Returning to The College School: Reggio Inspired for Thirty Years

In the Big Bend Room, The College School

We just returned to Vermont after a week in St. Louis working in schools and visiting friends and family.  It was our first trip back in two and a half years, of course, because of our global pandemic.  It is a joyful experience for Ashley and me to be able to be in schools again! We are lucky enough to have been in five schools in the last two weeks.  We are eager to feature our work with one of the schools in St. Louis, Principia School, in a blog post soon.  This month, we want to revisit The College School, Louise’s “home school.” 

Entry to the early childhood wing, The College School

I graduated from my teaching career at The College School 14 years ago, and I moved out of the position of atelierista in 2002.  Twenty years ago.  For the last fourteen years, Sarah Hassing has served as the atelierista at The College School.  I always look forward to going into the atelier to see what is happening and how things have evolved.  For the last two years, Sarah has worked toward a Master of Arts in Innovative Early Childhood Education at UC Denver in partnership with Boulder Journey School, as has Uchenna Ogu, another friend and colleague at The College School.

Inside the Atelier, The College School

When I visited last Monday, four kindergarten children were sitting with Sarah around the small round table that is still a center piece, one that we ordered from Italy many years ago.  Sarah introduced me to the children who were working on making drawings of “the beautiful tree,” in the nearby park that they had followed and befriended through the seasons with their teachers, Uchenna Ogu and Emily Levin. The children consulted photographs and were all focused on their drawings, which were beautiful and distinctly different. Uchenna told me that the children had named the tree and wanted to visit often. “Our class visited the tree during the different seasons and noticed that while the leaves changed over time, the bark did not. This feature made it into The Beautiful Tree Song that the children wrote and composed for the tree: “I am the tree, The beautiful tree, Swirly bark, in the park, I can just be me”.

Drawings of “The Beautiful Tree”

While four children worked on tree drawings, another child was playing and building with loose parts; working to construct a marble run out of two tables pushed together, plastic tubing, and large blue marbles.  Sarah told me that he was an avid engineer.  

As the children finished up, Sarah asked Georgia if she would give me a tour of the “Hidden Museum.”  An end table was moved out of the way at the end of two easels pushed together to reveal small drawings and paintings on tiny cardboard frames on the inside of the easels. There was a ticket booth and a café made out of tiny loose parts…all hidden from view until opened up.  Enchanting…like a secret garden.  

When I asked about how this all started this is what Sarah said:

The hidden museum began when I found one of my daughter's old dollhouse toys, a tiny framed portrait of a cat. I was so taken with it, that I felt it needed to come to The College School for some reason... knowing the children love small spaces, I hid it by hanging it up underneath the easels. I also hung a small arrow there that I cut out of paper. It began as an experiment, would they notice this? Would they be drawn into a tiny world? What might happen once they made the discovery? They were as smitten with the tiny artwork as I was, and so they began to add more and more small compositions around it. Their initial work ranged from simple illustrations in pen and ink to watercolors and detailed drawings. Feeling that this first wave of interest was waning, I relaunched the experience with new materials such as collage and sculpture. Our build led to one of the small groups deciding that the museum must have a cafe. One child managed the group, giving some jobs of furniture builders and others that of menu creator. The children continue to add to the museum, and we have recently been working diligently on a special exhibit for the museum, one that will be set-up outdoors for parents to come and view. Uchenna noted that kindergarten children are excited to feature their drawings of the beautiful tree in the special exhibit of the “Hidden Museum”, so that, in their words, ‘others can love the tree’, as they do.  

The Hidden Museum, The College School

 In one corner of the atelier a large handmade loom stands with a nearby dowl holding many spools of ribbon…a place to weave for several children at a time.  There is a grow table with newly sprouted wheat grass and loose wooden parts where children are working on fairy house prototype designs for final versions that will eventually be installed outside.  Cuttings of plants in small jars line the ledge of the window wall behind this grow table.  On the shelf nearest the door, there is a display of scents, crushed herbs and flowers in tiny jars that the children have mixed to make and name new fragrances. 

