The Capacious Heart of author Kate DiCamillo

Ashley’s mother, Mary Cadwell, reading to her grand daughters

As we round the corner from the school year into summer, there is something that many of us, children and adults, look forward to…reading more, reading what we want to read, stories that will enchant us, stories that will be beautiful and funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking.  Even now, I dream of curling up in an adirondak chair or a hammock with a favorite book. Or reading on the beach, or at a picnic table or on a blanket by the lake.

Tomorrow I will go visit a dear friend of mine who spends the summer at a lake house on Lake Champlain. Her family’s house opens to lawn and to stone steps that lead right down to the lake and to a spectacular view north to open water.  There are recliner chairs there and that is where I always want to go this time of year…to read, to write, to draw, into the afternoon with no thought of time or deadlines or having to be somewhere. This is summer at it’s very best.

Squam Lake, New Hampshire

If you haven’t read them, you will not want to miss, by any stretch of the imagination, books by children’s book author, Kate DiCamillo.

I have been reading them now all year, since two things happened. First, I read an essay in the New York Times by best selling author, Ann Patchett…Why We Need Life Changing Books Right Now, March, 2020. She describes how she started to read Kate DiCamillo’s books and couldn’t stop. How they changed her life. She writes:

So maybe you don’t have children, or they’re not small or not in the house. It doesn’t matter. Read them anyway. Maybe you do have children and you can read these books together as a family. My point is this: Don’t miss out. Do not make the mistake I nearly made and fail to read them because you are under the misconception that they are not for you. They are for you.

The second thing that happened is that Krista Tippett interviewed Kate on her podcast, On Being in March of 2022.  It is the best interview that I have ever heard and it is the most beautiful.  Please listen to it. Don’t miss it.

The thing you come away with is how important stories are in our lives..how they save us. Kate DiCamillo says that it is her job as a writer to develop capacious hearts. What does that word capacious mean?… spacious, ample, big, large, generous, vast, huge, immense.

One of the most powerful parts of the interview is when Kate DiCamillo reads a letter that she wrote when she was asked: “How honest should we be with our readers? Is it the job of the writer for the very young to tell the truth or preserve their innocence?”

In the letter, she writes that when she speaks to children at school assemblies she frequently asks if they have read Charlotte’s Web. Then, she asks how many of them cried when they read it. She says that most hands in the audience stay up for both questions.  Her letter continues::

My favorite lines of Charlotte’s Web, the lines that always make me cry, are toward the end of the book. They go like this: ‘These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days …’

I have tried for a long time to figure out how E. B. White did what he did, how he told the truth and made it bearable.

And I think that you…won’t be surprised to learn that the only answer I could come up with was love. E. B. White loved the world. And in loving the world, he told the truth about it — its sorrow, its heartbreak, its devastating beauty. He trusted his readers enough to tell them the truth, and with that truth came comfort and a feeling that we were not alone.

I think our job is to trust our readers.

I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen.

I think our job is to love the world.

Go out and find a book by Kate DiCamillo. There are over 25 of them.  My favorites are all the ones that I have read: Because of Winn Dixie (which is also a film), The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Tale of Despereaux, (also a film), and The Beatryce Prophecy.  I can’t wait to read The Tiger Rising (also a film!) and Louisiana’s Way Home. They are next on my list.

Very best wishes to all of you for a wonderful, free, few months, full of stories, family and friends, and endless summer afternoons loving this beautiful world.

Ashley reading to grandson Jack in early spring

The Inspiration of a Grandfather: Luther Ely Smith

Marker for Luther Ely Smith in an interior garden of Luther Ely Smith Square

We were recently in St. Louis where we visited the newly installed marker dedicated to my grandfather, Luther Ely Smith, on the grounds of the Gateway Arch National Park.  The marker has been there since 1970 when the city dedicated a park to him.  During the restructuring of the Arch grounds the marker was moved.  My family recently arranged to have it located in a quiet spot in an interior garden of what is now called, Luther Ely Smith Square. The marker is engraved with these words:

This Park commemorates Luther Ely Smith, whose vision, dedication, energy, and love of his city and country brought into being the great Arch that symbolizes the nation’s expansion west of the Mississippi River.

Luther Ely Smith Square

On the website of the Gateway Arch National Park, Luther Ely Smith Square is described as the beautifully landscaped green space that leads to the entrance of the Arch. Born in 1873, Luther Ely Smith was a St. Louis lawyer… who first proposed a riverfront memorial for President Thomas Jefferson. His efforts led to the creation of the Gateway Arch. Today, Luther Ely Smith Square welcomes visitors to the Gateway Arch National Park, where they enjoy the unique plantings, picnic areas,…and benches with the Arch or Old Courthouse serving as a backdrop.

