The Mindful Child (and Adult)

This week we have been at the beach on a small island on the west coast of Florida with our family.  As everyone peels off to head homeward and Ashley and I enjoy one more day, we reflect on how grateful we are to have had this time where land meets sea with our sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren to chase waves and sand pipers, fill buckets with sand, and pick up glistening shells with names like Kitten Paws and Angel Wings. There is perhaps no better place than the ocean to draw us into the present. No matter what our age, most of the time, we let go of our preoccupations, the past and the future, our worries.  We are soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the light on the water, the texture of the sand under our feet and the distant horizon where sea meets sky.  We have so enjoyed this time with our sixteen-month-old granddaughter and our four-year-old grandson.  Watching children this age, no matter where, also brings us into the present moment.

As I reflect on our week, two enormous influences in my life come to mind. The first is the Reggio Emilia approach... in this context in particular, learning side-by-side young children while becoming a participant observer in and documenter of their play and learning.  The second influence is mindfulness as taught by Zen monk and master, Thich Nhat Hanh.  These two approaches guide me in my every day life and interactions.

I have loved reading Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia by Vea Vecchi and have returned to it often.  In her book, Vea tells learning stories about following her grandchildren through their early years.  I remember watching Vea with her camera and keen eye, observe children at the Diana School in Reggio Emilia.  I wrote about some of these experiences in Bringing Reggio Emilia Home and in Bringing Learning to Life.

When our sons were 5 and 8, we attended our first retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh in Santa Barbara, California.  Over the years, we have attended several other retreats in Plum Village in France with Thich Nhat Hanh.  These multi-age, international, playful and thoughtful experiences have influenced the way that my family lives in the world.

My nighttime and beach reading collection this week includes A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles, by Thich Nhat Hanh, Sitting Still Like a Frog: Mindfulness Exercises for Kids (and Their Parents) by Eline Snel, and The Mindful Child by Susan Kaiser Greenland.

I heard about these books from my daughter-in-law Caroline, who teaches kindergarten in the Boston Public Schools. She learned about them because this year, the Brookline School Staff Children’s Center, where our grand children attend, is focusing on mindfulness. I highly recommend these books. They will give you background, get you started or add to your understanding and practice.  As Susan Kaiser Greenland writes, mindfulness increases our ability to:

• approach experience with curiosity and an open mind

• calm down when we are angry or upset

• concentrate

• develop compassion, patience, humility, happiness, generosity and equanimity

• live gently and in balance with ourselves, others and our world

This week, our grandson, Asher, who is four today, taught us how to do “finger breathing.” Trace the fingers of one of your hands with a finger of the other hand.  Breathe in as you trace up the finger and out as you trace down the other side.  Do this one way and then back again, taking ten deep in and out breaths.  Just breathe and smile.

Cosmic Geometry

Cosmic Geometry is the name of a suite of prints made by Sabra Field, a 78 year old artist based in Vermont who works with print media.  I first noticed it when it was being installed on the back wall of Wright Theater at Middlebury College as a mural.  Sabra Field is a graduate of Middlebury College and the installation is the result of a student's collaboration with her to transform a blank wall in the back of a building into something inspiring and provocative. The suite of prints represents repeated patterns in the universe from the cellular level to our galaxy and how these universal patterns in the natural world make their way into the man made world, in architecture, in design, and in our thinking.  The patterns are: spiraling as in the galaxy and a sheep horn, scaling as in fish scales or on an artichoke, branching as in river deltas and leaf veins, and bubbling in soap suds or the hexagonal pattern of a honey comb.

In an interview with the artist published in the Times Argus in 2014, we get a view into her creative thinking and process:

“Our ability to see the cosmos has expanded far beyond what we dreamed half a century ago: from inside our DNA to far beyond our galaxy,” she writes in the show’s introduction. “Instead of overwhelming us, we are enchanted to find in these new images a sense of familiarity.”

Field points to the spirals of a fingerprint or fiddlehead fern, the scales found on an artichoke — her favorite vegetable — or along the many fish her late husband Spencer caught.Her kitchen in East Barnard — population 183 — also came in handy for creating model bubble patterns.

“I took dish detergent and made my own suds, then put it between two pieces of plexiglass.” Why? Because astrophysicists believe the intersection of galaxies exhibit a similar structure. The more Field studies, the more she believes in order over chaos.

“Everything is part of everything, All these phenomena take place at an enormous range of scale, but they do something for me,” the artist says. “The ancient Greeks and the contemporary art world are not that far apart. We’re talking the same language.”

We wanted to have this suite hanging in our house as the idea and the reality of Sabra Field's work is compelling and inspiring.  If you want to see it or her other prints or purchase them go to her website.  We all see patterns everywhere that are living inside of us, part of our cellular structure, and appear in the natural world near and far.  That is indeed, a miracle and a mystery including math, biology, chemistry, art, design, architecture, astro physics and all.  If you come to Middlebury, drive up to campus and find Wright Theater.  Don't miss Cosmic Geometry.

Exploring Identity at Buckingham Browne & Nichols

The work that the early childhood through second grade students, teachers and administrators have done during the 2015-2016 year at Buckingham Browne & Nichols Lower School is beautiful and exemplary. If you live in the Boston area, we highly recommend that you give a call and arrange to stop by and view the gallery that includes identity projects that all of the classes have engaged in, pre school (Beginners) through second grade.  If you can't go by, go here to view a video walk through of the gallery.

As part of the introduction to the gallery, teachers write:

This project demonstrates that identity is the space from which deep learning emerges. It is through this powerful sense of knowing and being known that our best selves emerge.  These are the selves that are not afraid to question, to innovate, to advocate, and to imagine.  These are the selves that take risks, safe in the knowledge that their community will catch them and carry them through the process. These are the selves who are not afraid to ask, "What might be possible?" 

This morning, we stopped by to see the gallery installed.  The work is varied, thoughtful, compelling and engaging.  The gallery includes graphic work, reflective writing, poetry, collage, painting, multiple drafts and finished pieces. We feel at once so proud of all the teachers and students and in awe of what they have accomplished.  Growth, willingness, perseverance and hard work on the part of each and every member of this community has made this work possible and now visible for all of us.  It is thrilling to see and feel the momentum and energy that takes over when teachers see what is possible and a new way of teaching and learning ignites and begins to take the lead.  It seems unstoppable and contagious.

May we all be uplifted when student voice rings true in many different forms, when students are inspired and supported to do their very best work for an authentic audience, and when we all learn from the perspectives and wisdom our youngest citizens.