Fairy house designs in a grow tab

There are so many senses engaged in this room.  So many materials organized beautifully and in ways that invite imagination and intellectual challenge as well as choice and focus.  So many disciplines and domains are at play…growing plants, mixing dried plants to explore fragrance, physics, literacy, ecological literacy, writing, drawing, sewing, weaving, sculpture…And all of this with a relaxed and easy flow and focused attention and great pleasure in making and inventing, sharing and laughing, connecting and learning.

 From this central room with three glass walls, we can see the three-and four-year-old children on one side and the four and five-year-old children on the other, engaged with materials and areas in the rooms that are irresistible to them.  This space always evolves.  The teachers grow and change.  Organization, pleasure, learning, joy, surprise, respect, creativity, beauty…these values and foundational principles are always present as new chapters are written in this space.  Next door, and down the hall, you will find similar scenes of engaged children and lively learning in the kindergarten, first, second and third grades.

The Newport Room, The College School

I am always honored to return here.  I feel thrilled to know that this is where I started and this is where I grew as a teacher, a thinker, a partner, and a writer.  Thank you, Sarah Hassing, Uchenna Ogu, and Penny Allen, Lower School Division Head, and all the teachers of early childhood at The College School, past and present, who continue to do this beautiful, evolving work, year after year.  You are an inspiration to so many, and most of all, to the children who live and learn alongside you every day. 

Gyo Obata, Dear Friend and Mentor

My dear friend and mentor (in school design), Gyo Obata, died this month.  He was 99.  

Gyo with his son Max at a special exhibition of Chiura Obata (Gyo’s father) at the St. Louis Art Museum

I first met Gyo in the 70’s when Louise and I visited her family home in St. Louis, MO.  Gyo’s wife, Courtney, was Louise’s best friend in town.  I loved Courtney at first sight, and figured the man who married her must have something going for himself.  How little I knew.

Though it seemed we always met at dinner parties during our visits, over time I realized that Gyo and I developed a continuous conversation revolving around sports (his tennis, my skiing and golf); spectator sports (his Rams and Cardinals, my Patriots and Red Sox); politics (he having experienced as an 18 year old the Japanese internment camps in California, me having quit the army over Vietnam); family (raising boys); wives (how to survive/n/thrive in a marriage with strong, creative, beautiful women); and architecture (me having designed a few houses and a planned village in Vermont and Gyo…well, just hit this link for a summary of his world renown designs).

So, when Louise, Alden (12), Chris (9), and I moved to St. Louis to live in 1992, Courtney and Gyo and Max (then 5, now an architect of considerable note in San Francisco) were our immediate best friends.  Right away they introduced us at a family Labor Day party to all their good friends.  To give you an idea of the intimate, gentle intensity of their friendship — by design, at that party, unbeknownst to me, they introduced me to the woman who would instigate my hiring as the head of The St. Michael School of Clayton.  Two weeks after moving from my lifelong home in Vermont (on the heals of a year in Reggio Emilia, Italy), feeling more than a little stranded in the Midwest, they connected me with a job — a dream job it turned out — one that would lead to my professional connection with Gyo: school design.

Over the years living in St. Louis our families saw a lot of each other.  We would host family “salons” with other families, for dinners followed by music and readings.  We went on a week long ski trip to Taos, NM, that our sons still talk about.  Gyo and I continued to get together over golf, walks, and lunch.  We became good buds with lots of family context.

Cadwell Family Salon…Gyo in the foreground left, listening to Ross & John Curley singing

Sitting with Gyo on his Michigan summer deck…working on design ideas

Then, in 2008, Louise and I decided to launch Cadwell Collaborative and the first person I turned to for perspective was Gyo.  I had ideas on school design that I’d developed over the past 25 years.  Gyo became my sounding board and best critic.  Over a two year period, with his guidance and the first hand support of his graphic arts team at HOK we composed a presentation on 21st Century School Design.  Gyo was typically generous by accompanying me to the 2002 National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference where we made our presentation to an audience of more than 100.  Gyo, of course, was the main draw.

