In the midst of this pandemic-- in the midst of the toll that it has taken in lives and in livelihoods, the institutional racism that it has reinforced and laid bare, and the cracks it has exposed in our body politic-- we have found much light in being together as a school community these last five weeks.
It is an immense privilege to be able to hold in-person school. And the result is that teachers and students and families have been able to build the scaffolding of community that will support us through the year ahead. Even masked and distanced, classes have played games together, overcome challenges together, held silence together, and shared their hopes and dreams with one another. This foundation will be necessary as we face into difficult things.
Community is a key Quaker value for good reason. In addition to supporting academic learning and individual growth, strong communities are the prerequisite for entering into conversations around justice and injustice, around structural racism and our role in it, around our collective responsibility to act, around what it means for each of us to “let our lives speak.”
Already classes have used our annual celebration of the International Day of Peace to discuss the relationship between justice and peace and the connections between protest and peace. And if, during the year, we must continue these discussions from behind each of our individual screens, these gorgeous weeks together in the waning of summer will help to carry us through that, too.
—Nell Sears, Director of Studies
3rd and 4th grade students participating in a gallery walk. Students wrote down what they noticed, shared thoughts and their questions. Students made connections between symbols of peace and protest.