The opening of school each fall is a much-anticipated new beginning. MCS embarks on its 44th year staying true to its founders’ vision, yet evolved for our time.
The gathering on the sidewalk of eager children, some old friends and others new, precedes the rush to get into school. I walk through the school the night before, taking in the careful preparations teachers have made to engage children. The following morning, things settle and then I walk through the school again. This time it is filled with conversation, with motion and energy, and the school year has begun.
Summer reflections on education, inspired by articles, reviews and books, in part define the lens through which I see a new MCS. I search for inspiration and answers to the question, “What are MCS teachers doing this year that will inspire children to be engaged with the world and prepares them to keep that up for the rest of their lives?” I look for evidence that the new teachers we’ve hired understand that is their responsibility also. I notice new books and equipment, new classroom arrangements, and other signs of what we will be thinking about right from the start.
MCS parents have sent me links to publications they thought would be of common interest. Often they relate to topics about which there has been discussion, difference of opinion or changing appreciation over time.
“Creativity can be taught,” and “successful programs alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking,” declare the authors of “The Creativity Crisis,” Newsweek, July 10, 2010. The article goes on to describe habits that can be cultivated in homes and classrooms.
Forty-four years of MCS experience are confirmed by modern research on creativity and neurology. Genuine global education is rooted in two places: parents who encourage uniqueness, while providing stability through rules and schools that encourage free play, exchanging points of view, imagining alternative worlds, and later on, collaborative research projects demanding creative solutions to problems children care about and feel connected to.
On the very first day of school, I am momentarily relieved that another year is launched in the spirit of those who conceived of MCS in the first place. “Contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they’re engaged, motivated, and open to the world,” the article states. Minds will be nurtured and stretched and a new community will come together. That’s the kind of school MCS is, and that’s the kind of year we’ll have.
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