When I draw, I often find myself drawing faces.聽 Most children I have taught know this about me. We sit together exploring art materials in the morning or as children slowly wake up from nap in the afternoon, and sometimes a face will grow on the page in front of me.聽 We ask each other questions about the marks we make, the images that we create.聽 Is there a story in what you are making? is often part of what we are asking.聽 We create meaning together as we draw and inquire of each other鈥攚ondering together about what we are making and why.聽 One particular day, a number of years ago, was like that.聽 Neila, Yasmin鈥攂oth four years old鈥攁nd I were drawing (children鈥檚 names have been changed for privacy).

Neila: 鈥淭eacher Maia likes to draw faces鈥�

Yasmin: 鈥淲hat are you drawing?鈥�

Maia: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know.鈥�

Neila: 鈥淪he doesn鈥檛 know yet, she doesn鈥檛 know when she starts.鈥�

It did, indeed turn into a face, all patchworks of wild colors that both children began to help me with.聽 We kept working on it, passing it back and forth amongst us.聽 Then Neila asked, 鈥淚s it a boy or a girl?鈥澛� This had become a common question.聽 A classroom of four- and five-year-olds are interested in making distinctions, noticing patterns, playing roles.聽 The answer I gave I had given before, but for whatever reason we were all ready to dig deeper into the question together.

Maia: 鈥淥h.聽 This is not a girl or a boy.鈥�

Neila: 鈥淪o what is he?鈥�

Maia: 鈥淚f this person is not a girl or a boy, why say he?鈥�

Neila: 鈥淲hat is she? 鈥h鈥︹��

We all stopped to notice for a moment that we had stepped out of a binary and were looking around and getting our bearings. After a pause, I offered, 鈥淗ere is something I know that might be helpful.聽 If someone is not a girl or a boy you can say they.鈥�

Neila: 鈥淭hey are not a boy or a girl, they are just a person?鈥�

Maia: 鈥淵eah!聽 Would it help if they had a name and we knew some things about them?鈥�

Neila: 鈥渊别蝉!鈥�

Maia: 鈥淲hat is their name?鈥�

Neila: 鈥淗is name is Caller.鈥�

Maia: 鈥淗颈蝉?鈥�

Neila: 鈥淭HEIR name is Caller.聽 Woah, this is hard.鈥�

Maia: 鈥淵eah.聽 It is hard to learn and remember but I think we can do it.鈥�

Yasmin: 鈥淐aller is not a boy or a girl.聽 Caller is Caller.鈥�

As we imagined, this is what we discovered about Caller: 鈥淐aller lives in a house, but it is sturdy.聽 They play duck, duck, goose and they play puzzles and board games and they draw.聽 They paint and they have a few money and they can read books.聽 They can play soccer, football, and basketball鈥揳ll the ball games in the world!鈥�

We introduced Caller to the rest of the class briefly at Circle the next day and they lived on our whiteboard in the classroom all year long becoming one of many non-binary characters in the recurring stories we told together.聽 Soon after Caller joined our classroom imagination, Ariel, my co-teacher for many years after, joined our classroom community.聽 Ariel uses they/them pronouns and began telling Princet Ayo and Princess Fish Stick stories, introducing Princet as a non-binary royal title.聽 We loved those stories!聽 The fluidity and expansiveness of gender became familiar in our play and storytelling.聽 We had language for it and many different relationships to it as we moved through our days together.聽 Students often corrected their parents gently throughout the year, 鈥淎riel is not a boy or a girl, they are non-binary.鈥�

Caller was something that happened in between 鈥渨hat we were doing鈥� that day.聽 That is what made it possible, I think.聽 What happened was the co-creation of a developmentally appropriate entry point for an exploration of gender in our classroom.聽 It was rooted in our relationship to one another, and to the small everyday rituals of our time together: of drawing together and the closeness and openness we felt in those interstitial moments.聽 Often, those are the moments that make up our best learning and create the fabric of how we allow each other to think about and understand the world.聽

It is noticing the decisions we make in the small quotidian moments that allows us to normalize queerness and the myriad of gender identities that children can experience.聽 Some of us call this attention modeling, or broadcasting, or emergent teaching and learning, or cultivating school culture.聽 It is all of these things, I think.聽 It鈥檚 how we tell stories and who are in our stories, how we play with children and offer extensions to their explorations.聽 We tell stories every day in our classrooms鈥攖he ones we notice and the ones we don鈥檛. How we move through the day, our tone, our energy and focus, where we devote our attentions all tell stories to children about what is possible, what is real, what is important, what is beautiful or harmful, what is valued.聽

The post You Can Say They appeared first on 果冻传媒.

