Wow, we have been off the blog for a while. Tracey Whitehouse and I think about it all the time. We talk about what we need to post. What we want to post. and then work, children, challenges with children, sickness, and life just get in the way.
We said goodbye to some beloved staff in December. Janna McIntyre is off to Senegal very soon and this past Friday, we skyped with Patrick Frame from his new digs in Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavik. We have missed their daily presence, but are so happy for them to be having these incredible experiences. Even though our kids were suffering from a severe case of challenging behavior crammed into the project lab like sardines on the last day of a long week of no outside recess—-you could see that talking about another country with Patrick while he was sitting there, 5 hours ahead of us, in complete darkness of night, getting to ask him questions about life made more of an impact on them than any pictures or videos we could show them of a country. It made it real. It made it tangible. A good learning for us staff.
Making experiences tangible for the kids is our daily challenge. In fact, that was a large part of a 3 hour meeting that Ms. Lewis, Tracey and I had yesterday. We have kids from all socio-economic backgrounds. We are reaching some and we are light-years from others. How to plan for groups that include kids from the entire socio-economic spectrum and engage them all? Add into that mix that these are individual humans who are so much more than the sum of their socio-economic parts. Our goal is to inspire them, help them learn to make good choices-not just to satisfy us-but so that they grow up to be contributing, interesting human beings engaged in life. engaged in the world. engaged in LIVING-not existing.
How do we positively contribute to their growing up process and inspire them and engage them and keep them safe AND keep our program evolving and moving forward as a whole?!?! One way is a 3 hour meeting on a beautiful Saturday. Another is the valuable resource of our teachers and staff at Dickson. We so appreciate their willingness to hold counsel in the hallway or to share strategies and plans with us. We are a stronger program because of them. We are also so appreciative of the parents of our kids. You support us, work with us and trust us to be a part of your kids’ lives. Bright IDEAS is becoming more than the sum of its parts as well.
This is far from where I started this blog entry, but oh well. It’s Sunday morning and I have only had one cup of coffee.
We have a lot coming up in BI. This week is anti-bullying week. We have new units of study for the weeks and months to come too. Weird science, volcanoes, Senegal, the earth, character building, water, galaxies and stars to name a few.
Session 3 clubs start the week of February 4. BI is in full swing between now and then. I really need to go help that coffee pot by reducing its load……happy new year. happy Sunday. happy life. amanda
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