Setting strategies for positive change

Today was Gordon’s eleventh annual Beloved Community Day.
 

Beloved Community Day is an annual day when the school comes together to reflect on—and demonstrate—how Gordon embodies Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's vision of a beloved community, and how that community contributes to the continued fight for social and racial justice.
 

On teach-in days like these, the regular schedule is interrupted and a day of learning happens with these goals:

Students will break from business as usual to delve into content and ideas that are central to our mission

As much as possible, students put their learning into practice by creating and taking action steps

Students will connect across grades and with teachers they don’t usually see in class

Students will explore content using a variety of approaches that will engage a range of learning styles

When possible, students will lead the conversations
 

In an assembly for first to eighth grades, Ms. Dunham Carson set a theme for the day.
 

“One of the myths of the Civil Rights Movement is that things just happened. People stopped taking the bus, they showed up in a place and marched, they got up and gave speeches.”
 

“It’s easy to miss the fact that Dr. King was a great strategist. He assessed people’s strengths, he thought about how best to use them, and he made plans, plans that worked.”
 

Dr. Thomas López talked about her personal connections to the Greenboro sit-ins, and how the strategy those four students used has reverberated through the generations.
 

Students connected and compared notes about strategies they’ve used to persuade an adult to support a decision that was important to them.
 

Then they took to the hallways to use the skills and resources they had to make positive change.
 

Third graders feel they've got some expertise in reading and writing.
 

They went to Preschool and Nursery to use these skills to lift some young hearts.
 

Second graders have been practicing writing letters, so they wrote notes of gratitude and delivered them throughout the school.
 

Notes went to humans, but also to four-footed friends…
 

…and former first grade teacher Ms. Lupica made a guest appearance to receive hers.
 

Fourth grade is proud of their skills as athletes and as artists.
 

They took first grade out for soccer and basketball drills…
 

…and ran a drawing clinic inside.
 

Third grade did a close read of Amanda Gorman's Change Sings, then cut up and rearranged the words to make poems of their own.
 

They created stained glass windows as a tribute to the churches that played a role in Dr. King's life.
 

And, as a service project, they fulfilled a request from Buildings and Grounds, picking up sticks, rocks and trash from around campus.
 

Early Childhood practiced using their voices in a gathering in the theater.
 

Kindergarten led off by sharing words that set the tone.
 

Nursery talked about how they show love and kindness, and shared the story of a big umbrella that protects anyone who needs it.
 

Preschool sang a song that was packed with ideas for how to promote peace.
 

And Young Kindergarten showed peace in action by flying their paper doves.
 

Middle School circulated through three interdisciplinary workshops.
 

In one, they drew on the work of Favio Chavez and wrote original songs to perform on instruments made of repurposed objects. 
 

In another, students stretched their understandings of trust and communication through a series of exercises that got them out of their seats and connecting with one another.
 

And in the Revolutionary Love Compass, students were introduced to Valarie Kaur and her strategies for "revolutionary love in a time of range," an extraordinarily open-hearted approach to social change that echoes and amplifies the messages of Dr. King that started the day.
 

The day ended with Middle School students in Lower School classrooms.
 

The older students read their younger schoolmates the story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, the youngest child to be part of the Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.
 

The text was The Youngest Marcher, written by Cynthia Levinson, who visited Gordon and worked with students in December.
 

The Middle School students drew on prompts to lead a discussion.
 

Then they paired up with the Lower School students to brainstorm issues that they care about, and can make a difference on.
 

And each pair made a plan.
 

A strategy.
 

These strategies - these action steps - have been written on footprints and are now hanging on the theater window for all to see.

 

Dozens—hundreds!—more photos from today are online here