This Work Reminds Me of Flying
The Prek 3 Classes have emabarked on a project. The children started talking about "statues" a few months ago when I had them working on a collaborative wire sculpture in the studio. Their excitement about seeing sculptures and statues in Washington, DC got the...
The Children Got the Closest.
There is a symbiotic relationship I have with my profession/s. Artist and Atelierista. When I am both teaching and creating art I am immersed in and blessed with: aha moments of discovery, the anxiousness of the unknown, the struggle and challenges of making ideas...
From seeds
"From seeds" comes from a conversation that came about today when I was in the SWS garden harvesting vegetables and flowers to paint with Caleb, Franklin, and Boaz (PreK children). The act of picking the produce or herbs or flowers develops a shared anticipation,...
The Reciprocal Wisdom
I love imagery, photos, sound. Art. This blogging thing is difficult for me. I wish sometimes that others could just understand what I’m creating or doing, imagining, or thinking. I wish the intent and meaning of my work was clear without narrative sometimes....
“Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize” -Thich Nhat Hanh
All These Questions Are Love
This is the view from my window right now.Another snow day.A day to reflect and catch up on blogging. February just ended.It’s when the Love Fairy visits SWS. I adore Valentines Day.The opportunity to “make” for others, to write, draw, wrap, and give to others-just...
“The years are changing. They go by so fast.” Sophie, Kindergarten
It’s cold.It’s winter so it is to be expected.This year is likely to be the coldest Washington, DC has perhaps ever experienced.“The icicleslook like lamps.The snowflakes look like stars.”–Maya, PreSchool 3For me, it is thrilling in the context of the work I do with...
The Uncommon
“We react to weather in relative rather than absolute fashion,” said Laurence S. Kalkstein, a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami. “The uncommon is what bothers us.”(From the Washington Post article, Shriver or shrug: On a...
“You can’t just get stuff to remember people in a store.” -Aurora
I love the lights. I unapologetically love the visual bliss this season brings.I could do without the barage of advertisements, mailings, and catalogs that bombard me to buy stuff. It's a lot of paper to put in recycling. The advertisements geared towards children...
One heart at a time
This year at SWS, I have three new classrooms of children to interact with. For the first time we have two 3 year old preschool classrooms and one classroom with non-categorical medically fragile children.Scarlett, one of our children from our first SWS 3 year old...
Welcome to the Bubble!
Again.We moved again.First we were SWS at Peabody, then we packed up and moved to the Logan Annex in 2012.Logan Annex is a nice way of saying Trailer, or as the facilities director called it, a Bunker.After a year of basically fitting sixty-three clowns into a...
Out into the Universe
THIS IS IT, THE PREMIER OF RAINBOW BEINGS FLASHMOB VIDEO! Click this link[fve] [/fve]Rainbow Beings PreK Flashmob from Marla McLean on Vimeo.[/fve] Yesterday was summer solstice. Yesterday was the last day of school. How perfect that this was the day the children got...
Happiness being taught
Show some emotion. If you work with young children, you know there are many opportunities to experience emotions. Last month I was working on a project with some 1st graders. The provocation was to plan a story without writing the details or the the ending. Why?...
Helpers
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Mr. Rogers I saw this quote after the Newtown tragedy and now once again I see it today after the Boston...
The Intent, the Process, and the Beauty
This post is a continuation of my last post The greatest small gift, (March 6th.) I like to think of it as a continuing conversation or an opportunity to share documentation in a different "language." It is my hope that through the two posts a deeper and...
The greatest small gifts
Last month I attended a tremendous conference in San Francisco called Educating for Creative Minds: Using Brain Science to Ignite Innovation and Imagination. From the conference I have a long list of books to read and pages of notes to refer to, and inspiration and...
Hopeful
We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung,...
Paths of light come in so many forms…
The 2012 new school year has been an exercise on how a community of people can truly make change. Personally, it has been both exhausting and extremely inspiring. Using our new space, neighborhood and place based learning as a framework for planning curriculum this...
“It is impossible work, and therefor, we must do it.”
The Annex as a new location has proven to be a wealth of provocations. So much so, that blogging has all but disappeared from my teaching routine. So how do I balance all this “newness” and the extensive work that comes with expansion with sustaining a place (my blog)...
Flying Teapots and the Wonder of Transformation
In the Spring of 2012, when I realized that our school was really leaving our historical Peabody building for a barracks type temporary building , I had to summon all reserve positivity. OK, I said, we will transform our new school space into the extraordinary. I...