From January through March 42 students from as young as six-years-old to as old as thirteen-years-old gathered every Friday to create magic together. The magic invoked was theater at its finest complete with pirates, heroes, and villains. This fun twist on the old Treasure Island classic by Robert Louis Stevenson featured Josie, an adventurous and courageous young girl, as the main character. The theme of the play was one of empowerment, imagination, and actualization as Josie learns that in the end it truly is always her adventure no matter what obstacles and challenges come her way. As the performance drew nearer it became clearer and clearer that these youngsters were transforming and evolving not only as confident young actors and techies, but also as an extremely multi-aged and connected ensemble. Whispered cues were hurriedly exchanged backstage as actors reminded each other of their blocking, while stagehands stepped into their less visible yet powerful roles of supporting the production as a whole. By the time the curtains closed on that epic first and last performance, those 42 students stood together as friends, artists, storytellers, performers, and family. Huzzah and congratulations to these brave pirates!
The Gnome Village is being installed. Max, our incredible facilities manager, along with Asheville Playgrounds, have designed what may end up being the most creative and exciting play structure in Asheville. Last week they began installing the main posts which Max, along with wonderful parent helpers, hand harvested. The post are locust wood– the strongest, longest-lasting wood available. Hand railings will be made of local laurel — also hand harvested and strong. The roofing will have cedar shingles.
Asheville Playgrounds has the best reputation in town for imaginative, safe structures. They have been great to work with, and obviously really know what they are doing! The basic structure is expected to be complete in the next 3 to 6 weeks, with some detail work remaining after that.
We are very excited to see our playground metamorphosing into the beautiful, creative, space we knew it could be.
“The old ways of learning are unable to keep up with our rapidly changing world,”is one of the premises of A New Culture of Learning, by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. We know that when children are young they learn by playing — imagining things, experimenting, and so on. In our world of constant change, adaptability and innovation are highly valued. Interestingly, in a world of flux the ability to play at all ages becomes more necessary. Why? Because an attitude of play is an attitude of inquiry — as Thomas and Brown describe it, “A child playing with a new toy and an adult logging onto the Internet, for example, both wonder, ‘what do I do now?’…play becomes a strategy for embracing change.”
Thanks to John Johnson for recommending A New Culture of Learning. It gave me another look at systems thinking in education. A new way of living has ushered in a new way of learning. Unfortunately, the public school system is such an excruciatingly slow moving bureaucracy it can never facilitate the adaptability today’s children need to learn to be prepared for tomorrow’s future.
We are grateful for our 2025- 2026 sponsors
Rainbow Community School is enrolling for the 26-27 school year
