what are we about?

Carolina Friends School   

What are we about as a school?

What can make us worth
the cutting of trees,
the leveling of land,
the block, mortar, metal & wood for our buildings?

What is worth the investment of our lives as staff?
What is worth the investment of our children as students?

That of God within calls us to manifest,
to the true to the heart at the heart,

true to the wholeness
potential in each student, staff, parent,
true to the wholeness
potential in community,
true to the light that must be uncovered
to help us all move forward
into a tomorrow even better than today,

Our school should be proudly conservative
in keeping what is most right,
Our school should be proudly radical
in changing to what can be even more right,
the word “radical” itself meaning getting back to the roots,
No matter what the current fad or pressure
we must only accept it if it meets the test
of what is best for who lives behind the eyes
of each and every learner,
At its best, pedagogy derives from the learner,
what the learner needs,

The gift to be simple,
to be true to the individual,
to the self,
to the soul,
and from the one can come
what might fit the many,

The gift to be simple:
the insight of the open heart,
the rigor of the honest mind,

We should celebrate uniqueness and glory
in each soul,
in each tradition,
and we should celebrate the community,
where, like in a family,
the many can still be a one,
where the disparate, instead of flying apart,
come together in a wholeness,
within which, the wholeness within each of us
can find a way to manifest true.

by Henry H. Walker
April 18, ’12