When the school year started in the fall, I shared my vision of creating a safe, kind, and peaceable human landscape at Riverdale Grade School. Now that we have finished our first trimester and are about to take a holiday break, I have reflected on whether we are, indeed, using this vision to clear the path ways through the forests of distrust, unkindness, and violence at school. There were no violent costumes in the Halloween Parade.
Students have clearer directions about where to get help to solve conflicts.
The staff has demonstrated a great amount of collegiality and ability to solve problems together. They are cohesive and caring. Immediately following the disastrous effect of Hurricane Mitch, the Student Council embarked on a drive to help the people of Honduras. At Newbery Night, you could hear students dealing with the issues of human conflict in their insights of the pieces of literature they had read and were critiquing. Poetry is being written, read, and listened to in many classrooms.