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Appreciating Internal Motivation
At our recent building fundraiser, Nitai Deranja, the co-director of Education for Life, gave an inspiring talk about the work we do at Living Wisdom Schools and why we do it. One of our goals at LWS is to create a schooling experience that is more internally motivated than externally motivated. When students feel safe and inspired, a curiosity bubbles up and learning occurs naturally...
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Inspirational Testing
In the Primary class, we have started doing a weekly spelling test. We don’t administer many tests at Living Wisdom School, but the ability to stay calm, centered and focused during a test is an important skill. So, we start small in Primary class with a spelling test...
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Holiday Generosity
In the Primary class, we've been reading lots of books about Christmas this last week before we go on our break (we studied Hanukkah and Solstice earlier in the month). The theme of many of the books is the old adage, "it's better to give than to receive," and the students have been really compelled by this saying. During show and tell this past Friday...
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The Power of Play
There’s a lot of talk lately about how much we learn through play. Research is showing the impact that free playtime (or the lack thereof) has on our kids, how they think and solve problems, and how they relate in community. Lately I’ve been interested in exploring how to integrate play into my curriculum...
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Connecting with Nature
Spring has come to Portland, and with it, a return to our weekly trips to Laurelwood horse-350x248, the 50 acre retreat center that we get to use for school once a week. The Primary class (1st/2nd) has a great routine for the day...
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Teaching Positive, Solution-Oriented Thinking
A group of my students were recently confronted with a very serious childhood problem: the invasion of a sacred play space...
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Winter Dancing
As winter has returned to Oregon, we are taking fewer field trips and spending more time inside. Dance is one of the indoor activities that we've started doing more of around here. The Primary (1st/2nd grade) students learned an Indian (Garba) dance...
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Working with Conflict
At the beginning of my teaching career, I often felt very worried about how students behaved toward each other. I put the expectation on myself to create perfectly behaved, well-mannered kids to show off how awesome my classroom is, as some sort of reflection of my teaching skills. As I’ve gained experience, I realize that it’s important to teach excellent behavior and manners, but it sometimes just doesn’t happen. Kids respond to each other in unexpected ways, often exploring boundaries. It is not a reflection of bad teaching or bad kids when conflicts occur. Rather, it is best to see these times as the most compelling teachable moments. Our kindergarten…
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The Experience of Education for Life
Rose Neal is the director of Living Wisdom School here in Beaverton, Oregon. Here, she writes about a recent experience on a school field trip. I recently accompanied the 3rd-7th grades on a service learning trip to the Vedanta Retreat in Scappoose. One of our preschool families lives there and was kind enough to offer us a tour. During our visit, Megan, our host, was explaining a concept to the students and referred to the blog post about the rangoli activity (making a mandala and then destroying it the same day) and how it could be seen as an exercise in the practice of non-attachment. When Megan brought up the…
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Our Earth and Lava Tubes
The beautiful fall weather has inspired many field trips to give students more hands-on learning experiences while the weather’s great.The Intermediate class (3-4th grade) is currently working on a unit called Our Earth. They have been studying the earth, geology, and natural disasters. As part of this unit, they took a field trip with the Upper Elementary class to the Ape Caves, which is 1.5 hours away from Portland. One of the caves there is the longest lava tube in the United States (13, 042 feet), and all of the students made it through. Here’s a little about the trip, shared by Sonali, the Intermediate teacher. There was total darkness inside…
