Fall is here and fall break has likely come and gone for many of us. This season often brings a lot of transition for our students. These transitions are embedded in the rhythms of the natural world, the energy around celebrations and holidays, and within the refection and personal goal setting that emerges from the start of each school year.
With this in mind, I invite you to stop for a moment and imagine the experience of a child as he transitions from home to school after just one night, a weekend, or a long holiday.
Maybe you imagined the hustle and bustle as he arrvied- the classroom filled with stories, sharing, reconnection and laughter. Or maybe you imagined the groggy, sleepy child, dragging his feet and resisting the weekday routine. Or even the child emerging from a car ride full of screen time. Maybe you witnessed a child arriving hungry without a proper dinner and/or breakfast. Or a child who is sleep deprived due to long working hours from the previous. Or even a child who is managing some sort of trauma in his life. Regardless, the classroom you imagined was likely flooded with 20+ learners holding varying levels of energy, focus, fuel, and general centeredness. As educators, we recognize the importance of holding space for all those varying energies but for also fostering a culture of centeredness so that all pathways to learning are open.
How do we actively support this transition from home to school each day?
How do we invite a level of awareness or mindfulness for our learners?
How do we foster a sacred intention for learning?
At Rainbow we achieve this through a morning ritual called centering. Ritual is simply defined as a ceremonial act. To that end, our centering practices are ceremonial in nature. During these practices, simple routines are turned into rituals through tone, intention and mindfulness.
First, the hustle and bustle of the morning is calmed and quieted with the ring of a chime or bell. It is amazing how a soft sound can silence a room and even more amazing how silence can invite sacredness into a space. This sound is a reminder to the students that they are about to engage in a sacred ceremony.
Secondly, pausing to take deep breaths together shifts each person’s individual energy into a collective synergy. Then, lighting a candle in silence invites something powerful and even magical into the classroom. This fire also serves as an anchor point for which learners can choose to cast their gaze when reflecting or meditating. Additionally, sending a greeting around the circle or turning to greet a neighbor not only allows each individual to be seen and to be witnessed, but it invites compassion, empathy and mutual respect. Speaking a verse, blessing or word into the circle also supports coherence and connectedness among all class mates. It serves as another reminder that we are on this learning journey together.
These rituals not only help to support the home to school transition, focus each learner, nourish class coherence and synergy, but they remind us that learning is scared.
Rainbow utilizes ritual in other transformative ways; meal blessings, honoring and memorializing people, animals & places, expressions of gratitude and appreciation, blessing ways and other birth and death transitions, rites of passage, communal celebrations all become ceremonial acts.
How can what we do at RCS inspire your own personal or professional work?
Can you replace a daily routine with a ritual by adding a mindful presence to it or by enhancing it with ceremony?
Try creating ritual for your classroom, organization and/or home?
Here is a brief list of simple rituals:
A gratitude exercise, a silent nature walk, quote reflection, a daily song/ verse or blessing, a visualization, read a daily story with a virtue/ moral, draw and/or color a mandala, borrow/adapt a ritual from a particular culture/religion, create nature art, give affirmations to friends and family members, practice mudras, yoga, qigong, or a martial art, and daily journaling.
Daily centering practice is a part of every Rainbow classroom. These practices, although all anchored in the Rainbow Spiritual Domain Learning Outcomes, take on many shapes and forms and evolve based on the learning needs of the children and the passions of the teacher. From journaling, meditation, dance, yoga, creating art, team building, time in nature to mindfulness practices… regardless of their format, this is a special time where children are encouraged to find their center and their source of personal power and wisdom before undertaking the lessons and explorations of the day.
Oral myth or story often set the stage for a centering or in many cases a children’s book can serve as inspiration for a particular theme. In each RCS classroom you will certainly find a bookshelf designated for those special “centering books.” One that touches the heart of many is Jon. J. Muth’s The Three Questions. This book is an illustrated adaptation of a story by Leo Tolstoy in which a young boy Nikolai, goes on a quest to find the answers to these three questions.
