In WiseBodies class tonight, we'll focus all our brilliant energy on anti-Donald work:
WiseBodies students will study the clitoris, all parts honored and present.
Tomorrow WiseBodies will make sure everyone we know votes to get a clitoris-embodied being into the White House.
KNOW, our large, amazing class of high school students and their parents, is growing into the kind of community every teacher loves to teach: brilliant, warm, energetic, kind-hearted, and funny.
We find we're now able to begin to reflect back on what elements have helped to create this new community. We're certain presence, determination, committment, and honesty are some of the emotional components that have helped us land in this fine space.
Becuase we want to improve our skills with building good relationships outside the classroom, we'll continue to pay attention to how we're doing this here, at WiseBodies.
Since our first class in September, students have used lots of games and strategies to learn names, get to know personal histories, find inner connection, and discover shared interests.
Students have helped prepare and serve lots of bowls of soup, biscuits and breads, fruits, and desserts. They've participated in scrubbing dishes, sweeping floors, and putting away utensils. We've found plenty of joy in repeating our shared, now known, routines.
In our classroom, we've focussed on building trust.
This is worth repeating.
In our classroom, we've focussed on building trust.
In addition, the students have developed a perfect list of topics they would like to cover this year.
We've begun to discuss our first subjects, discovering deep interrelationships. The students are participating fully in our conversation-based learning, sharing insights that are remarkable and profound.
All teens interested in joining WiseBodies KNOW class (high school age students) are invited to the final summer Open House gathering, on Monday August 15th at 6:30pm - 9:00pm, here at WiseBodies in Chatham.
This is an educational evening, as well as a final sign-up for the full-year class, which begins Monday September 19th, and continues through most of the school year, with holidays and the month of February off. KNOW classes will be held each Monday of the month, 6:00 - 8:30pm, and are paid through a sliding scale.
Teens, you are invited to arrive August 15th, on time, at 6:30, for cold drinks and pizza. We'll eat, hold class, sign up for the year, and leave with a fun homework assignment to do before we come back together on the 19th of September.
Please email me at wisebodieshudson@gmail.com if you're interested in joining this large, fun, very friendly class!
Deeply settled into conversation about Everything related to sexuality and human beings, 100% focussed, with not a single chance that anything could take our focus, the light-feathered jingle of the ice cream truck coming up the hill launched every single high school student out of the classroom and into the street, stocking-footed, tennis-shoed, and bare-footed, racing down the hill and up the hill and around the corner to chase the ice cream truck.
We were laughing and grinning, flagging down cars, unstoppable.
Soon our hands were full of blue and red dyes, our mouths full of chocolate and peppermint, our hearts full of merriment.
We never know what our evenings together will bring, but they're always filled with wonder, learning, and joy.
WiseBodies KNOW students are going to take up space in Hudson's Gay Pride Parade.
It's true.
We're going to be a fabulous float.
Come see us.
Come see us all.
KNOW students have plenty going on right now.
We've been joining Hudson's Black Lives Matter demonstrations and teach-ins.
We're growing in size.
We're deep in conversation about all issues related to teenage sexuality.
We're getting ready for OPEN HOUSES in May.
Students are preparing to help teach younger WiseBodies students this-coming Fall Semester.
It's a rich time here at WiseBodies.
KNOW High School Students never seem to have enough time together, so have extended our class by 30 minutes each week. I imagine we'll soon have 24-hour classes.
We began class by cooking breakfast for dinner. Yum!
Listening to our own and each other's hearts, we pondered the place the heart holds in our growing awareness of our sexuality.
And on from there, deep, engaging conversation, with parents joining us for the special way we end class each week.
Brilliant KNOW.
KNOW students and their parents keep raising their own - our own - bar of excellence. Mostly by having the willingness to take on the difficult challenge of showing up, speaking the truth, continuing with the process even when it's really hard, and having fun in the midst of all this stretching.
If you think there are things teenagers and parents can't talk about, you haven't visited a KNOW class.
KNOW students are brilliant, by any measure.
We begin each class sitting around the kitchen table, brewing up cups of tea, catching up on a week's worth of news.
Settling into dinner, we find our way toward our topics for the evening, often beginning with a concept or thought one of the students has been pondering. Often paper and writing implements are necessary for plotting out the structure of the idea.
After supper, we move into the comfort of the classroom, and the help of our large, wall-sized chalkboard.
We've been figuring out ways to get to the heart of our personal values. This past week, KNOW students interviewed one another, then shared the results of their work. It was interesting to recognize the similarities between students, as well as the ways students diverge.
We've continued to discern and develop vocabulary for our studies, and have begun to recognize some of the many reasons vocabulary is so important. As well, we're cracking the door toward understanding some of the limitations of our vocabulary.
When parents arrive, KNOW students pay attention to the energy in our classroom, consciously choosing an appropriate moment to invite parents to join in. We're acknowledging, and naming, changes that occur when parents enter the classroom.
We're creating our personal and collective ground. We'll have to name it.