The Old Courthouse, St. Louis. Missouri

My grandfather’s Amherst College classmate, who was then president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, appointed him to a commission to supervise the design and construction of a monument in Vincennes, Indiana. On his train trip home, as he crossed the river, he envisioned a revitalized riverfront and a monument that would commemorate this place as the gateway to westward expansion, to Thomas Jefferson, and the journey of Lewis and Clark. 

My grandfather dedicated himself to this vision, working over thirty years with the city of St. Louis and the federal government to realize this dream.  He was appointed by Mayor Bernard Dickmann to be the chairman of the committee to investigate a monument.  The committee was developed as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Association and was formally chartered in April 1934.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order on December 21, 1935, authorizing the Department of Interior to acquire and develop the memorial.

In 1949, the Association selected the design for the Gateway Arch by Eero Saarinen following a design competition.

In 1948 Grandpa wrote to contest winner Eero Saarinen, an architect from Finland:

It was your design, your marvelous conception, your brilliant forecast into the future, that has made the realization of the dream possible – a dream that you and the wonderful genius at your command and the able assistance of your associates are going to achieve far beyond the remotest possibility that we had dared visualize in the beginning.

Eero Saarinen and Luther Ely Smith

Our grandfather died in April, 1951 and the Arch was completed in 1965. He never saw it, but he knew it would be built and could imagine it.

On April 3, 1951, the St. Louis Post Dispatch published an editorial entitled, What a Life Can Be about my grandfather.

The editorial describes many of the efforts that he championed like The Missouri Plan, also known as the Non-Partisan Court Plan, which spread far beyond Missouri and is the foundation for merit-based judicial selection in America.  He led the commission for the development of the city’s first public playgrounds.  In 1920, he represented hundreds of St. Louis citizens who were immigrants when they were about to be deported for unjust reasons. More than anything, he cared for and worked for the liberties of free men [and women.]  Any report of oppression found him ready to learn more and act accordingly.

Another editorial and letters to the editor in the St. Louis Star-Times include these stories and words.

From every city hundreds of these people were rushed to New York and shipload after shipload of them were sent back to Europe in the successful coup of the Palmer Red Raids. Except that none went from St. Louis. We have a thousand loyal, patriotic citizens, who but for [Luther Ely Smith], would be disseminated throughout Europe.

Luther Ely Smith’s influence was vast-the finest and most enduring kind, that of character, integrity, and skill in human relations….Most of all, Luther Ely Smith was known as a person, a great, lovable, wise and gracious person. He leaves a heritage to the entire city of St. Louis.

I did not know my grandfather.  He died in 1951 when I was just two years old. I do, however, feel his legacy and the example of his life deep in my bones. I love hearing stories about him. My older brother and sisters knew him well and remember bird walks and picnics with him in Forest Park and the St. Louis Zoo. I am awestruck reading about him and what he was like and what he accomplished.  Likewise, I am filled with wonder when I see the Arch from any vantage point.  It is awe inspiring in its simplicity, its strength, and its openness to the future and possibility.

These days, especially this week, when our country seems so very down and out, so full of grief and shame about what we have allowed to happen with gun violence where no one, not even young children in school, is safe.  What are we to do? How do we gather ourselves and move on?

I am buoyed by people like my grandfather who do not lose hope and continue to work for justice and good through many challenging and difficult times.  I listened to Sharon Salzberg speak on a Community Vigil through Insight Meditation Society a couple of days ago. She said that to fall into helplessness is the hardest and most dangerous place. We need to feel our deep connection to one another and know that our kindness, our care, our action means something and will affect everything.

So that is what I am doing.  I am staying connected and I am believing that our country can and must do better and that I can and will play a part in that. That gun safety regulations and laws will be established and that we will not be terrorized by the powers that be that are standing in the way.

This Memorial weekend, I am remembering all who died for our freedom. (Heather Cox Richardson writes a moving story today about Beau Bryant who died in 1943 at age 20, giving up “not only his life but also his future to protect American democracy against the spread of facism.”)

And I am also praying that we will have the strength of will and heart to find our way out of the darkness of violence that we have created… that is far away from freedom.  

Sending many blessings to each of you always.

Gateway Arch, image from the website

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.