Using the presentation in different other venues we cast our 21st Century school design net around the country.  Then in 2010 Gyo and I were commissioned by Butler University (Indianapolis, IN) and Dean Ena Shelley to design the renovation of a 1950’s classic Georgian style brick elementary school building into the new academic center of Butler University’s College of Education. I had known Dean Ena Shelley as she and Louise and I had consulted in several schools in Indianapolis using the Reggio Approach as the touchstone of our work (we also traveled to Reggio Emilia together for education conferences).  She was the creative force behind the project. 

For Gyo and me it was the perfect collaborative challenge…to transform a traditional building with segregated classrooms off dark, double loaded corridors into a light filled open plan that fostered the collaborative education approach that Dean Shelley espoused.  After several meetings with Dean Shelley and her faculty and some of her students, Gyo and I composed the following thematic outline.  

Gyo not only embraced these patterns, he would give them form — elegant and functional.  I so remember our four hour drive from St. Louis to Indianapolis for our first meeting with Dean Shelley.  I drove and we talked and Gyo sketched.  In our meetings over the next two days I witnessed Gyo listen and observe like a man in a meditative state of concentration…each person received his undivided attention, and his gentle, astute questioning.  I knew he was full of ideas, yet he was much more interested in what others were thinking and saying.  He would resolve designs later, after he had all their points of view in his quiver.  

Dean Shelley remembers that in the afternoon: we visited the headquarters of Lilly Pharmaceutical? I wanted to share with Gyo the beautiful documentation of the history of the company. As we walked together he listened and then at the end he told me he was so pleased with my comments as HOK had done it for Lilly! Then on the way back to campus, Mike Gardener, who was the Vice-President of Facilities at the time, commented on the new JW Marriott that was under construction. Again Gyo listened, then smiled and pointed to the sign with HOK as the architect! I think of Gyo every time I am at the Indianapolis airport which he designed too.

On our drive home, the second day, after a full morning of meetings, we talked the whole way and Gyo sketched…the whole way.  Needless to say, two days later when Dean Shelley gave us the contract, we were ready to launch.  In a remarkably short time (that included another trip with one of Gyo’s program development colleagues) we delivered the design development schemes.  Throughout the process with Gyo I witnessed design genius in action.

I was not only intrigued with Gyo’s design sense, but, among other things, his focused competitive spirit that was married to a keen business sense (oh how he loved to shout at the TV screen or from his stadium seat when a Ram or a Cardinal made a misplay or a score!!!) .

I once asked Gyo about the early days of his practice at HOK…in the 50’s and 60’s.  

Oh, that was hustle time, he replied with a grin.  In those days we went after everything.  It was a big time for new school construction.  We would answer every call for proposals in the area.  We had a tactic: we’d request to be last to go before the board on the evening agenda.  Everyone else would want to be first.  So, we usually got our request.  We’d arrive at the end of their meeting…with a picnic basket…one of my partners was a gourmet cook.  “Oh,” he’d say, “you all must be exhausted and hungry,” as he laid out his spread.  “Here, have some of this while Gyo asks you a few questions about your project.”  And then I would do just that…ask questions that would illicit from each board member their concerns and aspirations for the new school.  Over food they would relax and give us an intimate portrait of their school and their community.  Then, I would give them a brief outline of our design process that would check every box they just gave us.  We designed a lot of schools!!! Gyo concluded with his signature full throated laugh.

Though in my first hand experience with Gyo at Butler University I did not supply the gourmet meal, I did witness his keen listening and questioning, especially with Dean Shelley.  Periodically he would intersperse her thoughts with “possibilities” that would come to his mind…all a prelude for what he would create.

The red brick elementary school with Gyo’s stairway tower and community atrium.