At Studio鈥攖he 果冻传媒 Infant Toddler Education Program鈥攐ur families speak eight languages including English. Some of our faculty share two of those languages with families, others only one. With such a multilingual community, I wanted to know more about how to support all of the languages in children鈥檚 lives and how to create early learning spaces that could expand our preliteracy environments beyond an English-dominant monolingual norm. The more educators, parents, and scholars I talked to, the more excited I became about ways that our school communities could be teaching and learning in deeply multilingual ways.聽 I also realized how high the stakes were.

At a recent staff meeting, Studio faculty mapped our own language histories and discovered that, collectively, our families had spoken over a dozen languages. We also realized that, collectively, we had lost nine of those languages. We wondered together about the shape of that loss and what our responsibilities as educators were, not only to celebrate, but fight to sustain children鈥檚 rich linguistic identities.聽

Scholar, Denise Sullivan articulates the vision this way:

As we move beyond ‘English Only’ practices and policies, we have a responsibility not just to tolerate the use of [home languages], but to create classroom environments where our students’ native languages may flourish; where multilingual and multicultural identities are valued; where the native language is seen as a resource rather than a liability; where English is learned in an additive, rather than a subtractive context and where all children are enabled to meet their personal and academic potentials. Using multilingual strategies to promote home language development is a choice we as educators can make, regardless of our educational context.

What role can we play in supporting children and families to access all of themselves when at school鈥攁ll of their linguistic resources and heritages? When we do that, the research shows, everyone in our classrooms and communities benefit. I wanted to share some of my research, conversations, and visioning in a format that allows for multiple voices and languages.聽 Here is a version of the podcast that emerged.聽 Enjoy!

Thank you to all of the Studio families who participated in this project, lending their voices, translations and translanguaging skills.聽 Thank you also to Lubna Alzaroo, Dr. Marissa Rollnick, Dr. Sandra Silberstein, as well as Professors Emily Machado and Soojin Oh Park, who spoke with me and shared resources.聽 Gratitude for the music throughout goes to (in order of appearance):聽 Daira Elsa Quinones, Brivele, Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm, Stefanie Brendler, Brian Lindsay, Ariel Gross.

Works Cited:

Ball, Jessica. 2011. 2011. 鈥淓nhancing Learning of Children from Diverse Language Backgrounds:聽 Mother Tongue-based Bilingual or Multilingual Education in the Early Years.鈥� United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1-87.听听

De Sousa, E. Brook Chapman. 鈥淔ive Tips for Engaging Multilingual Children in Conversation.鈥� Young Children 74 (2019): 1-18.

Ghiso, Maria Paula.聽 2013. 鈥淓very Language is Special:聽 Promoting Dual Language Learning in Multicultural Primary Schools.鈥� Young Children 68 (1): 22-26.

Lee, Alice Y., & Lara J. Handsfield. 2018. 鈥淐ode Meshing and Writing Instruction in Multilingual Classrooms鈥� The Reading Teacher 72 (2): 1-10.

Pacheco, Mark B. & Mary E. Miller.聽 2015. 鈥淢aking Meaning Through Translanguaging in the Literacy Classroom.鈥� 聽The Reading Teacher 69 (5): 533-537.

Park, Maki & Jie Zong & Jeanne Batalova. 2018. 鈥淕rowing Superdiversity Among Young U.S. Dual Language Learners and Its Implications.鈥� Migration Policy Institute, 1-47.

Shafer, Leah. 2018. 鈥淢ultilingual Preschoolers:聽 Young children are increasingly linguistically diverse. How can early childhood educators provide a safe, nurturing environment?鈥� Usable Knowledge: Relevant Research for Today鈥檚 Educators..

Sullivan, Denise.聽 2011. 鈥淯sing Multilingual Strategies in Monolingual Early Childhood Classrooms.鈥� Welcoming Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms: Learning from International Schools. Ed. Edna Murphy, 16-27.

