I knew it had been awhile since I wrote a blog, but November 2020 was a bit of a surprise.  We are still here!  We are looking forward to getting bees in April.  Above is our new mural, a project done by a mural elective class led by a very gifted parent.  We are still recovering from the ice storm, but a team of enthusiastic parents with chainsaws got us up and running pretty quickly. Our little goat friends had to take refuge in the duck coop when a tree came down in the farmyard.
​

Our goats, Elizabeth and Daisy came to us in December.  They are the sweetest goats we have ever had at IOS. 

We've also been adopted by a very friendly cat whom we have named Mrs. Mittens.  

We held our annual Woodland Faire in November.  It gets better each year.  This year it was all about Ursa Major and giant mushrooms.  We have raised over $800 for our "Plentiful Plant," fundraiser.  We will be adding pollinator plants to our gardens, because...We are getting beehives!!!

I love looking out my classroom open window.  I feel a lightness of being even though things are crazy right now...outside of our magical world.  Fall leaves blow through the windows and we do a good bit of sweeping at the end of the day.  Every week that provides us the blessisng of meeting in person is a thing of wonder.  It is a treasure box to unpack.  We have a classroom pet named Delbert.  It is a damselfly.           

Monday was Monday Math Trail Morning.  They are estimating and measuring  girth in Peace Circle Woods

This one was 100", but the biggest tree at the Palace of the Pecan King had a girth of 180".  It took 4 people to hold the measuring tapes.  We had our first music class...drumsticks, 5 gallon buckets and rhythm (one of our spelling words. with silent h.)  
​

And now the latest update from today...landscaping.  The sweet smell of cedar mulch welcomes you to the lunchroom.  Plants are set in groups where they will go into the soil.  So many people to thank for all this...Henry and Jamie, Willie, Brian, Mike, Peter, Suzanne, Ruchi, Manish, Donna, Sonia, Van, Ian and Gillian, Brent, Alphonso...I know there are many more.  Thank you all.  For Katie, Sonia and Brian and all the cast of "The Case of the Missing Dragon Kittens," another radical recognition, if I may...it was more than magical...it was so real!  The whole experience spotlighted our community's Human Greatness in action.  

Due to Covid-19 we were online having Zoom school for the first 8 weeks of this 20-21 school year.  We have been constructing 2 outside classrooms for our return, and we are back.  For now we have alternating half school pod groups meeting on campus.  Since the outside classrooms are downhill, we are getting a lot of exercise to make up for sitting in front of screens for weeks.  This is our first week back, so we are working out the finer details of how to run campus chores, like who will be feeding the chickens.  We have a new rooster, Fluffers.  Fluffers likes to crow.  Fluffers lives near the back porch where the Purple math group meets.  Math is interesting.  Fluffers sounds like he is begging in desperation for help.  This morning there was a deer running through the woods.  I've never seen a deer on the campus in our 9 years here.  Turtles have moved into an area of the creek that has some downed trees.  As soon as they hear humans they dive in, but if you are really quiet you can spot them sunning.  They are big!  
As I write, the 5th graders are sweeping the back porch and wiping down tables with their colorful masks on.  It is a strange world we live in.  It is November 4th.  We are in limbo today, not having final election results yet.  Everyone seemed very chill about that. It is good to have important work to do.   4 years ago it was a different world the day after the election.  It's an interesting life.  

This weekend is our Woodland Faire, "The Case of the Missing Dragon Kittens."  We have enjoyed some wonderful faires together, but I don't know if I was ever quite so excited about the faire.  We have the magic!  I hope you have some magic, too!   

Recent events following the murder of George Floyd have offered me, a white woman born in the 50's,  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, daughter-in-laws, nieces and nephews that are people of color.  Our grandson was peacefully protesting in Austin a week ago 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 last Sunday at Huston-Tillotson College listening to the  heartbreaking words of Brenda Ramos, whose son, Mark, was killed by police in Austin 6 weeks ago.  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 de-forestation 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 is "Civil Rights".  We will open  up 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. 

                               Spring Forward
We had already begun our Parakeet class second semester theme of metamorphosis before spring break, but we were together in the classroom then.  We sat, knee to knee on our kaleidoscope magic learning carpet, reading about complete and incomplete metamorphosis.  It was nothing like Zoom.  ​
This week I am zooming through the speeding days from the school library each morning.   I change the science shelves behind me in some way every day.  I wonder who will be the first to notice.  I always try to share a sample of what is blooming here at school, and to create an inquiry link between  concrete objects and some component of our theme, helping us remember things in a new way. ​

Last week for Earth day I showed the students a photo of the fig tree we planted together on Earth Day a few years back.  This Earth Day is number 50.  I was in high school 50 years ago.  I wore a green armband to school that day and we had a sit in on campus.  It was a good time in history to be a teenager.  I had no idea then that one day I would magically understand my purpose was to dream an Earth Day kind of school into being.  This fig tree has GROWN! 

