There is something romantic and melancholy about the Earth Mother closing out the heat of summer and preparing herself for the cold winter’s embrace. We instinctively feel the shift and are compelled to engage with the natural world, seeking to bask in the cascades of warm yellows, reds, and oranges in the trees and almost methodically find our way to apple orchards, pumpkin patches, and forests to take in the beauty and bounty of the season.
Posts filed under Education
The Community High Resource Program: A Student's Perspective
We asked our fellow Community High School students, Claire Lewis and Jacqueline Boynton, to share their perspective about the community resource program at Community High and their experience in photography class.
Kids in the Community: Science for Kids
Imagine a world where your children are captivated by bubbling potions, erupting volcanoes, and soaring rockets. In this magical realm, adventure awaits. From makeshift kitchen laboratories and hands-on classes to information-packed books, parents can ignite the spark or fuel the burning passion for science with various engaging and immersive activities—some at home, some in person. Unlocking the magic of science begins with nurturing your child’s natural curiosity. Observe what they're interested in and use it to pave the way for exciting career paths in the future.
Spirit Seeds, Spring-Summer 2024
In this new column, we’ll embark on a journey of holistic exploration, delving into ancient practices and unraveling the enigmas of existence. Whether you’re a seasoned enthusiast or a curious newcomer, this column offers a platform for deepening your understanding and expanding your consciousness.
Intervulnerability: Practicing Love at the University of Michigan Art Museum
Humidity weighted the autumn air as I walked across the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus. Vermilion ivy coated the walls of the buildings while orange trees stood like flames amid the evergreen shrubs lining the sidewalk. In the distance, I heard chants of a protest on State Street as I sauntered through the prismatic glass entrance of the art museum.
A Handful-- Symbols, Faith, and History: Ancient Art Reveals Spiritual and Cross-Cultural Connections Through Hand Gestures
December gave the world a lot to celebrate: Bodhi Day, Day of Our Lady Guadalupe, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, Kwanza, Zarathost Diso, and New Year’s Eve. Colorful lights and crackling fires against a crisp winter canvas always help me find time to ponder spiritual connections and how humanity has attempted to make sense of and, perhaps ironically, immortalize our understandings. The written word and art have always been equally powerful mediums for capturing abstract yet visceral emotions. Even tentatively opening the door to a museum or a used bookstore makes me catch my breath in anticipation and reverence for the sheer energetic power combined in one space from so many inspired, deeply affected souls.
The Current State of Sexual Health Education in Michigan
It wasn’t until later that I learned that my experience with sexual health education was not uncommon. I assumed, as a kid whose whole world was based around school, that everything in the curriculum was what was required to be successful in life. At the time, I didn’t realize how career-driven it was: Math, Science, English, and History were the four main subjects. Nothing about growing your own food, repairing clothes, doing your taxes, paying a mortgage, how to have fulfilling relationships, how to maintain good mental health practice, and more.
Book Review: Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
In an age characterized by ceaseless distractions and a relentless assault on our attention spans, Johann Hari’s thought-provoking work, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again, emerges as a timely and illuminating exploration of the modern cognitive landscape. In a world where the stimulating call of smartphones, social media, and constant connectivity beckons incessantly, Hari navigates the turbulent seas of our digital age with insight and personal resonance. The narrative provides astute observations, practical wisdom, and the hope that we can reclaim the ability to think deeply and engage meaningfully in our world.
Tantre Farm Honeybee Nut Festival A Fall Celebration of Nature’s Bounty
If you’re looking for a fun, free, educational, and delicious way to celebrate fall, the Third Annual Tantre Farm Honeybee Nut Festival in Ann Arbor is the place to be on Sunday Ocotber 8th.
Herbs for Your Garden: Yarrow
Yarrow is an indispensable herb that you’ll always find growing in my herb garden. Its versatility is formidable, making it an excellent tool in your herbal medicine kit. If you asked an herbalist what single plant they would bring with them to a deserted island, their answer will most likely be “Yarrow!”
Book Review: Trauma-Informed Music Therapy: Theory and Practice
The timely book Trauma-Informed Music Therapy: Theory and Practice is a collaboration of the expertise of music therapists, educators with experience in psychological health and trauma-informed education, clinicians, and psychotherapists. Based on the intersection of music therapy and trauma healing, the resulting body of work is an expansive text readers can utilize repeatedly.
