Tag Archives: choosing a school

A Different Spring Semester for Middle School

Posted on by
Reply

Kristina Boving became a class teacher at MWS in 2006 and led the MWS Class of 2014 from Grade One through Grade Eight. She then took the Class of 2019 from fourth grade through their graduation last summer before taking over as class teacher for the seventh grade class that will graduate from MWS in June of 2021. In this post, Kristina reflects on the ending to a very different Spring semester.

After my recent parent meeting, I grabbed a cup of tea and sat down, hoping to reflect on this time of Meadowbrook at Home and how it has been for the parents and students. I started to think about all the lessons we’ve learned, and how proud I am of the student’s resilience and goodwill toward me and each other throughout this time. My group of seventh graders quickly became more tech savvy than I am, and only had kind responses to my many glitches along the way-  “Well, Mrs. Boving, you could try this to get your whiteboard to work better…hope this helps…”. I remain so impressed with their maturity in the face of such obstacles to overcome.

 

But quickly my thoughts turned to the future, as I realized that parents did not really want to dwell on the past weeks. Instead, they were forward thinking and talking about how to make eighth grade the best it can be for the students. Those who have had older kids go through Meadowbrook know how special eighth grade is, and they just want their younger kids to have a similar experience. Can we still do field trips? Can we still have our traditional family campout? Can we still go to New Hampshire to the AMC huts? Will we even be able to have school in person in the fall….? All I could say at the meeting was, “I don’t know”, but I sure hope so and I will do my best to ensure that the kids will have a great year.

As we teachers wrapped up the year, we focused on the last week of school and finding activities that mimic the festivities we have that last week every year. Field day had to be different, with each family taking part in the challenges at home, but we still had fun. Our specialty teachers and school staff still received homemade thank you cards, but delivered by mail. Our end of year celebration wasn’t our traditional sharing of music and dance, but a car parade to our home site to bring closure to the school year and give a glimpse of where we will be when we come back together in the Fall.

Here’s looking forward to a great eighth grade for my class, and a wonderful year for all of us. One that will be different- but a year that will still be Meadowbrook.

A Letter to Parents in a Time of Unrest

Posted on by
Reply

Su Rubinoff has been an Early Childhood educator at MWS for more than 25 years and has completed an in-depth training in Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation and Mediation at URI. With families already facing unprecedented challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Su used one of her regular parent letters to offer support in addressing tensions arising from the recent terrible events in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

Waldorf education was born in 1919 in response to the trauma and social upheaval of WWI. While teachers of older students might speak with their classes about difficult social issues, a different approach is needed with younger children. In this letter, Su uses her expertise in teaching children aged 3 – 6 years to share how parents can best support the continued healthy development of their child.

 

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

~ Nelson Mandela

 

Dear Friends,

I am so shook up by what is occurring in our country. A lot is being asked of you these days; to be parents, teachers, and now you need to be present for your child in a way that you rarely have needed to before. How do we, as adults, process the events of this past week?

As with many things we are careful with what we say to the young child, because they are not little adults, but so often they pick up our inner mood. I have to believe the world is good and that is what I want to pass along to the children. I want to give them hope! I have seen and heard images of hope, even amidst the terrible scenes unfolding around the world, and those are what I am holding on to.

We work with kindness daily at Meadowbrook and certainly in our class. While we do not presently have a lot of racial diversity, we still plant the seeds, either overtly or through being a role model worthy of imitation. We end of our circle time every day by saying this verse together:

Kind hearts are the gardens

Kind thoughts are the roots

Kind words are the blossoms

Kind deeds are the fruits.

The values of understanding, cooperation, listening, being inclusive, and so much more are alive in Morning Glory. Even our  very youngest children quickly learn our customs; if there is a problem, get help, (when another wants to join) ‘there is always room for one more’, and treat others the way you want to be treated. This is their foundation and I am hopeful it will grow with them through their lives.

But we all need to be doing better as humans, now! I want to change the world which is why I became a teacher, and it is so hard to do while I am at home and not with your wonderful children. I don’t know what your children are aware of, or what questions they are asking, but I am here to support you. To listen and try to figure this out. Together.

Take good care and remember to feed yourself, literally and figuratively!

 

Travel, Adventure and a Passion for the Environment

Posted on by
Reply

Sarah Cabot-Miller graduated from MWS in 2010. We are delighted that she remains a regular visitor at our events and look forward to hearing more about her life as her career unfolds.

It is crazy to think that it has been ten years since my class graduated from Meadowbrook. A lot can happen in ten years. Here is a short description of what I have been up to since then.

Directly after graduating from Meadowbrook, I attended North Kingstown High School where I took part in Adventurer’s Club, joined in some small theatrical performances, and spent a lot of my time playing in a band with some friends. I took a handful AP classes, one of which being AP Environmental Science which sparked my passion for what I ended up studying in college.

 

 

After graduating from North Kingstown High School, I enrolled in the School of the Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. There I majored in Natural Resource Management and minored in International Community Development. This combination of major and minor pinpointed my enthusiasm for understanding how communities around the world interact with natural resources, and what decisions across society can aid in shaping sustainable natural resource use and management. This area of study provided me with many incredible opportunities including organizing sustainability-focused community events, working hand in hand with local organizations, a large number of hands-on-learning courses, individual research opportunities with professors, and many travel opportunities.

