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.  

We just had our first "Beautification Day," of the year.  We had great helpers to work on our four projects, clearing a few garden spaces of grass and weeds, removing seats from the old bus to prepare it for the solar bus project, removing gravel from the driveway, and moving the animal feed to the new barn.

We have a new gardening teacher this year (Vikki) who has done a great job of organizing the Bunnies and the Polar Bears.  We have prepared the soil, harvested the last of several summer crops, and made space for planting our fall gardens.

While not technically garden news, here are photos of our newest farm critters:  Huey, Dewey and Louie the ducks, Pablo and Luna the goats, and the guinea flock.

I've been working on a thyme garden today.   So nice to have thyme on my hands. 

At the end of the very last day of summer camp, I thought at the last minute before leaving at 7pm to take down the flags.  As I turned I was greeted by Lady Beauty in her rainbow outfit.  It was a great analogy for this year's camp.  We had a very harmonious group of children, some students of the school, some veteran summer campers and new faces.  The beauty of nature surrounded us all week as we explored our senses, read from chapters in the Book of  Nature like birds, bugs,  trees and flowers, and expressed our creativity and culinary curiousity.  From scratch and sniff herb books, making choco chirpie cookies with cricket flour and getting to know the Green Man, we were having a grand adventure together.  As always pictures are worth a thousand words.
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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 [email protected].
 
Jim Strickland is a teacher and advocate of Student Centered Education in Marysville, WA.  He can be reached at [email protected].
 
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.