Elements Preschool
I discovered Elements Preschool a few months ago during my extended early childhood education studies. To my delight, it is not only a place of discovery for children, but also for adults. Soon after being introduced to Elements Preschool, I started working with Kirsten Voiles, the founder and director, with whom I share a passion for education and the arts.
Gateway Farm: Growing with Permaculture
The mid-January day I visited Gateway Farm in Plymouth was breezy, and the temperature was in the low thirties with faint flurries falling. At the farm’s small, dirt parking lot off Joy Road, I met Bridget O’Brien who, along with her husband Dr. Charlie Brennan, is the farm’s co-director. After we greeted each other, I said, “Not the best time of the year for me to see the farm, I guess.” “It’ll be okay,” she replied cheerfully. “We’ll be able to see everything because there’s no snow on the ground. Plus,” she added, “The sorrel is still green.”
Herbs for Your Garden: Calendula
Calendula is grown as a self-seeding annual in USDA grow zones two through eight. In areas with warm winters (above 25⁰F), it blooms year-round. Calendula thrives in full sun with well-drained soil. I recommend sowing Calendula seed directly into the garden early to mid-spring. It’s ideal to plant the seeds as soon as the soil is workable since germination benefits from cool weather, but don’t stress too much about timing. I’ve had success planting seeds year-round. Calendula is a self-seeding annual, which means seeds dropped by the plants in the fall will lay dormant on the ground all winter and then sprout the next spring. However, it’s not an aggressively spreading plant, so don’t worry about it taking over your garden.
Black Men Read: Expanding Possibilities Through Storytelling
“This has to change, on my watch,” Yodit Mesfin Johhson realized. The need for change became urgent when her own son was in second grade. Her life’s work in racial justice organizing took a big pivot toward the education sector with one call. It was Black History month and there were no Black men on the Mitchell Elementary School’s faculty. Her son’s teacher called to ask if she knew any Black men that would read to his classes. Of course, Mesfin Johnson arranged a roster of volunteers that rotated through the school's reading hours all throughout February. The realization that her son had no Black male role models at school collided with her own awakening to spur a deep dive of research into the educational system. “It turns out that less than 2% of U.S. teachers are Black men.”
Student Mosaics at the Steiner School — A Culmination of an Inspired Education
It is a custom at many high schools for each graduating class to give a gift to the school. Seniors typically raise money to buy a bench, a tree, or perhaps to create a scholarship fund. The class gift tradition at the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor High School is different—it is built right into the curriculum. Almost every year since the school graduated its first class in 2000, the seniors, under the direction of the school’s art teachers, Elena Efimova, Riccardo Capraro, and Nataliya Pryzant, create a large mosaic that is then permanently mounted at the school’s Pontiac Trail campus building. The resulting mosaics are remarkable in a number of ways and fulfill several functions. First, there’s their size. Last year’s piece, for example, is eight feet by eight feet, which in square footage doesn’t even qualify it into the top three of the fourteen mosaics that students have created over the years.
Unschooling — Child-Led-Learning
Unschooling is a term coined in the 1970s by John Holt whose books Learning All the Time and Teach Your Own (among others), have empowered parents for decades to homeschool their children in a liberating way. Rethinking the definition of education, schooling “outside the box,” is as unique as every parent and child. It is apparent to those who observe young children that learning does indeed happen in every moment, thus children are naturally their own best teachers. Unschoolers see the community as their school.
Unsiiciyapi, Wawoohola, Cantognake: Humility, Respect, Love-- Healing through Service
What do you get when you merge a life called to support adolescents, spiritual awakening that all are one, and an ongoing relationship with the Lakota people? Omega Commons and a staff that lives to serve in higher truth and humility.
The Creations and Howls of Darryl "Barking Dog" Brown
There is a frenetic energy. There is also a stillness. There is a shape propelling into infinity. There is a cluster of dots, bound so tightly together it makes a heart ache. Here, in this painting, the creative freedom of dreams is restricted only by canvas size. Darryl “Barking Dog” Brown paints to create works that “connect us to the spirit world, through which we may learn to live a more sustainable life on planet Earth.”
Raptors to the Rescue! Wildlife Ambassadors Teach Lessons in Conservation
Like many people I know, if you told me in the summer of 2020 that the pandemic would probably drag on for two years or more, I would not have believed you. In fact, I would have thought you were a negative, defeatist person, and I would have avoided you like—well, the plague.
