The Power of Many Hands

Many hands make light work. ~John Heywood

This how the Woodland Park Cooperative School does Halloween, the highest of our high holidays, the others, in calendrical order being MLK Day, Chinese New Year, and Valentine's Day.

Our morning school becomes a night (okay, early evening) school. We spend the two weeks leading up to the big night discussing our costumes and making decorations. We then all dress up in those costumes, gather at the school in the evening with tons of food, including too many sweets, and when I say "we all," I mean our entire community that grows to 100 or more children when one includes older siblings and alumni, and at least as many adults. It's an event that grew bigger each year. The center of the festivities took place in what we call the Cloud Room, the Fremont Baptist Church's social hall, a room with a stage and one whole wall lined with mirrors. I set up the classroom simply, with crayons, play dough, what we call "the crazy floor" (large foam blocks interspersed randomly under gym mats), and corn starch packing pellets in the sensory table. The outdoor classroom is open as well.

The parents are a big part of making this evening work, pitching in with their creativity and zeal. One year, for instance, Elijah's mom Unique put together a Halloween themed photo "booth," with small straw bales and a spooky back drop. Devrim's mom Funda set up a jack-o-lantern vomiting guacamole. Elizabeth's mom Susan organized a silent auction that evolved over the years into an important fundraiser for our school: local businesses, sports teams, and other organizations donated nice items, but the highlights were always the handmade, personal items and one-of-a-kind experiences that can only come from our community. Henry's family, for instance, would always offer an airport shuttle service complete with coffee. Every family contributes something.

Grandmas, grandpas and close family friends join us. More rarely seen spouses turn up, most in costume. And I must say that this is one of the coolest aspects of our annual party: there is a lot of friendly peer pressure to get the adults to at least make a gesture toward a costume. The kids definitely appreciate this. It raises the importance of this night for them when even the adults who never dress up are in costume. 

What do we do? We arrive, talk about our costumes, eat food, trash the classroom, take a lot of pictures, get a little overwhelmed, calm down outside, plunge back in, sneak an extra cupcake, and generally get carried away by the night. And we go home exhausted. You know, like what always happens at a good party. In the following days, children tell me, conspiratorially, "I had four sweets," or earnestly, "It was too loud," or eagerly, "Let's do it again." We spend the week after rehashing the event, talking about the moments when we were excited or frightened or sad or angry. We discuss what the "big kids" did or what the "little kids" did and, inspired, begin to plan our costumes for next year.

The highlight for me, the moment I live for, my absolutely most shining moment, is leading circle time for our entire community. I typically wore my pink bunny costume, a beautifully sewn thing, with gray "fir" around the cuffs and the paisley ears. I'm very fond of that costume, but it's hot in the best of times, a feature that is compounded by being in a tightly packed room. I sit on the stage and call the children together. I can't describe how magnificent it is to look into the faces of these children I know and, raising my gaze to look just beyond them, the faces of the families who make up the totality of who we are.

We sing "Roll That Pumpkin Down to Town," and "Itsy Bitsy Spider." We do a few of our anthemic felt board songs and chants, altered to honor the holiday. We sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" using the jack-o-lanterns we carved during the week to represent "happy," "sad," "angry," "surprised," "silly," and "pirate" (a recognized emotion in our school) as props. I love nothing more than catching the eyes of alumni students who are now first or second graders, singing lustily along.

I am, by the end, in a full-on sweat, red-faced and wishing I were wearing something more lightweight.

After the "show," the place is, as previously mentioned, trashed. My first thought is always that this was going to take hours to set back in order.

I want the families to feel free to pack their tired kids off to bed, so think of tidying up as my job, but the rest of the community doesn't see it that way. As the party winds down, I start by picking up one thing and putting it back where it belongs. Then another. Soon, without anything being said, a parent will join me, scooping corn starch pellets from the floor back into the sensory table, for instance. In another corner of the room another parent will put away the play dough. Another tidies up the art table. Grandparents and friends pitch in. Before five minutes has passed, a dozen adults and at least as many kids are, again without comment or instruction, putting things away, sweeping, organizing. Those hours of work are compressed into 10 minutes through the power of many hands.

When I return to the Cloud Room, a similar thing has happened in there: the decorations are down, the tables and chairs are stashed away, the floor is swept, and the garbage bags are carried to the dumpster. Same with the kitchen where we held the silent auction and the kindergarten room. Even the outdoor classroom is re-set and ready for the following day.

I'm always the last to leave. As I stand in our empty space, lights off, it's hard to believe that the evening has happened, that only moments before we were laughing, feasting, posing, sweating, singing, and dancing together, all of us, celebrating the magic of many hands. And, as I stand there, dressed in street clothes for my bus ride home, I realize that this is what we celebrate every day at our little cooperative preschool.

This is the power of true partnership with parents.

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