please, please, please come to the parent's association meeting and participate in the "visioning" and strategic thinking about FSP's future -- Thursday Feb 25 @ 5:30!
Reenrollment at Friends sometimes triggers angst for me. How do I make sense of all this resource going toward my own children, when there is so much greater need in the world? I experience Friends School as a great privilege and one that I sometimes feel guilty about. We did not choose Friends because we were unhappy with our public school, but because the SPICES (and Kathleen's Angela Adams rug squares) called to us in an undeniable way. Grace was made for a Friends education, but so was I, and it continues to be an amazing pleasure to be with and learn from this community.
I was interested to hear another friend (lower case f) talking about her decision to send her daughter to a Waldorf and how she experienced it as a family sacrifice necessary to protect her child from a larger culture that is not doing right by kids. Although she too saw it as a privilege, she was more indignant at the bind she was in, feeling that her public options were so unsafe that her "choice" was not much of a real choice at all.
I'm curious how others make sense of independent school in these times?
It is my great hope that a Friends School education will help our children be great citizens, participating in the creation of knowledge and culture, in problem solving for the common good, and in participatory democracy in some courageous way (that is true to themselves). I hope that they are solid and clear about their own gifts and inner light, and can truly shine that light on others, bringing out the best in a group and community. I hope they have some deep sense that they can be happy while also helping others be happy, that happiness is not a zero-sum game.
What are your wishes for your children and yourselves, with regard to a Friends education?
