Something We Do

School is officially out for the summer, but we continue to run our summer program, a series of two week sessions with an ever-changing community of children, although to be honest, I'm using the word "community" more out of habit than anything else. Of course, any time humans come together one can use the term, but for me, the word is more a verb than a noun: community is something we do together, not just something we are.

As we wrapped up our school year at the end of May, I was working with communities of children that we had been building together for months and even years. Through the process of coming together day after day, we had practiced handling conflict, balancing the needs of individuals, and creating agreements, traditions, and even what one might call rituals that shaped who we were together. And while our small, democratic societies came to an abrupt end, the hope is that as the children of Woodland Park go out into the wider world to begin creating new communities, they carry with them the skills, habits, and attitudes they learned while playing together.

During any given summer session, about half of our enrollment is comprised of families who are a part of our regular school year community, while the remainder come to us from other places. Two weeks of half day sessions is really not long enough for a robust community to take shape, but it's inspiring nonetheless to watch the children strive toward it as they bump up against these other people with whom they are suddenly sharing space and resources. There is joy and conflict as they strive to shape this neophyte community, each working to satisfy her own needs while accommodating those of the others.

I find myself stepping in more quickly than I do during the regular school year, if only because we have not had the time to establish community standards around violence and force. I'm responsible for everyone's safety, but I'm not there to solve their problems, because it is largely from solving their own problems, together, that a community can grow. My job, as I see it, is to remind the children to listen to one another. When they do that, magic happens.

Yesterday, a girl, seeing that someone was already using our cast iron water pump, whined to me, "Teacher Tom, I want to pump!"

I pointed out that someone was already using it, but that if she wanted a turn she should tell him, not me. She said to him, "I want to pump." He answered, "Let me finish." She smiled from ear-to-ear, "He said I could pump when he's finished!" saying it the way a cartoon scientist says, "Eureka!" Then moments later he stepped aside, making way for her. Within minutes another child was standing at her shoulder saying, "I want to pump." And she replied, "Let me finish."

This instinct to form community, it seems to me, is the lifeblood of education. Indeed, I would say it is the purpose of not just education, but life itself. Community is an action word and every second children spend hunched over a desk filling out a worksheet or taking a test or listening to lecture is a second lost in this great and grand human project.

(I've just published a book! If you are interested in ordering Teacher Tom's First Book, click here. Thank you!)

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