My very dear friend Beth came to spend a week with us at the Inside Outside School.  Beth is a dear wise woman friend who acts and speaks with love and sees people through the eyes of love.  She is my teacher.  I got to spend the week seeing the school and the children through her eyes a bit...the eyes of unconditional love (as long as you are not a chigger.) Here are some photos Beth and I took of our week at the Inside Outside School...
These are three of our outdoor artists drawing raptors and a gallery walk of their beautiful art. We dipped our watercolor paintbrushes into creek water after sketching with a step by step tutorial in The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds.

There were friends...

flora and fauna...

and blessings.  Wednesday on the day of the Full Moon we blessed our creek.  Each student was invited to bring a bit of water from home to pour together and bless with our loving appreciation for the many gifts of water.  We then walked together quietly to the creek where two students added our gift water to the beautiful creek.  I've been present several times when Beth has blessed the natural spring at Lama. Her respect for water is very full of grace.  

And finally this...right before leaving for brunch at Kerbey Lane, we had to rescue Coconut the goat who had her horns and head stuck through the fencing.  It was a monumental task.  I took advantage of having an accomplice and together we gave Coconut a head adornment just like Clover's.  

My friend has flown away on her long eagle feathers.  I know we are in her heart which is very, very big, as she is in ours.  

After three years, I finally published my math trails book on Amazon Kindle.  Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WGTC6KB                Many thanks to Andrea Jacobs for the beautiful book cover design! 
Looks like I will need a new project!  Maybe getting the erosion control plan up and running is the ticket since my classroom flooded again early this morning.  As my future son-in-law said to me just yesterday afternoon, "Water always wins."  

For greater understanding of our model of Educating for Human Greatness and for a peek at what the Inside Outside thing might really be, please read the following article.  Lynn Stoddard is the author of Educating for Human Greatness.  EFHG is one important cornerstone of our very unique school.  I met Lynn after reading his book 7 years ago.  I felt profoundly commissioned  to find a way to materialize this vision of education.  We are in our 6th year of Educating for Human Greatness.  My next blog will share some of  the ways we put this into practice.   
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Educators Should Be Making Snowflakes, Not Ice Cubes
Lynn Stoddard and Jim Strickland
 
            Are American students treated like ice cubes or snowflakes? In discussing the kinds of crystals created from the simple process of water freezing, James Gleick in his book, “Chaos: Making a New Science,” compares the formation of ice cubes with that of snowflakes: "When solidification proceeds from outside to inside, as in an ice tray, the boundary generally remains stable and smooth... But when a crystal solidifies outward from an initial seed -- as a snowflake does, grabbing water molecules while it falls through the moisture-laden air -- the process becomes unstable... new branches form, and then sub branches... The final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may as well be infinite." The process of freezing from the "outside in" compared to crystallizing from the "inside out" produces dramatically different results.
            A snowflake is a good example of individuality and intricate beauty that naturally develops in an atmosphere of freedom.  You cannot “mold” a snowflake, but only create the conditions where it can grow. “You can teach only by creating an urge to know.” (Victor Weisskopf )
            What we often find happening in schools is that educators love to talk the talk of snowflakes – every child a unique and precious individual – while continuing to walk the walk of ice cubes – every child molded to fit a uniform pattern. The emergent nature of a more student-centered approach to education requires that we relinquish our obsession with controlling the end results and support the unique pattern of each individual child to develop.  This demands trust in growth, respect for the child, and faith in the process.  Do we have the moral and political will to develop atmospheres that truly nurture positive human differences?
            All over America there are outstanding teachers who swim against the current of an imposed curriculum in order to help students develop like snowflakes.  David was a student who had a lifelong dream of becoming a fire fighter.  Since none of his required courses seemed to fit into what he needed, he became disenchanted with school and began missing classes.  A caring and perceptive teacher saw what was happening and arranged with the local fire chief and school administration for David to spend time learning from the fire fighters at the nearby station.  To make a long story short, David got the education he needed without graduating from high school and went on to become a highly qualified fire fighter and fire safety specialist.
            The sad part of this story is that the teacher who saved David and some others from falling through the cracks lost favor with rigid policy makers and curriculum specialists.  He found the pressure to produce “ice cubes” too great, and so decided to resign and do other things.  It was a tragic loss to the profession.  How many students have suffered over the years because of the loss of creative teachers like this?  How many adults have talents lying dormant inside of them because they attended a school system that was obsessed with having uniform graduation requirements?
            We have a decision to make in American education.  Are we going to continue trying to force young people into a standardized, uniform mold, or are we going to create the conditions for individual greatness to flourish?  In other words, do we want ice cubes or snowflakes?  Our answer makes all the difference.
 
Lynn Stoddard, a retired, long-time educator, argues for making curriculum fit a great variety of students. He can be reached at lstrd@yahoo.com.
 
Jim Strickland is a teacher and advocate of Student Centered Education in Marysville, WA.  He can be reached at livedemocracy@hotmail.com.
 
Lynn Stoddard
793 South 200 East
Farmington, UT 84025
(801) 451-2554

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Our IOS community is so amazing.  We've had incredible things going on.  In mid September we had four goat kids born. Sadly we lost one of our does, Pumpkin, after her delivery. Maybelline stood guard over the Pumpkin's little ones when it became clear that Pumpkin wasn't doing well and couldn't care for them.  She is a great nanny.   