What is the best time to do things?
Who is the most important?
What is the right thing to do?
Nikolai’s interaction with various characters inadvertently lead him into the answers to those three questions.
If the purpose of a holistic education is to nurture the whole child, we do this by aiding them in uncovering their inner wisdom and truest, most authentic self…
As holistic and spiritual educators we explore existential questioning, meaning making, developing connection, leaning into discomfort, encouraging a questing for purpose and embracing awe and wonder.This special book is a gift that has the capacity to do all that for its reader. Happy reading and happy sharing.
Finally, as you gear up for a new school year, new chapter, new job, or just simply a new day. Consider your own three questions. What questions can guide you as you strive to be your best, most authentic self, most divine self?
Maybe these:
What is the best time to do things?
Who is the most important one?
What is the right thing to do?
Or:
What am I doing? Why am I doing it?
Does it bring me joy or purpose?
Is it allowing me to be the best me I can be?
Our Executive Director, Renee, has created a video inviting all students, staff, alumni and families of Rainbow Community School to join us in celebrating 40 years of holistic education.
Below is a summary of the video, with invitations to the 40th Anniversary Celebration and the More Than Mindfulness Conference.
Celebrating 40 Years of Love!
Rainbow is 40 years old. We invite you to celebrate with us!
Some great leaders and healers gathered together in 1977 to found Rainbow Mountain Children’s School. Now known as Rainbow Community School, it was founded on love.
The school’s founders envisioned a curriculum that taught love and mindfulness, so that the world would become more of these things.
40 years later, we’re doing a two year celebration.
This is because school leaders began shaping their vision for the school in 1977 through parent meetings, gathering ideas, and research. The school opened its doors for the first time in 1978.
This year, in 2017, you’ll begin to see a lot more information about the history of the school, interviews with alumni, and more. In the fall of 2018, we would like to put together a celebration involving all members of our community, both past and present.
Rainbow alumni are invited to the first annual alumni gathering on Friday, Oct. 6th, 2017 from 7-10pm at Rainbow Community School.
We believe that getting the word out about love and mindfulness is so incredibly important. Because of that, we also want to invite you to the More Than Mindfulness Conference.
RCS has an adult education component where we train parents, teachers, and other adults in using holistic education practices, and mindfulness practices. It’s a great opportunity for folks to deeply understand what we are about here at Rainbow, and the larger purpose behind what we are doing.
This Tuesday’s #teamhighlight features, Sheila Mraz, Rainbow Community School’s passionate, loving, and incredibly enthusiastic Admissions Director. Long before she arrived at Rainbow, Sheila was a committed student to the art of education. After growing up in Ohio and graduating from the University of Dayton, she took the bold step of moving to North Carolina on her own. She taught everywhere, from an inner city school in Charlotte, to a Hendersonville public school, to a local prep school. Her experiences, while fulfilling, left her questioning what her true purpose was exactly. Within each of the three very different environments in which she taught, she found restriction after restriction. She felt limited as a teacher and asked herself what effect she was truly having on her students. Not only that, she began seeking something more for children everywhere.
It was at this time that she brought two of her own children into the world and the issue became more pressing than ever. Sheila says, “I loved this child like nothing else. I saw perfection in him and wanted, needed a school that was different”. She homeschooled for a few years before stumbling upon Rainbow Community School. She had heard about it previously, but had been turned off by rumors from the past. When she visited the school herself, however, what she found astounded her. While she had experience with multi-disciplinary learning and broad thematic units, the depths of “holistic education” were totally unknown to her and yet resonated on profoundly personal and spiritual levels.