Zapata, Angie & Tasha Tropp Laman. 2016. 鈥溾�業 write to show how beautiful my languages are鈥�: Translingual Writing Instruction in English-Dominant Classrooms.鈥� Language Arts 93 (5): 366-378.聽

The post Learning in All Our Languages:聽 Multilingualism in Early Childhood Education appeared first on 果冻传媒.

Written in response to the ASCD article by Dena Simmons,

Working for an independent school usually means working with a higher proportion of white students. It also means that those of us who are white teachers have more need to dismantle racism and white supremacy in our classrooms. Sometimes it can be hard to see this obligation when we do not have high numbers of students of color to whom we directly associate effects of race-based discrimination.聽

Racism and white supremacy affect everyone in our society, from our relationships with communities of color to the ways in which we relate to power dynamics in our classrooms. Engaging in anti-racist teaching practices, especially in primarily white spaces, allows us to dismantle aspects of white supremacy without relying on students and teachers of color to provide the education for us or re-hash oppression and microaggressions they face in their daily lives.聽

Dena Simmons provides a clear framework for anti-racist practices in the classroom:聽

1. Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness
2. Acknowledge Racism and the Ideology of White Supremacy聽
3. Study and Teach Representative History聽
4. Talk about Race with Students聽
5. When You See Racism, Do Something聽

These tactics and ideals are deeply important for classrooms and teachers of all demographics and I want to share some of the applications of these frameworks I have used.聽

1. Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness: Self-awareness means I am not always the teacher. There is a growing understanding that the teacher-learner dynamic is more flexible than it used to be viewed. In my classroom, I try to engage in this flexibility each day. I do not create arbitrary rules based on my own discomfort. If a child is choosing to go head first down the stairs I do not stop them, but ask, instead, how I can support them through that experimentation while also keeping them safe. Usually the answer is not to say 鈥淒on鈥檛 go down the stairs head first鈥� it is responding by letting them know they might get a head bonk or supporting their falls so they don鈥檛 get hurt, but experience the tumbling feeling. Giving students as much agency and power as possible in the classroom and taking a step back to become and observer and/or supporter decenters the white supremacist view that all adults are power-holders and all power-holders have the final say.
   
2. Acknowledge Racism and the Ideology of White Supremacy & Talk about Race with Students: Recognition of racial differences begins around 3 years old when students are developmentally working on recognizing differences in the people in their communities. That means we should begin talking about racism and white supremacy when students around three years old when these first observations are coming up. However, if students are not surrounded by racial diversity in their educational spaces, it becomes our job as educators to introduce these topics at the appropriate developmental stage. To tap into their natural inclination to recognize difference so we can explore diversity and support students in becoming advocates for equity. This could mean using diversity supplements such as dolls, books, videos, or making intentional time to occupy diverse spaces with students. It could mean bringing in community members who look different than the children in your classroom. It could mean any number of things taking into account resources and children鈥檚 interests. Creating these spaces to notice and talk about race and racism will create meaningful conversations and set the stage for children to engage in anti-racist actions later on.
   Talking about racism as a white educator also means taking responsibility for your actions and the actions of other white people. We cannot portray ourselves to our students as 鈥済ood white people鈥� because that is a trope that does not exist. We must own our biases and talk about them openly, allowing space for our students to feel comfortable owning the fact that they benefit from white privilege and it will mean a life-long unlearning process. When we own and acknowledge the harm our communities have caused communities of color and implement intentional space to reflect upon it, ask questions about it, and brainstorm ways to begin to heal harm, our students enter the world with a lens prepared to support and uplift others.
   
3. Study and Teach Representative History: Teachers at all levels, in all subjects, and with all students are history teachers. Whether you have a classroom full of toddlers or high school seniors, you will inevitably be teaching history. Therefore, that history has to be representative. No matter the racial makeup of your classroom, and especially if you have mostly white students. As white folks, we always see ourselves represented, so we must show our students as many representations of being human as we can. Maybe one day we can get to a point where people of color are the central represented people in our history teachings!
   In my classrooms, representative history has looked like playing traditional music from a variety of cultures. It has looked like sharing important people from varying backgrounds. It has looked like engaging in discussions with families about their histories and how they relate or differ from others in the class. Representative history opens our doors to so much more creativity, curriculum ideas, and engaging material for students in addition to creating a foundation for more open views of the world.
4. When You See Racism, Do Something: Racist things will happen in your classroom. That is a fact of many children sharing space with one another. Whether it鈥檚 targeted interactions to students of color or white children making hurtful remarks, it will show up. Therefore, we must address it and support our students in changing their behavior and viewpoints. We must go beyond 鈥渨e don鈥檛 say things like that鈥� and move towards the understanding of why these actions are hurtful, why they are unacceptable, and how we can help heal relationships that may have been damaged through these actions.
   Whether talking to a three-year-old or a high schooler, if we create space to discuss with the student why their actions were hurtful, they gain knowledge of how to more fully support their peers and increase their comfort sitting with challenging topics, both ways we can be more anti-racist.聽

