Working Together: The 2016 Annual Fund

With the school year off to a joyous start, we invite you to come together to support the school's important work. Our annual fund helps us fully fund our program each year, as tuition alone does not completely cover the cost of a Madrona School education. The theme for this year's campaign is "Working Together".

One thing that sets Waldorf education apart is its focus on guiding children toward becoming constructive members of a group. In a time of increasing social fragmentation in the larger world, our commitment to educating children to be compassionate, engaged members of their communities has real-world relevance.

Your generous gift today contributes to this legacy of caring involvement. Please join the board, teachers and staff of Madrona School in supporting the 2016 Annual Fund. Help sustain this special environment where your children can practice working together as they grow and mature into the people they are destined to become. See the appeal letter in your mailbox, or donate online here: madronaschool.org/annual-fund.

On behalf of all the children of Madrona School, we thank you!

Class Teachers and Building Relationships with Students

Long-term teacher-student and teacher-family relationships are a vital way a Waldorf school builds community and delivers education. Just as we see the curriculum on an arc of several years, we also value a growing and ever-evolving relationship between a teacher and a student.  

In our early childhood we achieve this with a mixed-age kindergarten where a young child gets to know their teacher (and assistants) over two to three years of time together. We are fortunate here to have an experienced and stable early childhood teaching team, and teachers who are raising their own families in Waldorf education. Our teachers offer a partnership with parents, a wonderful resource through early childhood development; where parents see their own child, our teachers see many children.

In the grade school, class teachers loop up with their students through the grades. While not necessarily unique to Waldorf education, "looping" teachers are relatively rare in American education. A class teacher has been a fixture of the Waldorf grade school since Rudolf Steiner founded the first school; Steiner believed that the strong relationship forged between a teacher and a student was essential to a robust education, and an aid to healthy child development. Our students begin each day and have main lesson with their class teacher, even while they have a chance to learn from other teachers in the specialty classes that follow. When a teacher spends this much time with his or her class, education is truly a child-centered journey, allowing a teacher to know a particular constellation of students and bring and build on developmentally appropriate and emotionally engaging education each year. Both teachers and children are engaged together in a variety of ways, and each one of them is an artist, a scientist, a mathematician, a poet and a musician, experiencing the breadth of human endeavor together; children have a chance to try on a variety of skills and disciplines on their way toward adulthood.

Relationships are fostered over many years, and class communities are built and tended through inevitable ups and downs. It is the necessary work of the teacher to know and see each student and to strive to meet them where they are developmentally. Learning to relate to one another in a constructive and loving way is essential human work, and a long-term, trusting relationship between teacher and student in a Waldorf school is one valued way we can model the importance of this.

Parent-teacher conferences are coming up -- dare we suggest that you hug your child's teacher? Talk with them, take advantage of their skill and deep knowledge of your beloved family members, speak openly about challenges and questions, and ask for what you need! We invite you to strengthen our community by celebrating the blessing of these relationships.

To read more:

Madrona School Alphabet (F)

As we continue to celebrate what makes a Madrona School education unique through the alphabet, we have reached the letter 'F' ... for Field Trips and Festivals!

Field trips take Waldorf education on the road, and many of our field trips are regular and highly anticipated additions to the curriculum.

As many of you know, and your children experience, our early childhood classes are outside each week -- to Lowery Farm, as well as each Friday to other island parks and beaches. Our young students, in full weather-appropriate gear, make a colorful and energetic addition to our community, and they are able to fully engage in the outdoors in a way that is just not possible in our smaller play yards.

Many field trips are designed to enhance the grade school curriculum. They become rites of passage too -- trips to look forward to as you move through the grades. In May, our third grade will embark on their first overnight, to Pioneer Farm near Mt. Rainier, to help wrap up their year long study of the practical arts. Earlier this year, our fifth grade made a trip to the Hoh rainforest during their botany block, getting creative when their trip fell smack in the middle of the government shutdown. And our sixth grade trekked overnight to Mount St. Helens for a geology block. What natural riches we have to explore in our backyard!

And we offer trips to build community between the regional Waldorf schools, too. Beginning in fourth grade with a potlatch on Whidbey Island, our students meet with other area Waldorf schools to explore common themes from their year. In fifth grade they gather and compete in a Pentathalon; in sixth grade they participate in Medieval games; in 7th grade they enjoy a Renaissance Faire. All wonderful opportunities to spread their wings a bit, and meet other Waldorf students beyond their class communities.

Festivals are a vital part of the rhythm in our community's year. Celebrating the passing of the seasons, festivals also offer the opportunity to come together and socialize school-wide. In September, we mark Michaelmas, with a re-telling of the legend of St. Michael and the dragon, playing through challenges that remind us of our inner strength and resolve as we move into the darker and wetter time of the year. Highlights of this festival include crawling through the dragon's lair built by our 8th grade, and feasting together on potatoes from our school garden. In November, the story of St. Martin illuminates kindness and generosity to strangers, and our students revisit his story and mark the dark night with lantern walks and songs. In May we celebrate the burgeoning of spring with May Day festivities, making flower crowns and dancing around a maypole. It is a joyful, colorful end to our festival year.

Reading Champions!

We are proud of our enthusiastic readers! 

Madrona School won our local public library's 'Reading Champions' trophy for the highest percentage of students participating in the Kitsap Regional Library's summer reading program, compared to other independent schools on Bainbridge Island. We enjoyed a visit from our local children's librarian today, and she brought with her this lovely trophy -- so grateful for local treasures like our public library and their staff that spread the love of reading. We will take good care of this trophy all year, and are resolved to win it again next summer. Hurray for books -- and the adventures they inspire, the empathy they instill and the information they impart!

 

While we're on the topic of reading, you might be interested in this beautiful take on the power of reading in our lives: Neil Gaiman on Why We Read and What Books Do for the Human Experience, brainpickings.org, August 3, 2016. 

Madrona School is a non-profit, tax exempt public charity organization incorporated in the State of Washington. Madrona School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender expression or identity, national and ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or religion in any of its programs, classes or activities.