Having attended catholic school for all of her education, Sheila was used to having spirituality be part of her school culture. While she didn’t want catholic school for her kids, she did want them to have a safe space in which to explore and openly talk about their spiritualities. She was relieved to see that here was this school that neither shied away from integrating the spiritual into the pedagogical, nor held onto religiously dogmatic beliefs in the classroom. She both enrolled her sons and applied to work at Rainbow immediately. While she had always taught Middle School math and sciences, she was offered the special challenge of being the new 3rd grade teacher. Her sons started preschool and kindergarten and so began the epic saga of the Mraz family at Rainbow. Three years later Max Mrax, Sheila’s husband, joined the facilities department and soon thereafter Sheila transitioned from being a full time Rainbow teacher, to being a full time Rainbow cheerleader and Admissions Director.
It’s clear to anyone who has ever interacted with Sheila why she makes such a great Admissions Director. Not only is she insanely passionate about Rainbow and holistic education as both a teacher and a parent, not only can she bring her experiences as a teacher at other schools into the conversation, not only is she charismatic, emotionally intelligent, and socially adept, but she also has a sparkling authenticity that flows through her every interaction. When asked if she ever gets tired of giving the same tour to prospective families she responds, “Not at all. Every tour is going to be completely different. The first thing I ask is, ‘What question do you want to make sure is answered by the time you leave today?’ and always that first question that’s on the top of their heart helps me navigate the conversation because I know that that’s what’s most important to them.” In many ways Sheila sees her role as reaching far beyond Rainbow. She is both a gatekeeper to our community as well as a beacon of light to so many families who are looking for something different, something profound. When she welcomes prospective families into her magnificent sunlit, plant-filled office she takes the time, energy, and heart-space to create a safe environment. She explains it this way, “I know that when they’re talking about their most precious person in their world, their child, many emotions come up and I want to be able to let them know this is a comfortable place. It’s ok to be vulnerable, to open up. I want them to know that not only will you be accepted and loved but your child will be too”.
Sheila acknowledges that not everyone can attend Rainbow and when asked what the hardest part of her job was she immediately replied, “Telling families no. That we don’t have space. Time and time again. That to me, rips my heart out.” Just because a family doesn’t end up attending Rainbow doesn’t mean their relationship with Rainbow is over or that their time and emotional investment in the school was a waste. In fact Sheila thinks that it’s more important than ever before that families, no matter if they end up attending Rainbow or not, come to witness what is truly possible. She says, “I want them to know that this is what education can look like… and should look like. I want them to have this type of model to envision for their child. If they can come here, awesome, but in reality so few can, and I want them all to see education from a different angle. I see that as one one my most important roles.”
At heart Sheila is a changemaker, a feeler, and a doer. She is highly tuned into the emotional and social domains and is constantly considering her place within her community and how best to support all those around her. Plus, she is an absolute dynamo of a self-starter. A true live wire. Something you might not know about Sheila is that when her kids were little and she had stopped teaching for five years, she and her husband Max, started not one but two businesses: a white water rafting business and an event planning business. Now that she’s been in the groove of admissions for six years, she’s finally started the photography business she’s fantasized about for years. You can look her up at http://sheilamraz.com/photography/. This woman just does not stop.
And this featurette on Sheila would be utterly incomplete without an explicit shout out to Rainbow Community School Admissions, so… if you’d like to find out more about the school (especially Omega Middle School 😉 check out our website to request a private tour with Sheila! She’ll be so happy to welcome you into her loving office, ready to hear what’s at the very top of your heart.
For the first time in Rainbow history, the Annual Book Fair is being hosted at Firestorm Books & Coffee down the street at 610 Haywood Rd in West Asheville! We are so excited to support our local community business neighbor and hope you will join us in purchasing books from 2pm-6pm from Tuesday, Nov 29th to Friday, Dec 2nd! 15% of cash profits and 30% of credit profits from books purchased within this time frame will be donated to Rainbow Community School.
Our Kick-Off event on Tuesday, Nov 29th from 4-6pm at Firestorm Books will feature marvelous classroom performances, including theatrical readings and original music. We hope to see you there!
