Room 7 kindergartners helped gather items when a truck came to pick up our e-waste donations yesterday morning. Our third annual e-waste drop-off ended Friday. The items were waste to the families who dropped them off, but they provide a livelihood for those who separate the metal and circuitry from the plastic, and reduce the energy required to mine and manufacture new materials. E-waste that’s not recycled ends up in landfills or incinerators, which can release harmful toxins into the air. Only about 25 percent of e-waste in the U.S. is recycled—but we’re doing our part!
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Sunday, February 25, is Founders Day, when we observe the shared birthdays of our school and its founders, Ivy O. Duce and Meher Baba.
We’ll be celebrating Founders Day on Friday, since the 25th is Sunday. We’ll have a special treat for students and staff, and the always-popular Liedstrand fiddle band will entertain us all at lunchtime. Elementary students will see the premiere of a film about Ivy Duce produced by fifth grade teacher Terry Johnson.
Ivy Duce (1895–1981) was the murshida, or spiritual teacher, of Sufism Reoriented, a small nonsectarian spiritual school centered around the teachings of the Indian spiritual figure Meher Baba (1894–1969). When Mrs. Duce and her daughter, Charmian, were unable to find a loving school for Charmian’s daughter, Ivy Mary Knowles, who was born with Down syndrome, Mrs. Duce decided she would start a school modeled on the principles of Meher Baba’s “school for love” in India in the 1920s.
Prem Ashram, as it was known, welcomed students of all castes and creeds and was based on the understanding that children learn best in an atmosphere of love. This has been our guiding principle since that February morning nearly half a century ago when we greeted our first students. Our school’s motto is “Love Nurtures Learning.” “Prem” means love, and “Meher” means compassion.
The school opened its doors on February 25—which was also Mrs. Duce’s birthday and Meher Baba’s.
“What seems to be the problem, Mr. Clark?” This is the question posed by older students when they encounter our facilities coordinator, Dick Clark, working in a classroom or on the yard. Preschoolers simply ask, “What are you doing, Mr. Clark?” and “Why?”
These questions reflect the camaraderie and ease children feel as they watch our skilled staff carrying out tasks in timely and loving ways. Recently students got to watch our newest facilities team member, Court Funk, already known as Mr. Court, carefully painting a sign in the entry hall indicating the location of the Office.
These friendly facility workers, committed to our school values, get to know children all over the school. John Murphy, the third facilities team member, has had three children attend our school and often works as a substitute in the elementary program.
Most of the work the children observe this team carry out is problem solving: fixing a clogged drain or finding and fixing a leak in the ceiling. However, there are also long-term projects where the children can watch step-by-step progress, like building the pretend kitchens in both preschool yards and constructing planter boxes and the playhouse in the Rooms 3-4-5 yard.
Physical work in our school environment isn’t just the province of the facilities team. Adrienne Wallace, our elementary gardening teacher, has countless tasks and projects in nourishing and maintaining our many gardens, especially the Seven Circles, which is an outdoor science lab environment for the elementary school. She does much of her work with students’ help, even building homes for the guinea pigs and the quail.
Children also get to observe our staff in the process of making art: Lara Cannon painting sets for school plays or working in the art room on a painting for the staff room or Special Projects Coordinator Sue Tacker painting a mural in our middle hallway.
In this information age, the quick flow of ideas through technology is often prized over work that involves physical effort and material mastery. However, when children have the chance to watch many types of physical endeavor, they come to appreciate all jobs as integral parts of the whole. It’s wonderful when families acknowledge and value these important work contributions too. “Look what Mr. Clark is making!” Parent help is also greatly appreciated in a wide variety of ways, monthly in the gardens and even occasionally making sets for our plays.
As our song “Learning to Work Together” says, “Learning to work together, learning to work as one, Learning to work together, that’s how life’s work gets done. We are building more than a home; we are building a living school. We are building a brand-new world, and our lives are the tools.”
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