Waldron School: A Typical Day at a Non-Typical School
Arriving at the school in the morning and stepping through the door into the quiet of the warm building is the beginning of a busy day at the school — the calm before the storm. Students trickle in, arriving by bike or car or walking, and deposit their bags and shoes by the cubbies at the entryways. School begins with a time for journaling and reading, settling the mind to get ready for diving into the day’s work.
Waldron is technically a one room school, but we nearly always divide into at least two groups for the morning’s classes — the younger kids and the older kids. Younger students have circle time and a series of active learning activities designed to fit each of their needs. Older students first tackle math, taught individually at each student’s level, then spend a half-hour practicing Spanish.
Everyone joins together for morning snack and recess, and depending on the day might play a round of Porcher (a tag game that originated in the dim Waldron past), swing on the big tire swing, or settle in by the fire to read or work on a project.
After recess we usually continue in two separate groups for Language Arts work including reading, writing, and, depending on the level of the group, language mechanics or word study. We alternate years between a more creative writing focus versus a more non-fiction writing focus. Language Arts is often tied into the content focus we’re working on in Social Studies or Science. Our goal is to integrate the entire curriculum, and exploit all the possible connections between and among subjects. Teachers work closely together to make this happen, whether we are in one big group or split into smaller groups.
Lunch recess is long enough for everyone to eat and have time to run around and play, while teachers get a chance to reset for the afternoon. After lunch we sing, then work on more content-driven (as opposed to subject-driven) material. Afternoons are more hands-on and project-oriented, letting students connect with topics in multiple ways, or developing practical skills. Projects this year have included building bedside bookracks, making replica Clovis points from clay, carving linoleum blocks for holiday cards, making 1:10 scale models of local marine mammals, and creating our own version of Monopoly: Waldronopoly. This last was something students came up with themselves, and we ran with the idea, which is the very best kind of project. In the past we’ve created fictional countries, done stop-motion videos, and Lego robotics.
Photos by Kevin Celustka
The Yearly Rhythm at Waldron School and Surrounds
As the year progresses we enjoy a series of traditional events. September (or early October) has Apple Day, an annual celebration including traditional contests and games, attended by the wider community and often by our sister small schools in the San Juans. October brings Halloween, for which students often carve jack-o-lanterns together at school, from pumpkins acquired from a local farm. November starts the holiday season in earnest, with the community Thanksgiving Dinner held at the school (this is not a “school event,” but a community-organized one). We spend the last three weeks before Winter Break rehearsing and performing the first of our two annual plays. The plays are serious projects, amounting to a three-week-long theater camp for each play. The performance is attended by a large portion of the island residents, and draws fans from afar as well (especially in June, when travel is easier). There are other community holiday events as well, including the visit from the Lions Club Christmas ship and the Winter Crafts Fair.
In February, we have Pizza and Poetry, for which students make pizza for the community. Students share poetry they have produced in class, and community members are expected to show up with poetry to share as well. The community hosts an annual Egg Hunt for everyone at Easter, with a traditional softball game afterwards. The community celebrates May Day with a Maypole and potluck. May often sees a school-led and community-attended Plant Sale, and suddenly, it’s the last three weeks of school again, and time to produce the spring play. The spring play is also the time we hold graduation ceremonies for the eighth graders, if we have any. In between these recurring events we have visiting artists who often give community presentations in addition to working with the students, and things like Restaurant Night, where we might host the community for a meal that is linked to what we have been studying, like a medieval feast, or tamale night, or an international buffet.
The activities of our school day are driven by the interests of the students and teachers in any given year, against the backdrop of annual events and our curriculum cycle. Some years we have a lot of interest in art, or in music, or sports, or science, or technology, and our flexible curriculum allows us to take whatever direction fuels the passions of the school while maintaining a strong academic focus on core content and skill-based instruction. We aim to engage students with the material and with the community, to take them to the next level, both academically and socially, and to let them explore where their imagination takes them, with the support and resources we can provide.
For summer vacation of course the students vacate, but the school building continues to be a focal point of the community even then, for events such as the monthly Waldron Community Meetings, classes (yoga, music), the Annual Pancake Breakfast and Rummage Sale in August, and whatever else the community may have cooked up during any given summer. As summer visitors filter through, inevitably many of them drift through the school yard, remembering when they attended school there, noting the little changes, shooting a few hoops or sitting with a friend on the swings and chatting. The school is a central focus in a community whose diaspora often recirculates. Waldron School students do not readily forget their elementary years, and tend to keep returning to say hello to the place.