Zeno Mountain Farm: An Experiment in Extreme Diversity

Last week I visited Zeno Mountain Farm in Lincoln, Vermont to see a musical, The Best Summer Ever: A Love Story put on by the most diverse cast that I have ever seen.  On their website the founders write:Zeno is a community of people who move, think, act, perform, and contribute in wonderfully unique ways. We actively embrace this diversity and strive to celebrate each other through art and adventure in every form.  The most important thing in the whole world to us human beings is friendship, community, and the knowledge that we matter to each other.

The cast of the play included young people and adults with Down Syndrome, with Cerebral palsy, and with other disorders, as well as able bodied friends including the founders.  The cast danced, sang, whooped, laughed, delivered lines, and generally threw themselves into the joyful and challenging production.  My dear friend, Laura and I were speechless, in tears, laughing, sighing, amazed and deeply grateful that we could be there to participate with this place and at this event.  Later we toured the beautiful campus high on a mountaintop in Lincoln with distant, sweeping views of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain.  Our tour guide was a young woman with Downs Syndrome who says that Zeno is the only place where she is truly accepted and celebrated.

The two brothers, Will and Peter Halby and their respective spouses who founded Zeno, purchased the land in Lincoln in 2008 and have slowly built the campus there.  Zeno is in session for a month in July and each summer they produce a play.  Other programs that they host and organize are all over the country including California where they produce a movie every year.  One of their recent movies, Bulletproof Jackson, was the focus of a documentary titled Becoming Bulletproof.  Ashley and I watched the documentary the other night and had the same response that Laura and I experienced at the play... amazement, tears, empathy, and deep respect for all the people who are working to live dreams together as partners, not in institutions but on stage and on movie sets, with patience, great humor, dignity and hard work.

See the movie, Becoming Bulletproof.  You will be amazed.  And if you are in Vermont, go to Zeno Mountain Farm for a visit and to see the play they put on every year.  It will change you.  Carolina Rinaldi says and has written that to learn is to change and to be transformed.  She says that to learn is to love, with great respect for, and through all our differences.  This is what is happening at Zeno and it is humbling.

Leading through Laughter

 

Leading through laughter has been an implicit practice of mine.  And, I love it when I witness it in others.  For instance, Joe Maddon, manager of the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

On July 9th, The Associated Press ran an article that captured Joe’s joking genius. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/sports/baseball/joe-maddon-keeps-his-cubs-moving-and-guessing.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Joe is not only a master of the unexpected (for instance, once, rather than pulling a pitcher from the game, he sent him to the outfield for one batter while a reliever came in…then he pulled the reliever and returned the outfielder/pitcher to the mound…there was laughter during the infield conferences on the mound), and he also loves to instigate zaniness (as he has talked a few dozen of his players into donning pajamas for the charter flights home from West Coast trips).

Joe says, “[The players] love it!”

Perhaps especially his rookies recognize Joe’s spirit of adventure.  One noted, I watch him when I’m not playing, and it seems like he’s three, four moves ahead of the game…So he’s not afraid to try things, even with the rookies. Just about the first thing he said is he doesn’t care if you mess up.  Like if you’re in a situation where you think you should bunt, and he says hit and it doesn’t work out, he’ll come up to you right away and say, “That’s on me.”

One of Joe’s veteran players put it this way: “Too many guys want to equate smarts with being uptight.  Joe doesn’t.  He just says, ‘Do simple better.’”

And, what is not surprising, this team of players, playing loose and having fun, are leading their baseball division.

It’s an age old athletic adage, YOU PLAY BEST WHEN YOU PLAY LOOSE.

For me, there’s correlating connection, YOU THINK BEST WHEN YOU THINK LOOSE.  In both cases, laughter induces looseness.

Almost always when I’m involved in group discussions, something will strike my funny bone, and I’ll share what I think is the joke.  Almost always if the joke is in fact funny (I don’t always bat 1.000), the ensuing laughter is not a distraction, but rather it is an energizer for divergent thinking…and almost always a new idea emerges, or a new perspective becomes apparent.

It turns out that there’s lots of research on this.  If you’re interested, here are a couple of resources.

“Joyful laughter immediately produces the same brain wave frequencies experienced by people in a true meditative state,” says Lee Berk, lead researcher of the study and associate professor of pathology and human anatomy at Loma Linda University.

The elation you feel when you laugh is a great way of combating the physical effects of stress. When we laugh, our body relaxes and endorphins (natural painkillers) are released into the blood stream.

Maine

Last week we returned from a successful trip to Italy visiting friends and colleagues in Reggio Emilia and facilitating a retreat in Mercatello sul Metauro with Angela Ferrario.  Then we headed straight to Maine.  First to a family reunion of Cadwells...all of Ashley's brothers and most of the spouses and children... about 22 of us.  Ashley grew up going to Boothbay Harbor where his uncle, John Andrews had a cottage right on the water.  The cottage is still there with several smaller guest cottages and that is where we landed...with beautiful weather, kayaking, biking, hiking, and even swimming in the Maine waters. Then, we joined son Chris and our daughter-in-law Leila on a trip further up the coast to Southwest Harbor  where we used to go with my parents when Chris and his brother Alden were little.  This trip, we were lucky to be able to bike the carriage roads of Acadia National Park, and to hike majestic Pemetic Peak overlooking Jordon Pond and Frenchman Bay.  After the hike we enjoyed the famous popovers at Jordon Pond House that I remember eating as a little girl when I went there with my mother.

