Making a difference!

"Habari Gani!"

means "What's the news?"

(Traditional spoken Kwanzaa greeting)

Kwanzaa, an African Swahili word which means "first fruits of the harvest," is a celebration that is only 45 years old. Kwanzaa is a time to honor the rich cultural heritage of African Americans, celebrating the family and ancestors. Like festivals of light from many traditions, candles are used to represent focused areas of consciousness. The candleholder with seven candles, called a kinara, holds a center black candle with three green and three red candles on each side. During the week long celebration from Dec. 26-31, one area of awareness is highlighted each day. The principles are: Unity, Self-determination, Collective work and Responsibility, Cooperative economics, Purpose, Creativity and Faith. We have discussed how these are honorable ideas for any person to consider implementing in their life, and used simple examples to explain what each means (buying food directly from growers at the Farmers Market would be an example of supporting Cooperative Economics; Cleaning up our classroom and helping each other until we are all finished, also caring for our classroom pets are ways that we live out Collective Work and Responsibility at school.) The children loved making kinaras out of paper with glitter candle flames and displaying them in the classroom, pictured above.

Today at Gathering, the whole school, from the youngest in the Early Learning Center through our oldest in Middle School, decided that we want to have a "penny drive" to help the people of Haiti. We talked about how we can work to earn money for giving by doing extra jobs to help out. Every classroom will have their own big plastic jar to fill. The primary level children had lots of comments about the images, especially the flattened buildings, they have seen on television. I took a moment to explain to everyone that the way structures are often built in Haiti is very different than in our Pacific states that have more earthquakes... Without going on about building codes, I just didn't want any child to worry that his/her house would totally collapse on the family during the next earthquake we experience in the Pacific Northwest. All the Seabury students want to help, and we adults are so proud of their spirit of service! It is incredibly positive for everyone, but especially children, to realize that they can make a difference in the world, and then to pitch in to create a better, cleaner, more peaceful place for all beings to live, learn, grow and thrive...

But would you like to know our very favorite part of the week? Our Bear Cubs did shine in welcoming a new friend to our classroom community with lots of kind sharing and caring, and we felt lots of compassion in celebrating another friend's joy as her mommy returned home from the hospital. We heard that this mommy loved the coffee filter and watercolor "stained glass" cards we made for her. Our good wishes, written upon the rainbow cards, now hang in her window, bringing a kaleidoscope of healing colors to her day.

Even though we're little, we can make a big difference!

Judith