Happy Thanksgiving from Villa di Maria
We hope you and yours are healthy, well-rested, and getting ready to stuff yourselves silly! Below, a touching reflection by Upper Elementary Guide Rebecca Callander about the special Thanksgiving celebration in the Elementary building last Friday, in addition to Thanksgiving-related poetry accompanied by beautiful photos by Lower Elementary Assistant Melinda Smith. Thank you for your contributions, Rebecca and Melinda!
Recently our whole elementary celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with emphasis on the aspect of "a day of giving thanks”. Our meal was lovingly prepared by Mr. Justin and five of our hot lunch students, with many dishes contributed potluck style and with a lovely table design artfully arranged by Ms. Colleen and upper elementary children. We solemnly gathered in the common area, with 80something children sitting together like one. Children listened intently as 10 upper el children read poems of gratitude and then we dismissed each child for lunch by asking them share what they were grateful for.
As adults, we opened the floor by offering, authentically, what we, ourselves, were grateful for, which set the tone for children to mindfully share what they were grateful for in the moment. The answers were so touching and offered a rare glimpse into just how deeply every single child feels in one singular moment. As you can imagine, the shares were multifaceted and were aligned with where the children fell in their tenure of their elementary journey. They ranged from direct and familial: my sister, my brothers, my pet, my elders, my family.
To elementary community related: to my classroom, the new building, getting many new lessons, my friends. And to more abstract: to Montessori education, to the United Nations, to those men and women in armed service who bravely risk their lives for us (yes this was said), to animal shelters, scientists who work to help solve global warming. And, finally to the philosophical, to the most finite and infinite: to plants who provide for us, to music, to the Big Bang, to atoms, to all people of all kinds. What was spectacular was how the group listened to the shares, to how everyone’s share was honored, and to how the group kept inching, in closer and closer, in a trancelike movement, as the number of children diminished. It was there that I saw the reverent twinkle in the eyes. The contentment and the experiencing of noticing which is so directly correlated with mindfulness. When we offer a listening, an open space without judgment, for authentic expression and for children to speak and notice themselves and the world, true gratitude and mindfulness converge.