Gyo’s community atrium

Atrium interior

Alas, regimes change. Just as our design development concluded, a new president at Butler came on board, and Dean Shelley’s plans were put on the back burner…and eventually redirected to an entirely different part of campus. Ena and I were sad, to say the least. Gyo was philosophical. He commiserated with us, Oh, you have no idea how many of my designs never got built. Besides, didn’t we have FUN!…followed by his full throated laugh. Dean Shelley rejoined, “Well it didn’t get built as you designed it, but the patterns we worked on and made manifest in your design will transfer well to whatever we do finally get to do."

Aye, ‘twas fun. And my life has been made so much richer by every experience I had with Gyo. The words of Brian Andreas resonate for me now:

I carry you with me into the world,

into the smell of the rain

and the words that dance between people

and for me, it will always be this way,

walking in the light,

remembering being alive together.

Gyo and Courtney Obata and John Curley

Moments of Joy

Finding air bubbles in ice

January and February have been months of contrasts for us.  In January we were lucky enough to visit the island of Culebra in Puerto Rico where it was warm and sunny and we walked beaches every day.  At home in Vermont, it has been snowy and cold and we have walked the Trail Around Middlebury often and sometimes hiked up the Middlebury College Snow Bowl with back country skis.  In the February newsletter of the Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community, guiding teacher, Joshin Byrnes began with a poem by 17th century Japanese poet, Basho. 

Winter solitude

In a world of one color

The sound of the wind. 

I find I am carrying these words with me out into the snowy world.

Children and teachers at Principia School exploring the woods in the snow

As I walk or hike, wherever I am this winter, I also consider a poem of Sister Jina, a nun from the Netherlands, who coordinated the Family Retreat who we met in the 90s with Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village.

In a new book, Moments of Joy, she writes small poems for each season. In the Winter section she writes. 

Walking in moonlight

Walking in starlight

Only my thoughts can disturb me

She writes in her introduction.  I was not looking for anything. Beautiful moments just happened and were spontaneously expressed in words.  She continues, I hope you will savor these moments of joy and be inspired to record your own. May many wonders reveal themselves to you on your path. 

Aerial image of spiral in the snow by photographer Caleb Kenna used with permission

The poems that Sister Jina writes are not haiku strictly speaking, with rules about syllables, yet they have the feeling of haiku because many are focused on the natural world, do not use personal pronouns or punctuation for the most part, and focus on an arresting image, also for the most part. 

I began thinking of our friend John Elder, professor emeritus at Middlebury College, and his practice of inviting students to collaborate on the poetry form called renga.  In Japanese culture, the renga form also has strict rules.  John uses a looser, more friendly and flexible form.  Renga is a stringing together of haiku like images by different authors who are listening to one another and responding with their own images.  Renga writing is often practiced outside in different seasons.  Renga is a practice of collaborative haiku like poems, often spoken rather than written, of short phrases of images, seasonal references, without personal pronouns.

It occurs to me that young children often compose haiku like phrases and with them we can create a kind of renga.  I “caught”this renga out of phrases spoken by our grandchildren, ages three, seven, and nine yesterday on a walk.

Why does ice melt?

Air bubbles in the ice move slowly.

Listen to the sweet sap falling into the bucket.

Why is maple sap sweet?

Hear the backyard birds!

Red-winged blackbirds up in the trees.

Another idea is to combine creating haiku like phrases or renga with the practice of Seton Watching, named for Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946), that I learned at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science…Sitting quietly in the natural world, waiting for what happens and what you notice…an animal passing by, a bird song, the wind in the grasses. Find resources on Seton Watching practice with students here and here.

Often, the wonders we notice also inspire play with the elements themselves. Especially for children, who are always playing with leaves, sticks, pebbles, mud, ice, as natural materials in the natural world.  Like the spirals on the beach and in the snow pictured in this post.  For many of us this play brings to mind the inspiration of Andy Goldsworthy and his interplay with the natural world to make beautiful, ephemeral compositions. 

