Salmonberry Blog
News of note for the Salmonberry community.
Education for Meaning
Salmonberry School believes that a child’s education should be meaningful. It is a grave, though all-too-common error to allow students to feel that their school work is irrelevant or trivial. It is nearly ubiquitous in mainstream education that kids experience...
What Is Relationship-Based Education?
“It is through others that we become ourselves” ~ Lev Vygotsky Individual learning is embedded within a complex network of social relationships. Early 20th century psychologist Lev Vygotsky was among the first to recognize that learning occurs primarily through social...
Salmonberry School celebrates diversity, multiculturalism and inclusion
Over the course of a week-long collaborative project, Salmonberry School’s 4th- 6th grade Eagles class created a breathtaking sand mandala in their Eastsound classroom. Inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist practice, they carefully applied fine colored sand onto an...
The Soul of Education Initiative: The Prague Gathering
Prague, Czech Republic What an honor it was for me to have been invited to participate in a very unique thering of education leaders. For three days in mid-April, in the ancient city of Prague, 40 educators and visionaries gathered to explore “The Soul of...
Pangea: A Metaphor for Holism
originally written by Paul Freedman for Pangea, the literary journal of Spring Street International School I was excited to see the first issue of SSIS’ new literary journal. And even more excited by its title and all it implies. Pangea; the word is derived from the...
Truth and Trust: A Reflection on Epistemology and Kindergarten
The following post is written by Emmy Gran, the recipient of the Holistic Education Initiative’s 2017 Young Scholars award for outstanding research in the field of holistic education. Here she discusses her reflections on knowledge, truth, trust and Kindergarten....
The Hero’s Journey
This is the setting out… Returning to the theme of courageous beginnings and the particular importance of celebrating beginnings at school, of which I wrote here previously, I am reminded now of what usually comes after beginnings, namely “middles.” Followed by...
The Setting Out: Marking Beginnings and Honoring Courage
This is the setting out. The leaving of everything behind. Leaving the social milieu. The preconceptions. The definitions. The language. The Narrowed field of vision. The expectations. No longer expecting relationships, memories, words, or letters to mean what they...
Salmonberry School Celebrates Crystal Anniversary!
It’s been fifteen years since Salmonberry School opened its doors. That means it’s time to celebrate a crystal anniversary! And crystal seems to be an appropriate metaphor for the school at this stage of development. Crystal is a material with luster and sparkle. And...
Meet the Holistic Education Initiative!
I love Salmonberry School. I really do. It is the embodiment of so much I believe about nurturing child development and holistic education. I am fully and deeply committed to the 40-ish students who spend their days at Salmonberry School, the hundreds we see in...
With a chick-chick here…
What better way to spend the summer than with a flock of friendly sheep? Perhaps a clutch of newly hatched chicks? A little ukulele? Salmonberry School has reached the halfway mark of its summer program offerings with resounding plaudits from the Orcas Island...
To Walk A Mile in Their Shoes
Compassion, empathy, understanding, caring; these are a few of children’s capacities that are explicitly nurtured at Salmonberry School. Salmonberry teachers look for opportunities to tune kids in to the difficulties faced by others in our community and around the...
Walk For Water
Salmonberry students celebrated World Water Day with a walk for water through the village of Eastsound. Preceding this walk-a-thon event students secured pledges from friends and family and then set out to walk to raise awareness of water resource issues around the...
Students Study Human Body
In recent weeks, third, fourth and fifth-grade students at Salmonberry School have explored many aspects of the human body with guidance from their teacher Paul Freedman and two Salmonberry School parents who are local physicians. “Dr. Jim Litch presented a terrific...
Salmonberry Students Get Active and Go Public
Salmonberry Elementary School students have launched a community-based civics curriculum that has recently brought them directly into the public spotlight, which has included a well-received presentation at a recent meeting of the San Juan County Council. These 13...
Salmonberry is a “Showcase School”
Recently, IDEA, the Institute for Democratic Education in America named Salmonberry a "Showcase School" and invited us to become a member of this organization as well. This honor has moved me to explore further the meaning of the phrase "democratic education" as well...
A Tree Lives
"Letting our everyday intelligence go mute: to feel the intelligence of what surrounds us. Take a tree, a flower, a blade of grass - and study their stillness. Become their stillness; aware only of the air your imagining begins in. There is something in our learning...