daVinci Schools

I became aware of some of these lingering weeds while teaching at daVinci, a community-based charter school that housed 120 or so high schoolers on the campus of our local community college…

…I appreciated that this school’s educational philosophy wasn’t
just a standardized formula handed down by Congress or textbook
companies. Instead, daVinci cultivated a more organic human environment, one that embraced nontraditional students with blue hair
or facial piercings and expected they could be just as — or more —
brilliant than their more preppy, mainstream counterparts.

The school abandoned certain norms. There were, for example,
no bells at the beginning or end of class. And teachers went by first
names like the other normal humans one might run into at the grocery
store or wave to while pumping gasoline…

…It was through these unconventional practices that one small
school transcended rote academia to become a learning community.

But in this intended-to-be transcendent environment, I still
sometimes remained firmly planted in the ground, sitting among
my own inescapable dysfunction, completely disqualified to be a part
of any sort of Eden.

Some days my patience with students was measured in ounces,
not pounds, and cold Michigan mornings didn’t stretch it further.

Certain mornings I emerged from my bedroom like a mummy
struggling out of the pyramid where I’d been buried for thousands
of years. Groggy from lack of sleep or woozy-headed from a stubborn
cold, I groped for caffeine and a hot shower. Inevitably, Wrigley
had somehow tracked mud on every inch of the living room, as if all
night he’d been dreaming about new murals he just couldn’t wait to
paw-paint onto the canvas of our floors and furniture…

…To read the rest of Sarah’s reflections on growing up as a PK order the book here.

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