Being an anti-racist educator is work. It鈥檚 hard work. It鈥檚 often uncomfortable. But it鈥檚 necessary. We have the privilege to be working with young folks who have the power to change much about their individual and collective lives and promote anti-racist work, values, and actions. As white people, with white students, we have the power to raise-up voices of people of color, do our own unlearning, and create a more equitable educational and social space for people of color in our communities and our society as a whole.

The post Being an White Anti-Racist Teacher in a Primarily White Classroom appeared first on 果冻传媒.

At a typical elementary school, faculty teach students and admin work behind the scenes to keep the school systems running smoothly. At 果冻传媒, it is sometimes difficult to discern exactly which job title each adult holds. Here, all adults are closely involved in the responsibility of growing students. Each member of the school community benefits when everyone is actively engaged in daily student life.

The administrative staff at 果冻传媒 have valuable interactions with students throughout the day. For example, as students arrive at school, members of the Admissions Office and Development Office are on the curb greeting their arrival. During lunch, someone from the Business Office will help a preschooler open their cheese stick.聽 At the same time, a staff member from the Communications Department will be on the playground, helping kids problem solve through recess mishaps. After school, as students cross the street headed to Cross Country practice, they wave and greet the Facilities staff who stop traffic to keep the journey safe. And, of course, let鈥檚 not forget how the front desk staff help our Early Elementary students make bookmarks to celebrate their reading growth, or support Elementary students who get bumps and bruises on the playground.聽

Not only do our Admin staff interact and support students during the daily routines of 果冻传媒, they are also key members of the school鈥檚 working committee structure. On these committees, both Faculty and Admin work together in mixed groups to ensure community events unfold without a hitch, the admission application process goes smoothly for prospective families, and the lost and found is organized and advertised to families. A key component of these committees is the work all adults do with our 5th-grade students. Both faculty and admin support our 5th graders as they discover how 果冻传媒 functions behind the scenes, and embark on a year-long Service Learning project.

Although the 果冻传媒 approach certainly aligns with the philosophy that 鈥渕any hands make light work,鈥� the reasoning behind including our Admin into these tasks runs much deeper. When all adults are invited to engage with students, their understanding and appreciation of the school mission grows. Everyone witnesses our educational philosophy in action and prioritizes it above all else. Admin see the outcome of their 鈥渂ehind the scenes鈥� work and how it benefits our students. For example, when staff from our IT Department work one-on-one with 5th-grade students to use school technology to document their Service Learning experiences, they see first-hand how their long hours of budgeting, selecting devices, and setting them up has supported students in their educational journeys. It鈥檚 not that Admin wouldn鈥檛 be invested in the school without this model. It鈥檚 simply that this model keeps everyone inspired.

The post The 鈥淣ot-So-Behind-the-Scenes鈥� Life Of 果冻传媒 Administrators appeared first on 果冻传媒.

Twice a week my team of 1-2 teachers gathers for official meetings. Twice a week we formally discuss how previous curriculum is going, where we want to go next and what academic strands we are weaving into meaningful learning. I should tell you, though; we don鈥檛 call ourselves the 1-2s often鈥� we loving refer to ourselves as the FUN-2s. 鈥淗ey Fun-2s, where are we meeting today?鈥� we ask as we carry binders and laptops through the hallway. It sets the tone. We want to infuse fun into each learning opportunity and we want to have fun doing it.