Spiral of coral and stones found on a pebble beach

Both of these practices, simple poems with few words, and playing with the elements of the world invite and nurture presence, play, joy, and wonder. They can be done individually or in a small group. These along with other practices and resources help to inform and shape a curriculum for learning in the natural world.

At Principia, a school in St. Louis where we work with the early childhood team, one class of four and five year olds and their teachers has been spending days outside every week in part of their campus called the East Woods.  They are taking their time, exploring, drawing, wondering, imagining, in different seasons and times of day.  They are learning through time and experience who lives in this particular woods close to their school. 

Children at Principia drawing and writing in the woods

Among other resources, the teachers are inspired by Ann Pelo’s book, The Goodness of Rain.  Ann Pelo writes… 

This is what I want for children: a sensual, emotional, and conscious connection to place; the sure, sweet knowledge of earth, air, sky. As a teacher, I want to foster in children an ecological identity, one that shapes them as surely as their cultural and social identities. I believe that this ecological identity, born in a particular place, opens children to a broader connection with the earth; love for a specific place makes possible love for other places. An ecological identity allows us to experience the earth as our home ground, and leaves us determined to live in honorable relationship with our planet.

May we all find ways to be present, joyful, and grounded in the natural world on our own, with others, and side by side the children we love and teach.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Plum Village, France, Family Retreat, 1992

In March of 1989, Ashley and I set out from our home in Vermont with our two sons, Alden and Chris, ages five and eight, to points west.  We planned to home school our children “on wheels” as we camped, visited friends and family, and the great national parks of the southwest and west.  My mother had told us about a Vietnamese Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh who she had read about.  She said that he held family retreats and that there would be one in Santa Barbara, California in early April.  So we enrolled our family in this special five-day retreat.  With Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thay as we called him (for “teacher”), we learned simple practices…counting ten smooth stones as we breathed, walking meditation, mindfully placing each foot on the earth in the orange groves surrounding the retreat center, tea meditations, bringing our awareness completely to sipping tea and tasting cookies, and sharing songs or poems.  Along with the other children, our sons listened to Thay, rapt in attention, while he sat cross legged under trees in the shade and told stories of the Buddha’s life.  Later Chris shared with us that he didn’t always understand the stories, but he loved listening to Thay’s voice. Thay walked with beauty and intention, touching the earth with presence and gratitude.  He spoke softly and liltingly.  We calibrated to his pace. We were all enchanted.

Thay ringing the bell, 1989, Casa Di Maria, Family Retreat, Santa Barbara

In 1992, after spending the year in Reggio Emilia, Italy, we made our way to Plum Village in France, Thay’s community established when he was exiled from Vietnam for speaking out against the war and advocating for peaceful solutions.  At that time, there was an annual family retreat at Plum Village in August, usually for a month.  For three summers, we went there for two weeks. It felt like an international family camp with adults and children from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.  We walked among the sunflowers, played games, went for group walking meditation periods along the shaded paths, ate our meals outside beginning in silence and seeing each bite of bread or green bean as “an ambassador from the universe…holding the rain, the sun, the earth, the sky, the seeds, the farmers…all in one bite of nourishment.”  Each of us had jobs that contributed to the well-being of all.  We made friends that we still have for which we are deeply grateful. 

Walking Meditation, Family Retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, Santa Barbara, 1989

In those days, Thay was well known, but his following was not enormous. During that first family retreat in Santa Barbara, there were roughly 60 people, and at the summer family retreats in Plum Village, perhaps just over a hundred. 

Thich Naht Hanh died on January 22, 2022 at midnight in Hue’, Vietnam, at the temple where he was ordained as a monk.  He returned there three years ago, after suffering a stroke.  In an email exchange yesterday, one of our friends from those early days, Roshi Joan Halifax wrote, 

yes, Thay... now gone beyond. 

