THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY Community is the human ecosystem. To try to address any aspect of nourishing or educating our children without attention to the community would be like using fertilizers without regard to the overall state of the land. In that event, even the best will become useless or toxic.

The sense of community in our lives is built on several levels. First and foremost is the family. In Enki programs we work to support the family in many ways. Good communication between parent and teacher, working together as a team for each child, remains the most important way we can support the children. Therefore, we ask all parents and teachers to make communication and practical support for one another top priorities.

We also work to support family time by having a slightly longer school day and keeping homework to a minimum. This supports the children’s need for “downtime” at home and leaves them time to do the real “home-work” - ie. the work of being a contributing member of a family.

The next aspect of community, especially today when children spend the vast majority of their waking time at school, is the class community. To build strong class community, each group of children moves together as a unit throughout their schooling. The class becomes a family. Children do come and go, but there is a base sense - or experience - that there is an underlying community which is stable. That stability is felt by all the children - not only those staying, but those coming and going as well. The class teachers are part of this community, which is greatly strengthened when teachers can stay with their classes for many years.

Because both kindergarten and first grade hold community building as a central educational task, children have a chance to really develop the sense of class community as a trustworthy and stable foundation. By the time they are ready for more focused academic challenges, they are really ready to concentrate. They do not have to find their place in the group, build a relationship with a new teacher and rediscover their ground; they are home. The learning and the confidence that this spurs is quite remarkable.

On this base the children participate as a school community on a regular basis. This includes helping one another with learning, working together on school chores and festivals, and working together to contribute to the larger community. Whether making bread and soup for a shared lunch at a soup kitchen, working in mixed-age groups to clean a local roadside or park, or singing together at hospitals and senior centers, the children have many opportunities to join in both the school community and the larger community in which they live.

The rings of community spread out like ripples on the water when a pebble is tossed, first to the school community, then to the local community, then on into the national and global communities. A real sense of being a nourished and contributing member of the larger communities of our lives depends on building strong "first communities" in schools. We seek to establish this sense of community as "home-base," setting the compass for life.

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