As the team gathers we are all abuzz with highlights from our classrooms: stretches that encouraged kids to think big, mistakes that were celebrated as we learned from them, cool collaborations between unexpected partners, and where we are headed next. With tons of ideas we tether ourselves to theme and begin collaborative brainstorming. At times, in efforts to design the most FUN, we can find ourselves in circular conversations, dissecting each option, advocating for and against each idea and slowly determining our path. We have been known to pull out markers and scribe ideas on the tabletops or leave charts on whiteboards. When kids see these relics of past meetings they often wonder aloud, 鈥淲hat is that?鈥� 聽It is just part of the chaos of collaboration: sometimes confusing, sometimes organized, and all the time engaging. But by the end, when we have settled on a topic, a spark ignites and the magic starts to spread from classroom to classroom. Between doorways and down the hall, we poke our heads in to see just how our fellow classrooms are leaning into the work we imagined and honed together. Many meetings and conversations later, it really is quite fun to watch the year uniquely unfold as our kiddos take risk, build relationships, and lean into the magic of learning in the FUN-2s.

The post Making Magic: A Tale of Team Teaching appeared first on 果冻传媒.

Our entire staff was lucky to take part in a workshop led by Pat Hughes from The Center for Ethical Leadership in recent years, and the messages have really stuck with me. 聽Pat was asked to speak to everyone because every teacher at 果冻传媒 is expected to collaborate fully on a daily basis, regardless of whether those relationships form one of a mentor-mentee, peer coach-new faculty, or various teammates across levels and departments. 聽One of her major talking points was Gracious Spaces, which she defines as 鈥渁 spirit and setting where we invite the 鈥榮tranger鈥� and learn in public.鈥�

The first part of this definition is about you and what you bring to the table every time you walk into a room. 聽It鈥檚 making a conscious decision about who you want to be and acting on it. It reminds me of Bren茅 Brown鈥檚 book Daring Greatly where she explains whole-hearted living. 聽It鈥檚 about being brave and showing up with the intention to lift others and be yourself and diving into your work head first. 聽I kept thinking how easy it is for me to show up with this spirit in August after weeks of vacation, and how important it would be for me to keep showing up鈥� even in the rainy, dreary, reporting days of January!

The second part of her definition brings the space, reminding us how important our environment is in shaping our work. 聽My colleagues and I set up our rooms each fall, and we are masters at creating inviting spaces. There are new books on new shelves, thoughtful arrangement of furniture to promote collaboration, quality supplies, and inspiration in every corner. 聽Pat reminded us how critical it is that we create those same welcoming environments for ourselves as a staff, and it got me thinking about where we meet in our various configurations. As our teams grow and change each year, will require more space and have to work at keep it informal and inspiring.

It struck me as strange at first to hear Pat talking about inviting strangers in, but I appreciated her view as she went on. 聽It means that it鈥檚 critical to bring people in who can help you ask questions and see things in a new way. Every year when we hire new residents, we鈥檙e opening the door to new ways of thinking. 聽It is so critical that we keep those doors open and really consider these new perspectives if we鈥檙e going to continue to push our own limits as a school.

Finally, think of learning in public as a celebration鈥� for failure. 聽Again, I go back to Daring Greatly. 聽We must try new things, we must stink at them, we must reflect, and we must give ourselves the freedom to grow. 聽What Pat brought us was an opportunity to live this together. I couldn鈥檛 dream of a finding a better sense of belonging than a community that not only allows for mistakes and growth, but gives you a pat on the back for trying.

The post Creating and Nurturing Inviting Spaces appeared first on 果冻传媒.

• 4:30-6:00pm Educator session open to the public
• 6:30-8:00pm 果冻传媒 community session

How much do children really understand about race? How can you support a child鈥檚 developing cultural identity?

Recent research has shown that children have very complex understandings of differences and stereotypes. Far from being color-blind, most children are aware of how their own skin color is an advantage or disadvantage. They also judge their peers based on stereotypes that adults might like to believe they are unaware of. Because of this, it is important to give youth anti-bias messages, through actions and words, to actively counter what they are witnessing in the world. They also need to learn how to advocate for themselves and others.

Richard Kim from Cultures Connecting聽will lead us as we explore how young people in early childhood through their teen years are socialized to practice racism and privilege. You will learn strategies to teach youth how to stand up and confront bias they encounter. Richard will draw from diverse experiences to engage parents, teachers, and concerned community members in this vital work for equity.

Participants will鈥�

• Learn how young people see and understand race.
• Discover ways to support healthy ethnic identity development in young people.
• Practice strategies for talking with young people about countering bias.

Richard D. Kim, M.Div.