I am grateful to have had such a close relationship with him for so many years. 

Now his dharma is in all of us. 

I am deeply grateful also.  We were so very fortunate to have those early experiences with such a wise and compassionate spiritual leader and teacher.  I love thinking that I am carrying Thay’s dharma with me, that it is inside me.  What is Thay’s dharma?...our true nature as compassion, understanding, and love, our path of the practice of mindfulness, the teachings that reveal the truth and our true nature, in this case, Thay’s teachings which we absorbed in our young lives.  Our young lives as parents, and our sons’ young lives as children.  

Now, I hear Thay’s gathas everywhere.  I heard my yoga teacher recite one this morning at the beginning and the end of class.  A gatha is a song or verse used in meditation practice, and Wikipedia says that they were popularized by Zen Master Thich Naht Hanh.  

In, out 

Deep, slow 

Calm, ease 

Smile, release 

Present moment,

Wonderful moment. 

This is how Thich Nhat Hanh describes the meaning of this gatha. 

“Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.  Breathing in, my in-breath has become deep. Breathing out, my out-breath has become slow.” Now we can practice, “Deep/slow.” We don’t have to make an extra effort. It just becomes deeper and slower by itself, and we recognize that. 

Later on, you will notice that you have become calmer and more at ease. “Breathing in, I feel calm. Breathing out, I feel at ease. I am not struggling anymore. Calm/ease.” And then, “Breathing in, I smile. Breathing out, I release all my worries and anxieties. Smiles/release.” We are able to smile to ourselves and release all our worries. There are more than three hundred muscles in our face, and when we know how to breathe in and smile, these muscles can relax. This is “mouth yoga.” We smile and are able to release all our feelings and emotions. The last practice is, “Breathing in, I dwell deeply in the present moment. Breathing out, I know this is a wonderful moment. Present moment/wonderful moment.” Nothing is more precious than being in the present moment fully alive and aware. 

Chris and Alden learning hugging meditation with Thay, 1989

Last night, we watched the last day of the ceremonies honoring Thay’s life in Hue’, Vietnam and Plum Village, France as well as other monasteries around the world.  We watched as Thay’s casket was carried in a long procession of monks and placed inside a cremation structure. We watched as monks brought flames to start the fire.  As the smoke curled around their faces, we listened to poems and songs shared by monks and nuns, and translations of letters written by Thay to his communities of monastic and lay practitioners. He wrote:

I am not in the stupa, (commemorative monument). 

If I am anywhere, I am in your mindful walking and breathing.  

Even today, I am still arriving as a bud about to blossom, or a tiny bird learning to sing in my new nest. 

Do not stop the continuation of my ashes.  

The Buddha, you and I hold each other’s hands, the beloved community, as we climb the hill of the century.  You and I have never really been apart. 

On the edge of the forest, the wild plum tree has burst into bloom. 

Be a refuge. You are the continuation of the ancestral teaching. 

I offer you great strength and energy. 

Coming and going in freedom, 

The wind still soars, earth opens to the clear blue sky. 

Come home and relax in your mindful steps. 

In an episode from the last few days, Krista Tippet replays a 2003 interview with Thay, and also several others who were present at a five-day retreat in Wisconsin lead by Thay that year.  We hear from a female police officer, Cheri Maples, and a Black Baptist minister, Larry Ward.  They speak about how they each were transformed in their work and life by Thay’s teaching.  Please listen to this podcast and to the voices and wisdom of Thay, Cheri Maples, and Larry Ward.

And for we teachers, watch this film produced by teachers in Toronto and the organization wakeupschools.org of Plum Village. This piece was filmed during a retreat with Thay for teachers. Please watch this short, beautiful film and learn more about mindfulness in schools starting with teachers’ practice, insight, and happiness.

Many blessings to each of you. May you be safe and happy. May you be healthy and live with ease. 

May you practice mindfulness as we climb the hill of the century as the beloved community that our ancestors, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King Jr., bell hooks, and other wise and compassionate teachers have envisioned and lived their lives to show us the way.  

