The last day in the classroom

i was driving in to work this morning, around 9 in the morning, sipping my coffee, snuggling up to the delivery trucks and mini-vans in my lane.  John and i were chatting about the news feed on the radio.  i realized that once i got to school, i wouldn't have anything exciting and new to do.  i wouldn't have a whole slew of collaborators with whom to exchange ideas, discuss what happened on this day in history (1921: 5 killed in riots when Cuban sugar plantations workers were deprived of food; 1928: Amelia Erhart set out on the first trans-atlantic flight by a woman; 1963: The Supreme Court eliminated the requirement of the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools).  I asked John if it was wrong that i was missing my class and school hasn't even been out for a full 4 days.  He smiled.  He's good at smiling and letting things speak their own truth.

So, yesterday i accomplished a few things from my to-do list.  We went to a camp outside of Seattle: River Ranch.  Holy Beautiful Amazing!  I'm sure every girl scout in Washington knows about this place, but we were blown away by the 400+ acre site: forests that told tales of mists from the river, a lake that rippled with the memory of churning glaciers, salmon berries reaching into the windows of the cabins...it was truly inspiring.  We are excited about using the site for our fall overnight trip in order to focus our intention on community-building through canoeing and campfires and a giant sleepover.  The fall trip is an amazing time for girls to find themselves on equal footing: a new place, a new group, a new focus.  We become a group who needs one another, and so we talk, and we laugh, and we share some secrets (perhaps) that tell a little bit about who we are, for real.

Yesterday I was also incredibly privileged to be a part of a roundtable discussion about cross-cultural understanding in the world of girls.  A woman named Amy, a peachy glow of optimism around her, came in to pick our brains about how we might use something she is making: a movie.  The Girlworld project.  http://girlworldproject.org   A documentary.  About girls.  Who go to school.  In Nepal.  We watched the trailer (beautiful and stunning and intriguing and inspiring doesn't begin to describe it) about a girl named Shanta who goes to school in Kathmandu.  She is from the "untouchable" caste, and lives with her brother, his wife, and their little cutie-pie baby.  So many layers in her story.  And the film is Just her story, no obvious moral or tone to influence the how the viewer should think or feel.  We chatted afterward about the possibility: i can see 6th grade watching such a movie as a comparison to their own story.  What are their own privileges and challenges?  How are they similar and different to Shanta's?  What are the values inherent and respected in her culture?  How does Shanta use these values to make her way in the world?  And, likewise, how do the 6th graders here identify their own personal and cultural values and use them to make decisions about the world?  In fact, how does each girl in Seattle identify these aspects of her identity?  Are they all pretty similar?  Do girls around Seattle have different goals and dreams based on different values?  What if we created a coalition of girls in Seattle to identify a common identity: "We survive with these privileges and face these challenges." What if they stood up with their strengths and differences as allies to the girls in Nepal (or anywhere!), and demanded that girls be given the right to education.  Perhaps this is a demand made to the leaders of the G20 around the 10th anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals.  Perhaps these girls from Seattle speak out on behalf of girls everywhere, raising awareness and resources for girls to be educated.  What could be more amazing than that?  (You might have some ideas.) Um,  i'm still trying to figure out how to include links to different places, like Amy's blog. http://nonfictionmedia.com/blog   Hooray for collaboration!