Courage Festival
I always feel that we are in the full swing of the school year when the Courage Festival approaches. This post includes practical logistics about this annual event, which kindergarten through 8th grade will celebrate during school hours on Tuesday, October 1st, and also some insights into the pedagogy behind the festival.
The courage festival is a celebration that marks the coming of autumn and invites the children to practice displaying courage through the seasonal transition between summer and winter. The festival is designed for the children and takes place during the school day. Parents and caregivers are invited to participate as volunteers, so please look for the sign up in Tuesday’s newsletter.
Our preschool students will have a regular farm day and their own, age-appropriate celebration of the season. Drop off and pick up will remain on the farm.
Kindergarten students will attend a pedagogical sharing by 1st-8th grade students in the morning. They will have a busy morning and will need extra help from a few parents, as they have the important task of baking bread for the day’s festivities. Drop off and pick up will remain on the main campus.
Following their pedagogical sharing (that’s what we call a work-in-progress, low-pressure performance), 1st-8th grade students will travel in mixed-grade level groups to McLaren park where they will have snack and then courageously complete physical challenges, and then celebrate with soup and bread. Drop off will be at the main campus, and 1pm pick up will be at the Redwood Picnic Area in McLaren Park. Aftercare staff will accompany aftercare students back to campus.
On Tuesday, October 1st, please send your k-8 student to school with a vegetable for the harvest basket. Watch for the volunteer sign up in the next newsletter if you’d like to help turn the harvest’s bounty into soup for our strong and courageous students. Grades students should bring a dish and spoon to enjoy the soup during lunchtime. We’ve found that a container with a lid makes a great vessel; that way the last drops don’t make messes in lunch bags. Early childhood nests have their own dishes for their harvest soups.
In addition to volunteers who are eager to bake bread and prepare soup, we also need adults stationed at each of the physical challenges throughout McLaren park. Look for the challenge descriptions and sign ups in the next newsletter. Parent Volunteers will be invited to gather in the courtyard at 9:15 to enjoy the pedagogical presentation. Volunteers can also meet us at the corner of Bacon and Harvard street at 10:30 to get your script and supplies and set up your station. The obstacle course will begin at 10:45 and end at 12:15. Volunteers may stay to enjoy bread and soup at the Redwood Playground, or clean up and head home as work schedules allow.
And why do we summon our courage in autumn? Read on! Drawing from the Waldorf curriculum, Golden Bridges marks the wheel of the year with seasonal celebrations. We come together as a community to mark the passing of time through traditions and rituals developed over the past decade by our teachers. As autumn begins, we take a symbolic look at what and how we celebrate the season.
As Rudolf Steiner points out, feeling connected to the warmth and abundance of summer comes easily to many of us. As the growth and flowering of summer fades in nature around us, and autumn leads us into the dormant quiet of winter, Steiner asserts that we have a personal challenge to take up inner growth as an antidote to nature’s dying. He lectured extensively about the importance of focusing on self-awareness in autumn, rather than letting nature’s cycle toward hibernation draw us into depression. He insists that activating our inner consciousness provides the antidote to anxiety, fear, and hate.
In classrooms across our campus, you will find teachers bringing a wide range of stories that offer the children ideas of what uplifting darkness through self-knowledge can look like. The image of a dragon is often used as a metaphor for inner parts of ourselves that need to be transformed. For example, Carole Lindstrom’s picture book We Are Water Protectors depicts the Dakota Access Pipeline as a “black snake” against which indigenous communities must battle. While young children are uplifted by folk tales of taming dragons, middle grades students can discuss the metaphors in contemporary settings, and the upper grades can take inspiration from biographies of individuals whose actions exemplify the courage required to take action today.
Our school Courage Festival offers the opportunity to muster courage for being human. The students take up tasks of leadership and collaboration by overcoming a series of physical and artistic obstacles. The festival begins with an assembly where each grades class performs something artistic they have been working on for their kindergarten through 8th grade peers. They then complete a series of physical challenges in McLaren Park, and end by sharing a meal of soup and bread together. I know they look forward to this festive day.