Richard D. Kim brings over seven years of professional experience engaging a person-centered approach to engaging race, culture and identity in various non-profit and education settings. Most recently, Richard worked as the Intercultural Credibility Coordinator/Consultant at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, where he also received his M.Div. Richard also holds a B.S. from the University of Minnesota. As a person born in the United States to parents who emigrated from South Korea, Richard brings an uncommon voice to the work of racial equity.

The post Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Workshop – Talking to Kids About Race appeared first on 果冻传媒.

鈥� 鈥� 鈥� 鈥�

One of the things I love most about my job is the collegiality and collaboration between 果冻传媒 and other independent schools in the area. 果冻传媒 is a part of Puget Sound Independent Schools (PSIS; ), an admission consortium made up of 40 plus independent schools in the area.

In PSIS, there are 5 committees/work groups:

The PSIS Steering Committee is our governing body. The Steering Committee acts as a Board and prioritizes the work of the organization. Steering Committee members are also co-chairs of the workgroups and/or have leadership positions.

The Forms Workgroup takes charge of the common forms under the PSIS brand, sets a cycle for revision and refreshing the forms, and seeks out commonality in the PSIS schools鈥� processes that could be captured in future common forms.

The Marketing Workgroup strategizes about the best ways to reach target audiences to build the PSIS brand and promote our fairs. Members of the Marketing group divide the workload to book advertising.

The Events Workgroup manages our PSIS branded fairs, from booking venues and securing rentals to organizing the layout and providing food for school personnel in attendance.

The Mentorship Workgroup matches new admission professionals with experienced members of PSIS to encourage collaboration and a supportive entry into our work and our market.

PSIS has been integral in streamlining the application process for families and in the efforts in increasing student access to independent school education in this area. PSIS has also helped those who work in admission develop relationships with one another, and is a source we can all depend on to keep up with the changing student enrollment landscape.

The post PSIS appeared first on 果冻传媒.

鈥� 鈥� 鈥� 鈥�

What does the word community mean to you? Do you think of your neighborhood? Your geographical location? Your close friends from college? Your country of residence? The concept of community can be narrow, or extremely broad.

How do you engage with your community or give back? How do you participate in the myriad options available to you to get involved, whatever the occasion? It can be daunting when you鈥檙e considering how, or when, to get involved or volunteer, or step into a new community. There are often more questions than answers the first year you enter a new community and volunteer. What is the culture like? Will I fit in? Will I like the people? Will I enjoy the geographical place and spaces?

The phrase taking the first step is appropriate here. Literally, this phrase implies making contact between your foot and the earth beneath you. It鈥檚 a good place to start when considering your involvement. Where do you naturally spend the most time鈥攜our home, your child鈥檚 school, your place of business? And, what are your passions?

From here, you can narrow your focus (especially if you鈥檙e pressed for time) to volunteer opportunities that align best with your interests. I encourage my closest friends and family members to volunteer with causes they care about. When you give back, you often learn something about yourself and it helps broaden your thinking and skill sets while making you feel good.

I remember when I first volunteered with 501 Commons, a local organization that pairs volunteer 鈥榗onsultants鈥� with non-profits looking for a particular skill set to help elevate a program. I was nervous. I didn鈥檛 know what to expect, I didn鈥檛 know who I would be working with and if the volunteer project would be a good fit.

My first volunteer 鈥榡ob鈥� was working on a communications plan for the Marysville Food Bank鈥擨 drove 1.5 hours round trip every other week in the summer and sat in the Food Bank with the Executive Director, (i.e. the Operations/Development/Facilities Director extraordinaire), and a few members of the Board. Together, we talked about the opportunity to create a stronger communications and outreach plan while acknowledging the limited staff hours available to the project. In the end, we created a communications plan that elevated their community outreach while being mindful of staff time constraints and the mission of the organization鈥攁nd a big part of the plan we created was elevating an relying on volunteers to help get the work done! The project taught me that even though it wasn鈥檛 my direct community, I was extremely invested in their goals and made a difference in their community as a volunteer.

I鈥檝e dedicated my career to non-profits, simply because I believe in the social capital they create in our communities. I also understand it鈥檚 not always reasonable, possible, or feasible to volunteer. When I start to think this way, I remember how grateful I am to work in a school where so many of our parents, alumni, and teachers go above and beyond to shape our school community. Our school is nothing if not for the people who have passed through our walls and given us their time and attention. It鈥檚 how we (or anyone!) grows. From the ground up!

The post From the Ground Up appeared first on 果冻传媒.