Building a world house

The schoolwide art show opens tomorrow, with work from every grade. Families are welcome to stop into the theater anytime Friday, or Monday to Thursday next week, 7:30am to 5:30pm.
 

While they’re here, they may want to drift over to view work up in the fourth grade hallway.
 

First, there’s a set of collages that built on conversations that began during Beloved Community Day.
 

The lesson was based on an idea Dr. King introduced at his Nobel Prize Lecture: “We have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together… in peace.”
 

In groups of three, students designed houses with six rooms, one each for diversity, unity, kindness, symbols of peace, positive words, and community and nature.
 

All are welcome to head down the fourth grade hallway and stroll through this world neighborhood, with homes full of fourth grade’s hopes for peace.
 

Nearby, on the classroom doors, are fourth grader’s responses to the thirteen principles of Black Lives Matter at School.
 

Black Lives Matter at School organizes a week of action each February, but this class’s conversations about the thirteen principles continued throughout the month.
 

Some of the responses were relevant to current events - the death of Nex Benedict, the violence in the Middle East.
 

Many were very close to home.
 

Fourth grade caregivers will seem themselves reflected in these comments.
 

So will the Gordon teachers, staff and administrators who have shaped these students’ experiences.
 

If the world houses are a destination, these responses are the journey.
 

It’s hard work, and it is work that’s happening in our fourth graders’ homes and classrooms.
 

Stop by and take it in.