Click the photo to the right to view the school’s West Wing parents and teachers gathered together for Back to School Night on October 6, 2010. Teachers prepared an interactive evening for parents to explore connections to one another through material, environments, and of course, great wine! After a brief overview of the evening’s agenda, parents participated in composition with natural materials, collage-making, movement, color mixing in the studio, working with blocks in the building space, and creating projection images on the light table. All works served as provocations for their children to continue working on in the days following the event.
–Documentation Committee
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Reflection on WW Back to School Night by parent, Carlos Santini (Carla, WW)
Feelin’ Provoked!
There’s always something special about living in California. The sixth largest economy in the world, Christmases by the beach, more choice and selection than anywhere else in the country. Take it one step further and you can’t beat Southern California. Closer to home, you can’t help but feeling like Los Angeles has just about everything a human being could ever want. And finally, there’s the Westside, Santa Monica, Venice, etc. A jewel within a jewel. Things happen in this part of town, our own back yard, that set the pace for one of the greatest cities in the world. I have lived in Los Angeles for the past 31 years. I have worked in education and youth development organizations since my sophomore days at UCLA way back in 1994. And yet only now, as a parent, can I say that I witnessed something very special right here in West L.A. at New School-West.
A great village gathered here for the West Wing Back to School night–personally, my first. Parents and educators came together to immerse themselves in the experience of one of the most organic forms of education that one can appreciate. At the sound of a “mystic” gong, Roleen got our attention long enough for us to look around and see a great village coming together to honor and recognize what our children are going through at New School-West. Yes, we could have all sat in a room to take in the information of the work that is going on, but how special is that? How different is that from the thousands of parent-teacher meetings that take place all around us? Nope. We heard one thing from the NSW pulpit, and that was enough for us to understand that something incredible was about to happen tonight.
“Since the very first day of the new school year, the West Wing has been all about relationships. Relationships through material, through environments, and through each other”. – Roleen
On this night, for us parents, it would be about building relationships through the very same things. But in retrospect, it was about building a relationship to the experience that our children are going through. And the teachers of NSW made sure that the environment was set up for just that. As we stood in anticipation of the experience, one at a time, parents were called to join one of six environments–the building space; the studio (atelier), the light room, natural materials, the mini studio, and the East Wing. Each featured projects that would become provocations for students to continue working on in the days ahead.
As I walked from space to space, it was reminiscent of scenes from a warm and inviting restaurant. Each adult fully engaged in conversation under just the right lighting, great colors and material, maybe trying something new for the first time. Only this time, it was a brush, dried leaves, building blocks or dried flowers that were at the center of the table. And in some cases, sitting next to each other was not enough. The “Movement” class pushed our “personal space” limits to new levels, stacking up close to each other to form human letters–upper case or lower case. Take your pick.
As I continued my observation, I spoke with some of the teachers facilitating each environment. I was really intrigued when I asked Cynthia if working with natural materials was inspired by the seasons. She began to explain: “In an informal conversation, the Fall season was brought up by one of the children. We decided to take a walk to explore the question in the actual Fall environment. That is how we came across the natural materials that you see here.” She continued by saying, “What you are seeing here is the use of materials as a form of language. The point is to communicate with each other as we build. These compositions will not be permanent. Students can come in and build, move, replace or remove materials. It’s through this action that materials become a language. That is something we do here, to understand that there are several languages; several forms of communication”.
A glue-less collage? An art project that you don’t take home and hang on the fridge at the end of the day? Very different for the “Elmer’s Glue” generation. Very comfortable and acceptable for the younger version of ourselves.
Speaking of “comfort,” I strolled in to the Movement activity where parents were forming human letters. At that time, it was around 8:15PM, and grown men and women were on the floor, twisted, turned and leaning and huddling really close to each other as others directed arms, legs and torsos for the best possible rendition of the letter “h”. These guys were serious! Uncomfortable? You couldn’t tell. They were game. Just another example that night of the spirit of the village. Every parent honored the courage and the risk their children take everyday on campus. Another example of us understanding that it is not about us. It is about our place within the environment that we chose to participate in.
I can write on and on about the work with blocks, a venture that saw parents start with nothing and end up with a venerable fortress (complete with “Da Vincian” like codes left behind for their children to decipher and explore). The tale of the three little pigs as told by parents in the light room via real projected images on a white sheet. Or the mixing of colors where parents discovered that it was the highly supportive environment that inspired beautiful paint!
Afterwards, each group presented the work of their hands, and the connections that were made throughout the experience. All of it provoked by the adventures that our children are undertaking at New School-West. Parents that played the role of teachers in some of the environments appreciated the challenge of when to step in and “provoke” ideas and when to simply observe.
At the end of it all, Roleen expressed that “it’s not the finished product that we are most concerned with. It is the process of discovery, cooperation, curiosity and a feeling of real community that our children sense as they go through their experiences here”.
A process that was supported by a great education community of parents painting, moving, stacking, twisting, and risking right here in West L.A.!