the smiles, the realness

CFS at 50

we celebrate 50 years of Carolina Friends School

and I’ve been here near 90% of that time,

when I first visited C.F.S.

I was surprised that here existed a school

that spoke to my intuitive hope for education:

that teachers could have the power

to shape experience to what students need,

and, really, to what students want, 

for basic to all of us is a drive, a need,

to release the best of ourselves,

to have others realize there is a best readily within us,

I wandered the Lower School

and I was touched by the smiles, the realness,

the sense that all together sought what works

so that learners could learn, and exult in the becoming,

it was so,

and it is so,

at the heart the process must be continually reborn

as teacher and student, parent and administrator, live a shared vision,

while each of us within the community also is unique within the journey.

by Henry H. Walker

February 21, ’15