A few people have asked if I could post the contents of my talk about the Salmonberry Program. Here it is:
Exciting Times
These are exciting times to be involved at Salmonberry School. I remember eight or nine years ago, when Lydia Miller and I both attended a PNAIS (Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools) governance conference. I recall embarrassingly and apologetically responding to questions about Salmonberry. Where is it? How many students? What kind of school is it?
Just a week ago I attended another PNAIS conference and what a striking difference a few years can make! I was able to proudly and confidently answer these kinds of questions, but more often I found that I didn’t have to. Large numbers of attendees said they knew of our little school, that they had visited our website, and that they had heard such good things!
This summer when I attended the AERO (Alternative Education Resource Organization) conference in Portland, I was warmly greeted and congratulated by a lot of progressive educators who knew of our recent holistic education conference, as well as the celebration of our tenth anniversary as a school. I received so many expressions of kinship, support and admiration.
This year, much more than ever, I see Salmonberry mentioned in the national discourse around educational alternatives and progressive and holistic education. For example, Salmonberry was recently listed as a “Showcase School” in the “eduvation library” on the website of IDEA (Institute for Democratic Education in America.) We are regularly contacted by teachers, educators and adult students who are eager to see firsthand a powerful educational initiative that has clear, well-articulated and high ideals, and actually lives up to these ideals in the form of a dynamic child-centered holistic program.
So, what is it that makes the Salmonberry program so unique? More than anything it is the fact that in this top-down, standardized and standardizing dominant educational paradigm, here is a small school that takes seriously the radical idea that education should be about nurturing individual learners’ capacity to reach their full potential.
And when you take that position seriously, when you really make an effort to step into the shoes of a child and see the world through their eyes, and feel it with their heart, many practices naturally follow:
-Salmonberry is a place where parents are truly welcome as critically important collaborators in the educational mission of the school. If we are looking through the child’s eyes, how could we not include parents as integral players?
-Salmonberry emphasizes Arts, broadly defined, and the arts play an integral and integrated role in the program: fine art, music, craft of many kinds, dance, and theater all have an important place here; they are among the many languages of the child and therefore must be present.
-There is a richness, a texture and a three-dimensionality and a depth to the curriculum;
-Students spend more than one year with a teacher, as it takes time to develop meaningful relationship and mutual understanding;
-There is a focus here on self-knowledge and reflection, on mindfulness, on critical thinking, creativity and innovation, and community;
-There is a culture of caring, of craftsmanship, beauty and quality of work;
-There is a sense of humor and fun and spontaneity that is ever-present;
-Kids are allowed and encouraged to move physically and interact with one another in meaningful ways;
-There is a flexible pacing to student progress. Having skills not between the 40th and 60th percentile is not considered a pathology to be diagnosed and remediate, but is recognized as another indicator of the wonder and uniqueness of the learner.
-And we are academically outstanding, excellent, rigorous and supporting of high student achievement (I used to be hesitant to admit that – as it can imply a lack of focus on other areas, but there is no doubt Salmonberry is academically excellent and this is in no way inconsistent with a child-centered approach.)
But of all the many traits and aspects of the Salmonberry program, two related characteristics stand out to me as crucial and defining features of the Salmonberry experience.
First, there is at Salmonberry an intimacy to the learning environment and experience. This is in part evident in the low student:teacher ratio and small class sizes, but it’s more about an approach that values uniqueness, reaches towards meaningful differentiation of instruction, addresses multiple learning styles and intelligences, strengths and interests and is always embedded in deep personal relationship.
And second, a Salmonberry education is one that engages learners by providing education that is meaningful and personally relevant by using an emergent and experience-based curriculum.
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And although it’s wonderful that we are enjoying a surge of recognition and appreciation on a national level, I believe that we are still one of the best-kept secrets right in our own backyard. This is why we need everyone here to continue to support the school in every way. Please share your testimonials with friends and neighbors. Lets spread stories of our children’s individual growth and transformation and how it was nurtured at Salmonberry, with many many members of the broader Orcas Island community.
And in addition to supporting the school through your monthly tuition payments, which is absolutely huge, of course, please let’s be intentional about building increased momentum in terms of rolling up our sleeves and joining together in all the support work that a small tuition-funded school like this requires. I urge you to continue to volunteer joyfully, donate generously, pitch in enthusiastically with fundraisers and community events. Your child’s experience is truly enhanced and deepened as you parents dig your roots down into this fertile soil.
Thanks for all the support you already give towards your child’s growth, as well as that of the school. And thanks as always for your trust in allowing us, Salmonberry’s teachers, to witness and nurture the process of your children’s unfolding.
