren’t able to pay their teachers. You see in the film that a huge part of Thai culture is giving—the students themselves are taught to be generous as part of their Buddhist training. Unfortunately, it’s become almost impossible for others to give to them, but Mother Aew has created a project where the students are making face masks for the surrounding communities to protect people from the virus. That generous aspect of the culture is something I wanted to show people through the film.

6 Weeks to Mother’s Day is currently available on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, and Kanopy.
Être et Avoir (To Be and To Have) is also streaming on Kanopy.

Shelley Sperry | Sperry Editorial

Hiding scary things from kids

Deborah Hale, founder and director of the Inside Outside School, kindly granted Alt Ed Austin permission to republish this timely and soul-searching piece. It originally appeared on her school blog earlier this month, soon after large protests against police brutality and racism began in Minneapolis, Austin, and many other communities throughout the world.

 
Recent events following the murder of George Floyd have offered me, a white woman born in the 1950s, an opportunity for self-reflection. I am not doing a good enough job of growing anti-racist children. I’ve always taken the approach with environmental education that we don’t focus on what is wrong like glaciers melting; instead we help children fall in love with nature, so that one day they will harness that love in a way that actively protects the environment. Playing in a creek, gardening, and feeding chickens are our methodology of raising an environmental activist.  We address race issues mostly through literature. We teach respect for everyone. The students study the Civil Rights movement, Jim Crow laws, slavery, the Underground Railroad, segregation, and prejudice. 
​ 
In her book Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness, Anastasia Higginbotham shows a mother saying, “Oh no, not again.” Her daughter hears her and says, “Mom. What ‘not again?’” The mother doesn’t want to tell her child about the George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Mark Ramos news break of the day. She wants to “hide scary things” from her kid. Boy, do I get that! I really want children to enjoy their sacred childhood, running, playing, laughing. The dangers they face at school are poison ivy, sharp rocks under their bare feet, snakes, and puss moth caterpillars. Their parents might worry about that a bit, but they don’t have to worry that their child will be murdered by police. I can protect them from the horrible, frightening details in today’s news, but because there is not a lot of diversity, I cannot help them fall in love with people of color through direct experience. Our school isn’t free, there is no free breakfast or lunch, we are not on a bus route. We lack socio-economic diversity. As a private school, we serve privileged children. That’s not what I want, but that is what I created.

Our family has recently had our own run-in with racist police brutality. Like many white grandparents, we have grandchildren, daughters-in-law, nieces, and nephews who are people of color. Our grandson was peacefully protesting in Austin and was shot at close range by a police officer’s rubber bullet.

Our grandson, now 20, is a photographer. The bullet hit his right arm. He required emergency surgery to save his arm. He has a huge scar which runs down the center of his Texas tattoo. He was holding a camera, not a gun. 

He is a peaceful man. He eats a vegan diet so that he may do no harm. I adore my grandchildren. They matter to me deeply and personally. Our grandson recently shared with us how difficult it has been for him, growing up black. I heard his pain, the things he has faced that our other grandchildren will never have to face because they are white. I do want them to know what happened to their cousin. I know it is a scary thing, but knowing about this is important. We cannot let them grow up thinking that the color of your skin doesn’t matter. It makes all the difference if your skin color isn’t white. I knelt in the grass on a recent Sunday at Huston-Tillotson College listening to the heartbreaking words of Brenda Ramos, whose son, Mark, had been killed by police in Austin 6 weeks earlier. Mark was unarmed and had his hands up in the air.  There has been no justice, no arrest. My heart is hurting for her and for all mothers and grandmothers whose children are people of color.

One of the reasons we don’t teach our students at IOS about deforestation and climate change is that these big problems can paralyze children into a fear that they can only shut down around. I feel this paralyzing fear about our world right now. Are we facing civil war? Are people trying to stir up such an unimaginable evil in the year 2020? I cannot remain frozen in fear. I have to use my voice to speak out against racism. It was not my idea, and if you are reading this, it was not yours either. We do not support it, but are we fighting it?

My grandfather introduced racism into our home when I was in kindergarten or first grade. He said the N word at the dinner table in reference to his co-workers at the post office. My mother bravely ripped her father in law a new one in front of his granddaughters. It made an indelible impression on me. I thank God that my mother shaped my belief system, not my grandfather. When we saw the race riots on the television, she did not send me out of the room. I saw. I see. I cannot look the other way.

Our next module in our Wit and Wisdom curriculum at the Inside Outside School is “Civil Rights.” We will open with this integrated theme in our pandemic world classroom, whatever that looks like. I will help shape the belief systems of my students. I will continue to teach them the Three Respect Agreements of our school: Respect Yourself, Respect Others, Respect the Environment. I will continue to teach them about a growth mindset and about the Dimensions of Human Greatness. But, when we talk about interaction, I want them to actually have interactions with people of color. I don’t want it to all be book learning. 

My semester reports are all written, and now I am trying to plan for a world where students can’t be closer than 6 feet from each other, where I may be teaching with a mask over my mouth and nose in triple-digit Texas heat. But just as importantly, I also am imagining how to plan a world where the student population at our school reflects the diversity of our wider community. I can stand against racism by not being satisfied with my white privilege. I can ask for the means to serve more intentionally in creating a more just and loving world. I can reach into the greater field of life where this school originated and find the next upgrade. Through our shared intention, let us see that manifesting. 

Please join me. Namaste.

Deborah Hale