-
Reach of Faith
At Living Wisdom School (LWS) we practice many little—and sometimes big—“reaches of faith” every day. Our teachers practice faith in the individual potential of each student, helping each student reach for the best within themselves. To do this, our community...
-
Deciding What to Teach
In any modern school, certain academic skills must be taught. We know these skills as the three pillared core of education: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Education for Life teachers have incredible freedom to decide what to teach their students beyond basic literacy. There are guidelines...
-
Teaching as Spiritual Practice
Recently, I had the honor of presenting at the Holistic Teaching and Learning Conference in Ashland, Oregon. It was a very inspiring conference to attend. There were several people there working in schools around Canada and the US who are re-imagining an education that looks at the whole child - not just the intellect. In Education for Life, we work each day to create lessons that...
-
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...
-
Growth through Expansion
We hold parent/teacher conferences at our school twice a year. This process happens at many schools...
-
School Preparations
School starts here at Living Wisdom in Portland on September 4th. The weeks leading up to the first day of school are full of energy, but it's a different energy than the energy that buzzes through the school when students are here. This week is a time for us as teachers to connect with each other...
-
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…
-
Teaching to Make a Difference
This year, we have 3 interns at Living Wisdom School who are studying at Ananda College to become teachers. They have been spending 2 days a week in our classrooms observing and teaching a few lessons. In this post, one of the interns, Bardia Behmard, shares some of his reflection from the past 2 months. What is it that makes teachers want to teach? I have thought about this question for quite a while as I’ve been watching Living Wisdom teachers in action. Every Tuesday and Friday, (the days I come over to observe the classrooms) I try to answer this question. I notice a fire in the teacher’s eyes…
-
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…
-
New Education for Life Blog!
I just wanted to share this new blog written by Elizabeth Aguilar. This summer, I met Liz at a retreat for EFL teachers. She is working in a public school in California and integrating EFL ideas into her teaching. If you’ve wondered what these ideas would look like in a public school, Liz’s blog is really interesting! http://eflinpublicschool.blogspot.com/
