Our Thanks

To the left are some of the reasons I give thanks every day---the students and staff at Willow Creek. Spending my time with these people makes my day and my week and my year. No matter how frustrated I might get with the challenges of education, there are always a lot of bright spots which keep me going with optimism, enthusiasm and humor.

Among these bright lights are:

A PE Program which produces lots of rosy cheeks and fast runners; a 4th grade boy who has his hair cut in order to donate it to Locks of Love; a 5th grade boy who insists on donating $10 of his own money to our "Adopt a Family" campaign; the retired science teacher who comes in weekly to help our Upper School kids understand biology; our 3 teams of students from Drake High School who are helping us "green" our school in many ways; our music and art programs which fill the school with song and color and all of the families who trust us with their children's welfare day in and day out.

As we approach this holiday season, let us all give thanks for the lights in our lives---when we stop to think and reflect a bit, there is lots of light in the darkness to help us find our way. We send our best wishes to all of you who follow our progress. Thank you for caring about us.

Of Knights and Maidens

I am often asked for examples of project based, multi-disciplinary instruction. This past Friday, I was privileged to join our 7th grade history/social studies class as they presented the results of a 3 1/2 week project. Working in pairs or groups of three students, each group was to create a medieval castle, a story about the residents of that partiular castle and keep a builders' log documenting each and every aspect of creating their architectural masterpieces.

The room was a buzz with parents, visiting classes and, of course, the 7th grade medieval Europe historians. Each group read their original stories, discussed the challenges and rewards of working together and commented on how problems such as building collapses were solved.

The excitement and pride in the room was palpable as these young designers and model makers displayed their work. Not only was there evidence of historical research, mathematical reasoning was employed to make sure that walls were parallel, physics concepts helped figure how to make drawbridges, language arts' skills of technical documentation was required to create the builders' logs and creative writing to develop the story lines for the narrative of daily life in the castle. But, perhaps even more important that this integration of skills and knowledge, was the fact that, just as in real life---teams of students worked together, solved problems, compromised and developed respect for each other.

This is what we encourage at Willow Creek----as a community, we believe that everything is connected to everything else---and it is our interactions with each other and our environment that make everything work. I am delighted that our future is in the hands of this particular group of young students.

Indian Summer at Willow Creek

It's been a while since I've shared some of the school's activities with you. time just seems to float by in this warm, lazy weather. However, under this quiet surface, much is happening inside and out of every classroom. Some of my favorite things have been:

Working with 25 Willow Creek families to collect more than 60 lbs of trash on Coastal Cleanup Day

Helping 4 upper school students work with marine biologists to explore just how much of an invasive plankton seems to be making itself at home in Richardson Bay;

Watching the 5th grade class do Navajo sand paintings. They colored the sand, drew their own versions of native American designs and then produced exquisite sand paintings---without even making a mess or mixing the sand colors with each other;

Listening to our children in music classes---plein song, Celtic carols, swing tunes from the 1940's as well as some original compositions filled the room with our very own surround sound.

These trips around the campus and beyond, remind me how very important it is for a school to provide the enrichment which brings to life what is studied and discussed inside the classroom. Over and over, educational research verifies what we all know in our hearts---the tremendous importance of the arts in engaging our hearts and souls as well as our brains. We need that complete experience to truly learn.

A Time for Reflection

Today I spent some time in our school garden where we planted two olive trees five years ago. We were just moving into our current school buildings and it was the first anniversary of 9/11. To honor the hope for peace, we planted two olive trees. The trees are of two diferent varieties, but both olive bearing trees. We also transplanted our "Founders Tree" a very small and spindly willow tree to represent the school as time goes on.

The olive trees are now both sturdy---one kind of a thick bramble of a bush and the other, tall and slender. Both bear olives but not quite enough yet to produce a bottle of oil...but someday..... Our Willow had thrived----from a small three foot, weak limbed plant it is now about 7 or 8 feet tall with three strong and graceful trunks. It often has kids kind of nestled inside of it seeking some shade or quiet time.

On this 6th anniversary of 9/11 I'm happy to see our trees representing our community. Three different trees, two related, one only related by being a tree and I can't help but think of the remarkable diversity that is Willow Creek. We have parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends raising our children; we have every shade of skin imaginable fro the palest pink to the darkest brown and we have all of the world's greatest religions represented in our midst. In this day and age, our trees and our people, bode well for the future and demonstrate on a daily basis that we certainly can "all get along"...and on days when we can't, we are able to come back together and figure out what was the problem and what can we do about it.

Let's hope the outside world can do the same.

Tuesday Tales

This promises to be a good week at Willow Creek. The weather is perfect and we have a couple of new students. One is a delightful young man in kindergarten---he is a bit late starting school this year due to a medical condition. But he is here now and raring to go. He's so pleased about being in school that he asked his mother last night if it was OK to do his homework right away!

We also have a 7th grade boy joining us tomorrow. He just arrived from India last Friday and has already shaken off his jet lag and is ready to get to work. His favorite subject is English and he's very, very anxious to take advantage of our classroom libraries.

Our Spanish program started today---thanks to Berlitz we are able to work with some native speakers in our world languages program. In a few weeks, we will be offering Mandarin to our 4th grade class. We are able to provide these programs thanks to the Fullerton Family Foundation, a donor fund managed by the Marin Community Foundation.

As time goes on, it is so rewarding to see the many layers of experiences that students and staff weave together into an ever evolving learning and doing program. Soon we will have music in place and the halls will ring (I hope) with song.

On Saturday, we had a great garden party----about 8 or 10 parents and grandparents arrived with their students and really tidied up the garden so it's all ready for the kids. Everyone had such a good time, that this will continue every couple of weeks until the cold and wet weather sets in.

Enough for now.....time to do some of my own homework and studying

4th Grade Diplomacy

One of the great things about spending lots of time in an elementary school is that world issues and problems really get brought down to the basic levels. Case in point---during lunch time today, two different adult staff members came running up to me with the news that about 20 kids were standing around up on a hill (where playing is NOT allowed) while other kids were fighting. The fight ended up with two kids punching each other and then rolling down the hill together

So.....with my lunch in hand, I met with all of the parties and after 30 minutes of discussion was able to ascertain that this all came from some 4th grade boys "defending" their territory marked by large pieces of cardboard boxes against some other 4th grade boys. One group decided to get "help" from some 6th graders and the mayhem began.

The good news is that every one fessed up to their part in this mass confusion and at the end all shook hands and agreed to the consequences which involve telling their parents exactly what happened and their role in it, writing an essay for the principal about their feelings and reflecting on what they will do should there be a similar situation (and 4th grade boys HATE to write) and devoting a day of recess next week to some kind of community service project such as picking up trash or shadowing the custodians and helping with an entire campus clean up.

I reflected with the kids that this is exactly what happens on a world scale when one group of people feels the need to "defend" something and how so many, many people get pulled into conflicts not of their own making. All in all, I think it was a good experience both on a personal level and on a bigger level.

More next week---when those essays come in.

Back to School Night

It was great fun yesterday to watch parents sittiing in their student's seats and trying to figure out the 4th grade math book. In other rooms, people were having potluck suppers and in yet, others, the big 8th grade trip was being planned. And then, the kids were mostly outside so it was a great set of role reversals with the adults in the classroom and the kids outside.

Willow Creek likes to think outside the box and enjoys seing people doing different things than they usually do. We just have to figure out how to get those teachers away from their overhead projectors......

And one of the highlights of the evening was sharing our great API score of 830 achieved in the spring of 2007! Congratulations to everyone at Willow Creek for helping students jump 92 points.