We had our first work day of the school year and under the direction of one of our talented parents, Willie, our shop was transformed into an art workshop.  

Parents and students weeded, moved a mountain of mulch, painted, trimmed, hauled and hoed.  It is impressive to see what we can do when we work together.

And finally, our families enjoyed a blissful two days at the lake, camping, canoeing, kayaking and cooking last weekend.  

One of the amazing things about IOS is that right from the beginning in kindergarten, students have a voice and a vote.  In this clip two kindergarten students discuss an agenda item about how in group tag games they get tagged right away as soon as they are unfrozen.  They are very passionate about this.  It turns out that a previous ruling from a HIVE meeting has been forgotten that gave them a 5 second spacer to get away.  No one was abiding by this ruling.  It was a good reminder.
It is very interesting on Fridays when the age groups are completely mixed all day for Peace Circle, electives, nature literacy, community stewardship, snack, lunch, and HIVE.  The children learn so much from each other in collaboration,  reinforcing each other's ideas, and adding to them.  At HIVE, often amazing solutions arise to address chronic issues.  For example, almost every week someone puts "toilets" on the agenda.  The problem being that sometimes people don't flush.  The many creative invented spellings of toilet is a study in itself.  This week after acknowledging that this is still a problem, discussion ensued.  One student suggested keeping a tally of how many times an unflushed toilet is encountered on the chalkboard outside and then collecting data on whether this is improving, with a goal of zero tally marks.  We were all excited by the idea.  At the very least, it is something beyond just mentioning the problem every week without any action to attempt.   Here are a few pictures from recent Friday electives.

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers of our country.  

At the Inside Outside School, we feature one of the seven "Dimensions of Human Greatness," each week.  This week we worked with INQUIRY.  It is a perfect time in the semester to be asking additional questions,  focusing on what is of foremost importance to us in our study of the forces of nature as we are moving forward toward our EXPO where we will present our independent and small group studies to peers, parents and grandparents.  
We have a very special school meeting called "Peace Circle," every Friday morning to begin our elective day.  This morning we heard the story of John James Audubon.  At the age of 18 he was living in Pennsylvania where his father had sent him during the Napoleonic Wars. The young naturalist was curious about the Pewee Flycatchers that had built a nest in a limestone cave near their farmhouse. He moved his unschooling classroom into the cave, becoming a familiar feature to the pewees.  John's inquiry: Where do these birds disappear to in winter? Will the same ones come back to this cave in the spring?
Some great thinkers, like Aristotle, had claimed  that small birds disappearing in winter, hibernated under water until spring.  Some scientists of his day believed that the birds flew to the moon for winter.  John was skeptical! John decided to put little bands around the feet of the offspring of the pewees.  He was the first person (a teenager) to band birds in North America.   From the seeds of John's passionate curiosity, eventually the Audubon Society grew with its mission "to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity."
John James drew birds all the time, but he would burn his drawings every year on his birthday, hoping to improve his drawing over the course of the next year...human greatness in the making.
The story of John James Audubon was such a perfect way for us to illustrate inquiry.   After the story, we opened the doors to our theater. Meditating, we became so quiet we could hear bird songs from outside.  Guess what?  We heard "fee bee," the call of the Pewee Flycathcher's cousin, the Eastern Phoebe.  This is one of the ways in which our woodland campus mysteriously synchronizes the beauty and magic of nature with our learning.  Perhaps it was the call of the phoebe early this morning that reminded me about this book in our school library.
 I have come to the study of ornithology a bit later in my life, but our ornithology elective teacher this semester is a 12 year old boy, Sebastian Casarez.  Sebastian is a member of both the Travis and Williamson County Audubon Societies.  He began his inquiry at a very young age and has become a local bird expert. He will be honored next week by the Westcave Outdoor Discovery Center at the 8th annual Celebration of Children in Nature of Austin Collaborative's award dinner, (along with Inside Outside School's most excellent environmental educator, Rachel Brice.)

Perhaps some of our students have stumbled upon something that will become a lifelong study for them already.  One thing we know is that there will be new horizons in science, art, music, and mathematics for them to approach. Only false pride would cause us to think there are not additional errors in our understanding of the vast mysteries to clear up.  Our important job as educators is to keep the love of learning alive.  It is all too easy to close down an open mind.

Our yearlong theme is "May the Forces Be With You."  Weather is one of the first investigations that several classes are beginning with.  We are noticing the lack of rain, but since we are putting a new roof on the building, we are okay if the rain holds off another week.  It is still hot and dry, but always a few degrees cooler in the woods where we gather in the afternoon for Nature Literacy.

We are also offering Multiple Intelligence classes, (art, natural science, library and music) in addition to our Friday electives.  This semester we have survival, helping hands, shop, theater, sewing, cooking, upcycling art, ornithology, mythology, science fair, apothecary and Lego robotics.  All of that is happening as well as the important core classwork and the ongoing integration of the Seven Dimensions of Human Greatness.  This week our dimension is interaction, so it is a perfect time for me to reach out to update you, our beautiful blog readers.  Enjoy!