Over the years I have realized that...the craggy Maine coast, the ocean air, the lichened rocks and trees, the fragrance of bay and rugosa rose, the sweet burst of the taste of field blueberries warmed in the sun... these are all in my bones. Because I grew up here during the very early summers of my life when we would leave the oppressive land locked heat of the midwest and head for the northeast and the coast.  Far away from the city, far away from schedules, and close to freedom and wide open space.  That is what I love so much about returning here.  In Maine, I feel that I return to the part of me that is central, most important and free.

Now Ashley and I lucky enough to be on North Haven Island.  To get here you take the ferry 12 miles off the coast of Rockland.  As I write, I am listening to a red eyed vireo outside the window.  Soon we will climb Ames Knob and look out on this most spectacular day at all the surrounding islands and the deep blue Maine sea.

The owners write about this place...We believe that there are places in the world that can change the way we think about things, that allow us to deepen our connection to nature and that remind us how fortunate we are.  North Haven is that kind of place.  And on the dinner menu there is this quote from Edna St. Vincent Millay...

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

May we all find such places where we feel most ourselves and most free this summer and always.

Reflections on Mercatello sul Metauro

Our experience last week with Angela Ferrario and the retreat participants in Learning and Leading for the Future was wonderful in every way.  We were thrilled to be asked to lead Session One with Angela and participate in her dream of weaving together cultural encounters and excursions with inspired professional development and reflection in the small town of Mercatello sul Metauro, Le Marche, Italy Palazzo Donati was our home for the week and Luisa Donati our hostess.  Palazzo Donati is her family's villa and has belonged to them since the town was founded in 1235 when seven families moved from their surrounding castles to build palazzi and form the town.  Pointing to a grand facade across the piazza, Luisa said, "That palazzo was my grandmother's and this one where you will stay was my grandfather's."  It seemed like a Romeo and Juliet's story...only theirs has had a happy ending.  It was a joy to spend time with Luisa who orchestrated a beautiful welcome dinner in the main salon of the  palazzo and prepared our breakfast every morning.  She joined us all week long, for example, enjoying wood fired pizza at one of the farms nearby with friends, and visiting the Antica Stamperia Carpegna where six generations of artisans have made beautiful hand stamped fabric.  They showed us one design that they are working on for Eataly.  Luisa and other friends that Angela has made also came along for many meals and events.  In a short time, we all began to feel as if we were a part of the small town.

During the week, Ashley and I both shared interactive presentations to lay the foundation for our work with learning for the future.  Participants entered into dialogue with us and with each other about their school contexts and where they each might help to build on strengths in these areas.  Each afternoon we all participated in creative activities of drawing and also print making to explore the importance of creativity, innovation and design in learning for the future.

This week, Angela is hosting John Nimmo and Debbie Leekeenan and another group that will focus on the timely subject of Anti-Bias Education. We toast them as they begin this evening.  Cadwell Collaborative is enjoying a few days in the Piemonte region of Italy, walking the vineyards and drinking very good wine.  All the best to all of you this first month of summer.

Here's a New Take on Documentation...

We have been working with Buffalo Public School 33 for three years.  For the second year in a row the Albright Knox Art Gallery has asked the school to install an exhibition of student work.  This year's exhibition is titled Art Makes You Think Bigger...an ingenious observation by one of 33's youngest students.  The exhibition features the connections between art and other subjects;  demonstrates the implementation of inquiry based inter-disciplinary projects; and shows the influence of the Reggio Emilia Approach. Last year we created over 30 panels that were installed directly on the bulletin boards of an Albright gallery.  They were well done and well received.  However, when the exhibition was over, it all had to come down...and to reinstall in the school proved to be a burden...mostly because of the lack of bulletin boards in the school hallways.

This year we invented a new technique.  We measured all 28 of the bulletin boards at the Albright and cut boards exactly to size from triplex cardboard sheets (about 3/4" thick and very sturdy).  These boards served as our "canvas" for each project story.  They will be installed directly over the existing Albright boards.

Having this defined and moveable canvas made the composition of the boards easier.  And, we went a step further by creating a sort of template for each board: a poster with a brief narrative of the project with pictures dividing the narrative in English and Spanish; examples of student work with subtitles; and a brief synopsis of New York State Standards developed during the project.

The exciting part of this process however, is that all 28 pieces will be reinstalled directly in the school hallways...where they belong.  In fact, as we composed the panels on the large cardboard sheets, we installed them in the halls, much to the delight of all the students...as it should be!

BRAVI School 33 students and teachers!