Category: Featured

“You like me!  You really like me!” Like Julia Roberts in 2006, we were thrilled last week to cross the milestone of 1,000 Facebook friends (up from 807 in August).  And we were interested to learn about the diversity of our online friends, such as:

• 68% are women
• 37 countries, led by Costa Rica (460), US (443) and Canada (34)
• 10 languages, led by English (627) and Spanish (361)
• Most popular cities outside Costa Rica:  New York, Austin, Philadelphia, Seattle, Arlington and London (UK)
• Pretty even age distribution (see graph below)

And perhaps most importantly, our “post reach” is growing.  That is an indicator of how many people actually get to see our posts – Facebook only shows it to a limited number of our followers, then increases that release as more people like, share, and comment on it (so please do that!)  Our most popular posts of the past year have been:

• Staff photo – 2,300
• Photo of our outdoor meeting – 1,700
• Photo of Marisella – 1,500
• Benito Guindon teaching about puma safety – 1,300
• Thanksgiving Day activities – 1,300
• Heather Livingston, volunteer extraordinaire – 1,200
• Celebration of 100 days – 1,100

Thank you to everyone for following these blogs and our facebook posts, and for sharing/liking/commenting to make sure they reach even more friends.  You bring diversity, fresh perspective, and creative ways of supporting Monteverde Friends School.

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When your school is nestled in the cloud forest of Costa Rica, the whole world is your classroom.  Even when inside, we’re often visited by toucans, pizote and other exotic creatures outside the windows, and can hear/feel/taste the clouds blowing right through the school.

The other day, Emmanuel Hemsi took his young class out for a very quick Nature Appreciation walk.  Nothing long, and nothing spoken.  Just walking single-file, stopping to see, touch and smell a variety of plants.  Flowers in bloom, moss, dead branches.. each spoke to the children its unique story and place in the cycle.

As I rushed with my camera to capture it (see below), I was struck by the speed of the exercise.  This was not a lesson to be taught with words and received by the analytical brain.  It was a world to be senses, purely and without interruption.

“Surrounded by nature, supported by love.”  Thank you Emmanuel for bringing our school motto to life.

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Monday mornings are hard.  But this morning being the fifth Monday in February (thanks to the leap-year – last time this happened was 1976), our morning assembly was just Dead.  Blah.

No birthdays.  No announcements.  No response of any kind.  Poor Kirk had his work cut out to accomplish the goals of our morning assemblies – to get excited about the day, and to feel together in community.

Kirk announced a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, which got a buzz going.  Then he invited us outside to the sunny/windy playfield, which got us all on our feet.  And the game was structured so that each time you lose, you join the team of the winner as a fan.  Each match-up resulted in larger and larger groups cheering on their champion (see the progression of photos below), until the final showdown between girls from 8th and 3rd grades.  Cheers and groans and high-gives and hugs abounded as the younger one’s paper covered her friend’s rock.

In just five minutes, our students and faculty transformed from “I need another coffee” to a group who were hugging, playing, cheering, and energized.  They’re all now back in class with awake minds.  What a blessing to have these gatherings every morning, and not just every 28 years!

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How do grade 1-4 celebrate the 100th day of this school year?  Sixteen activity stations, all helping the children enjoy working with the number and concept of one hundred.  Such as:

• How many times can you sing Happy Birthday in 100 seconds?
• What do 100 beans weigh?
• How far down the hall does 100 toe-to-heel steps take you?
• What are 100 ways you can remember people have helped each other this year?
• And the most popular, dividing up the shared snack into piles of one-hundred items (thank goodness for popcorn!)

I did take 100 photos, but narrowed it down to these 11 winners.  So if you spend 9.09 seconds per photo, you’ll enjoy 100 seconds of sharing a wonderful morning with us.

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Sit in a stuffy classroom for hours?  Not at MFS!  Small class sizes, specialty teachers, special volunteers, and a dynamic approach to education add up to many opportunities for small group work and individual attention.

At 10:30 this morning I walked around with my camera (click through below) and caught an amazing variety of groups in action.  Grade 6’s studying historical biographies in the library and picnic table, ESL (English) and SSL (Spanish) tutoring in groups of 2 or 3, a small group of kindergarten children collecting medicinal plants, another preschool subgroup enjoying the playground, and math teacher Evan working on the porch with two high school students.

And it’s not just students.  Add into the mix a volunteer trimming the flower bushes, our School Committee clerk Wendy checking messages between school meetings, Meeting Clerk Katy and long-long-long-term member Sue Trostle discussing the school’s compost system, and co-director Debbie giving a school tour to some visitors, and we have a busy, bustling center of education for all.

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