The Shortest Day

Midd Night Stroll December, 2021

 On Tuesday, December 21, we will mark the winter solstice, light candles and fires, and experience the dark on the shortest day of the year.  In addition to fire, another source of great light in the darkness is the longest full moon of the year, visible for 15 and half hours, 14 and a half of those hours while the sun is down.  NASA reports that the December Cold Moon will appear full for almost three days. 

Today it is snowing, our first real snowstorm, so we won’t see the full moon tonight.  We have a fire in the fireplace and the lights on the tree are twinkling. 

I have been thinking so much about beauty at this time of year… in nature, in human beings, in art, in miracles.  We have recently attended several arts and performing arts events that celebrate both the darkness and the light.  Yesterday we attended the opening of a show entitled “Knowing Darkness” at a local gallery, Northern Daughters.  One of the featured artists, Hannah Sessions, is the daughter of dear friends, and also a celebrated Vermont cheese maker! 

In an interview in our local paper, The Addison Independent, Hannah is quoted:

I am reminded of a quote from a song by Anais Mitchell that hangs in my kitchen, 

“Some birds sing when the sun shines bright,

My praise is not for them.

But the one who sings in the dead of night,

I raise my cup to him.”

The ‘dead of night’ can, of course, be literal or metaphorical.  We might enter the ‘dead of night’ when our life circumstances feel overly challenging or taxing…when we are spiritually depleted or we are deeply sad or discouraged.  The approaching of literal winter has not always been easy for me.  That time before the snow flies and calls us outside; the time when the day ends impossibly early, and darkness can feel never ending and oppressive.  What keeps us singing? As I have resolved to relish the shorter days, I have appreciated the opportunity this show has presented: an opportunity to embrace the darkness and find unique beauty in it.  I have found the subtle hues of the late day sky, the warmth and life that emanate from barn windows in the dark, and the sparkle of stars.  These are all wonderful things this time of year, the dead of night, possesses. 

Hannah Sessions, available work

Last night I went to see a local performance of “Amhal and the Night Visitors” in a small, simple church in Salisbury, Vermont.  I was absolutely stunned and transfixed by the performance. The acting, the voices, the candle lit church, the simple set, the beauty of this music and the generosity and magic of the story.  I remember listening to this short opera story about a poor boy and his mother visited by the three kings with my mother, Christmas after Christmas.  It turns out that it was first broadcast on television from NBC studios in New York City in 1951, commissioned by NBC and composed by Gian Carlo Menotti. 

Continuing on with the theme of art…last week I was lucky enough to spend a day with my childhood friend, Eliza Rathbone. We visited the Cape Ann Museum where I had never been.  It is a joy to be in any museum with Eliza because she grew up in a family where the history of art and artists were part of her daily life.  She is Emeritus Curator of The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.  She is currently curating a show for The Cape Ann Museum on Mark Rothko, Adolf Gottlieb and Milton Avery, their friendship, and the work that they did on Cape Ann and the coast in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Eliza told me…”I want every detail to be accurate, I want the show to contribute to the lasting body of work on each of these artists, and I want people to have some kind of revelation..to learn something that they never knew before.”

I reflected on what Eliza said on my way home to Vermont.  I realized that, in some ways, all these things are important to us in our work with teachers in schools.  Of course, we want to accurate in all our research, recommendations, references, relationships.  And we want to contribute to teachers’ and students’ lasting learning, their way of approaching learning and living in school, their frameworks and worldviews.  And, we want teachers to have revelations and awakenings to what is possible in school when wonder and joy are present in abundance.    

On this shortest day, and in this season of darkness, we wish you all joy and awakening to the new year which we all hope will be full of light. 

I conclude with the poem entitled The Shortest Day, by Susan Cooper, recited every year at the Christmas Revels wherever it is performed. 

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,

This Shortest Day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And now so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome, Yule!