While on campus, I was involved in the school’s rock-climbing team, the Vermont Student Climate Coalition, the Horticulture Club, and was intertwined in the local music scene through a few student bands. I worked at the Office of International Education, helping place local students with study abroad programs, and organizing activities for international students and study abroad returnees. Though I loved being in Burlington with all my heart, I spent two semesters abroad, expanding my international and interpersonal experiences. This included a seven-month abroad experience, studying and living in Spain, during which I worked on improving my Spanish, visited some relatives throughout the country, and hiked El Camino de Santiago. For my second term abroad, I participated in a field-based, environmentally focused program, during which we traveled throughout Australia studying the sustainability movement and different forms of environmental action across the country. During this time, I deeply increased my understanding for climate action and green decision making. These experiences thoroughly fueled my curiosity, and my passion for travel, international community involvement, and experiential learning.

Upon graduating from UVM, I spent some time working for Brown University’s Superfund Research Program in partnership with the Narraganset Tribe. We organized and analyzed data concerning fish, water, and sediment contamination from two main ponds on the Narraganset reservation and worked towards understanding how tribal individuals interact with fish and/or water from these two ponds. As part of this project, we crafted workshop materials and created lesson plans that will serve to help educate tribal members about contamination found in those specific ponds. Though my working full time for this program has come to an end, I now volunteer a few hours a week, contributing toward the final report for this project.

Most recently, I have accepted a position as the Park Naturalist for Burlingame Campgrounds. As I understand it, I will be organizing educational environmental programs to offer campers throughout the duration of their stay. As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoy working with people and, to me, the most rewarding work is when I get to share my love and enthusiasm for the environment with others in a way that can make a lasting impact! As I move forward, I hope to continue following my passion for the environment and community action and see where it takes me.

An Alum Reflects on His Journey

Posted on by
Reply

Deven Bussey is the eldest of five siblings who have attended, or still attend, MWS. We are glad that our alumni stay in touch and share their news with us. Here, Deven reflects on how his Meadowbrook experience prepared him for his unique career path. 

I graduated from Meadowbrook Waldorf School back in 2004, and while there are a lot of things that have led me to where I am today (which is Taipei, Taiwan!), Meadowbrook played a big role. I moved to Zhuhai, China in 2012 after graduating from Skidmore College. I lived there for two years, teaching English at Sun-Yat-Sen University, before moving to Chengdu for the better part of five years. During that time, I studied Mandarin and worked as a college counselor, before moving into video production work, which is my current focus. I moved to Taipei in February to pursue more opportunities in this area.

Over the past four or so years, I’ve produced and directed music documentaries, shot a pilot for a TV series, traveled around China shooting a tourism project, filmed concerts, music videos and much more. My next project will be a web TV series in Taiwan about a group of students learning how to produce electronic music and market themselves as up-and-coming artists.

I’d say the most exiting project was a documentary I shot with my friend called Break The Wall, about the history of underground dance music in China. For that film, I had the chance to travel to places such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai Yunnan among many others, and interview some of the most influential people in the electronic music scene in that part of the world. Finally, I was able to attend ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event), when the film premiered there!

Throughout this journey, I like to look back on how I came to be doing these things. They weren’t things that I planned to do but more the result of “hey, that sounds interesting and unique, why not do that?” This way of thinking is something I attribute to Meadowbrook and my Waldorf education. For example, there were many opportunities I got in China just by being willing to speak Mandarin and try something outside my comfort zone. I went to smaller cities to play guitar and sing at events where a lot of the people had never seen a foreigner in the flesh before! I gave a speech in Chinese about tourism in Sichuan for a forum attended by many of the regional governors. My proudest fun moment may have been when I made it onto the pages of Vogue Taiwan modeling a winter jacket for a marketing campaign that some of my friends were doing!

To me, these experiences, while a bit out-of-the-box, have been some of the most worthwhile as they led me to meet people and explore places that I would have never had the chance to normally. I can also see how a different version of myself would have dismissed some of these opportunities as “not worthwhile” or “too strange”, just as some might view Eurythmy (though I can’t imagine my 10-year-old self ever thinking that Eurythmy was not the best use of my time…).

I was back visiting Rhode Island this past summer, and I remember talking with my younger brother, Will, who had just graduated from Meadowbrook and was looking forward to starting at The Prout School. He enjoyed his time at Meadowbrook but he was telling me how excited he was to do more “typical” things, like join sports teams etc. I understood what he meant, but I also had to smile a little, having gone to the same high school myself. I went on to tell him that, of all my educational stops (including the Catholic high school and a liberal arts college), Meadowbrook is easily the one that made the greatest impact on me, and is the experience that stands out the most, even 15 years later. There’s nothing wrong with “typical” but the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve been able to see the things I thought I may have been missing out on as a middle-school student were just that: typical.

Betty Merner and the Class of 2004 (Deven in the black hat)

Talking with my brother also got me thinking about how some of the unique things that I learned at Meadowbrook have helped me in really practical ways. I’ve become quite comfortable doing public speaking and voice-over work, and I know that the yearly plays I participated in at Meadowbrook set a foundation for that. So much of what we learned at Meadowbrook was also taught through the form of stories and I truly believe that helped me build up a strong sense of narrative structure that has helped me a lot with my recent film work. We were even decorating a set for a music video recently and I was brought back to one time when we decorated our classroom as a “crystal cave” for gnomes!

Finally, as someone who was never a math lover, I can confirm that I still do simple multiplication in my head using the rhymes that I was taught in 2nd or 3rd grade! I will never forget that “9 times 8 is seventy-twoooooo, then 80, 88, 96 and we’re through!”

Last summer, I had a chance to reconnect with my teacher Mrs. Merner and a few of the students from our graduating class. One thing that really struck me was how, for such a small class, we had all ended up following very different and interesting paths that strayed away from normal or, god forbid, boring! That’s what I’m most grateful to Meadowbrook for. For instilling this sense in me that different isn’t bad and that trying things I may not love, or that I initially would have dismissed as uninteresting, have led to some of the best opportunities and experiences of my life.