I am enjoying the quiet days of summer. I have the luxury of reading poetry and listening to music all afternoon. As I look back over this summer's wonders, I officiated for my sister in law's beautiful country wedding, I've made a pilgrimage to the mountains, had some excellent "Dawbee" time being with grandchildren and having a magic whirlwind romance with Professor Tick Tock at Dragonquartz School of Human Greatness and Wizardry. I've listened to "Where the Crawdads Sing," on Audible. I got to spend 4 incredible hours with the poet, David Whyte.  I happened to read this today from his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.     "Rested, we are ready for the world but not held hostage by it... In rest we reestablish the goals that make us more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation."  
As per his advice, I am taking care of my future self this month by visiting a gym, unscheduling when I can, watering the fruit trees, and walking in nature.  I am looking forward to a 6 day silent retreat later this month with time for a deeper kind of rest and then a trip to see my mother's best friend, Alicia, who kept her promise to my mother that she would watch over her children after her death. I was 9 that year and Alicia had the heartbreaking job of telling my little sister and I that our mother had died on Mother's Day of 1964. Alicia has never once failed (in 55 years) to send us  birthday  and Christmas greetings and little gifts. She came from California to Texas for our weddings, she gave me safe harbor during a mid-life crisis point, inspiring me to take the GRE and go get my Master's Degree. Leading by example, she had earned her Master's after turning 70. The seeds of our Inside Outside School were sown through the influence of my amazing professors at Texas State, one thing leading to another.  Alicia has been one of my three significant mother figure/superhero role models for being a strong, courageous woman.  Because of Alicia, I was not a motherless child.  She never saw us as just someone else's children. With all this to treasure in my summer life,  I sit here in my air conditioned home, worrying about other people's children held at our borders and how impotent my friends and I have been feeling about this situation.  How can we help? Well, I asked, and then I read about TogetherRising.org, supported by women I respect greatly like Brene Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert. There are people who are in a position to do something.  I heard about them during their LOVE FLASH MOB.  Offering financial support is action, something I can do to help. I can also share this here with whomever reads this post...planting seeds.  I found the following inspiring words in conjunction with information about The Compassion Collective...
Starting today, we’re taking back Mother’s Day. We’re returning to the roots of this holiday in the spirit of Julia Ward Howe, the abolitionist and suffragette who wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” in 1870. It was a call to action asking mothers to unite in promoting world peace.
Here’s the gist, as beautifully shared on The Compassion Collective:
Mother’s Day IS about Love. But it’s not about commercial, comfortable love that snuggles up and stays home—it’s about love that throws open the door and marches out of our homes, beyond our fences and neighborhoods and into the hurting world to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the hurting, mother the motherless. Mother’s Day love is dangerous, revolutionary love that unites our one human family and reminds us that we belong to each other and that there is no such thing as other people’s children.  
Perhaps this blog is all over the place, but as I take care of myself, tend my garden and prepare to watch over someone else's children at the end of summer, I hope to become more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation,"  more like Alicia.  Namaste

The winter is ending and there is green again.  The students are working in their "shops," building boats and forts, and exploring the wild world of wood and water.  "Nature Lit" is our favorite time of the day.  

We have elective classes on Friday mornings at the Inside Outside School. This article is about the Tea Ceremony Elective taught by Deborah.  ​The class began by considering the 4 principles of tea ceremony: respect (of others and of the ceremony tools), purity (of the mind through focus, the environment, the tea making tools, and the senses), harmony (with people and with nature), and tranquility (appreciation and shared responsibility for the peaceful environment).
The children participated in a tea ceremony, tasting the green matcha tea, and observing its preparation.  The next week the students learned the names and functions of all the tea ceremony tools.  Following classes involved learning and practicing the correct arrangement of the tea tray and how to prepare the tea, step by step.  The students also took a couple weeks to work on writing haiku poetry which would be used for their ornamental scroll.  We shared a high tea in the gardens with Earl Gray tea and homemade scones. We spend one class learning the Japanese flower arranging methods of Ikibana.  Returning to the tea ceremony, we continued preparing to demonstrate the ceremony to an invited guest.  The last two classes were demonstration days.  

My mother in law, Sally, gave me a very worn literature collection a few years ago, Story and Verse for Children.  It is much like the lit textbook I saved from my college children's literature class.  In Sally's book I stumbled upon a story, "Keeping Still in the Woods," by Charles G.D. Roberts.  The story is about a boy who  goes with his Uncle Andy into the woods to practice sitting perfectly still in order to learn for himself how the forest creatures "were accustomed to behave when they felt quite sure no one was looking."  I recently laid out a plan to share this story with my 2nd and 3rd grade class over the course of 4 class periods. From this one story I extracted 41 rich and juicy vocabulary words, like: enormity, spurned, audacious, vexation, impudent, wayfarer, furtive and mandibles.  
The story has many exciting moments as the boy quietly observes the predator/prey drama of nature up close and personal from his front row seat.  One of the most startling of experiences occurs when a fat grub is crawling up his sleeve, and just as he is thinking he won't be able stay the course, a black hornet lands on the grub.  He watches the hornet sting the grub and then slice it open with her mandibles and suck out the juices.  
Well to our surprise, yesterday, while reading our literature circle selection, Homer Price, outside on the driveway in the warm sunshine, we got to see a real life enactment of the story.  A yellow jacket landed on a fat green inchworm and spilled its dark green juices onto the driveway as we watched.  Homer Price was forgotten as we gathered around the yellow jacket.  A second inchworm arrived on the scene and we placed it nearby, out of curiosity, not cruelty.  Perceiving immanent danger, the second inchworm played possum until the yellow jacket lifted off.  Suddenly inchworm #2 booked it away from the scene as fast as he could go.  It was a rather intense nature class, but one we will remember.  At the end of the day we "harvest" our favorite thing from the day together in our school's closing circle by passing the talking stick and sharing our favorite memory of the day.  This close encounter got top billing in our class.    

I am thankful to be educating for Human Greatness.