Stitching Rainbows

On the importance of volunteering (even if you don’t know how to do what you said you would do)

Me, a parent volunteer

Our annual school auction event is coming up and this year the theme is “Making Magic.” I have no idea what I’m going to wear yet, so stay tuned on that, but regardless of what I wear, I am excited to see what all the other classes created for their auction project this year. I just turned in our completed project this past week and I am extremely proud of it. Each class is responsible for creating a project to be sold at the auction, and it should be something that is representative of the class curriculum that year. Sometimes students and teachers participate, sometimes the project is handled entirely by parent volunteers.

My children attend a public charter school with a Waldorf-inspired curriculum. We chose the school we did because my little brother attended the same school many years ago and I was completely enamored by what I saw. Waldorf teachers work to educate and nurture students through a methodology that integrates academics, arts, and practical skills in a creative and nature-based environment. The classrooms are stunning, usually decorated with silks and watercolors, the chalkboards (yes, chalkboards. No squeaky dry-erase here!) all featuring detailed and exquisite chalk drawings done by the teachers, that relate to the current main lesson curriculum. As a public school, attendance is free, but the extra materials and specialty teachers are not free so families are asked to donate what they can monthly to offset the cost. Everyone understands that this is not a requirement, but those who are able to do so willingly because this approach to education is so beneficial for the students. I will never forget the classroom tour on a long ago Back-To-School Night, when we saw the seventh-grade classroom in which they were learning about Leonardo da Vinci. I was completely awed by what I saw: the children were learning about the artist, but they were doing so by creating models of his designs! Huge, beautiful wings and apparatuses to walk on water. The children were learning engineering, physics, history, art history, language arts, and mathematics all in one! Their work was so meticulous and beautiful, it reminded me how capable children are when they have the resources, materials, and guidance.

Alako, Grade 5, and Ailey, Grade 1

Waldorf school is structured slightly differently than traditional public schools. Children begin with two years of non-academic, play-based Kindergarten, where they practice cooperation, conflict resolution and other interpersonal and diplomatic skills they can apply and use throughout their lives. As I am CERTAIN I have mentioned on this blog before, my children had the incredible gift of being guided by the supreme goddess of Waldorf kindergarten teachers, Teacher Sallie. Sallie has the power of presence, the ability to create and hold space with the serene firmness akin to a deeply rooted tree. She was everything we could have wished for and exactly what we needed for our children. Everyone wants to stay in kindergarten with Sallie forever.

But after kindergarten, students begin The Grades, remaining with the same main lesson teacher for first through eighth grade. The idea is that teachers take a class through all eight years of their education then, upon graduating that class, resume in the fall with an entirely new class of first graders. As one might assume, this does not always go according to plan. Eight years is a considerable length of time for students and teachers alike. Everyone ends up at a different chapter in their lives, and just as the students are ready to take on the next developmental stage in their lives, so too teachers may feel more comfortable continuing in a forward trajectory, or at least remaining close to where they have landed. To say it more simply: some teachers are not willing to go back to the beginning with a wild pack of six-year-olds after trudging through the bogs of early adolescence with a group of middle school students who know each other so well they feel like family. By the time a teacher graduates their Waldorf class, it is not uncommon for teachers to want to continue teaching the upper grades. And who can blame them? I get it. But there are some wonderfully adventurous teachers who decide to start over with a fresh batch of wild things, and such was the case for us. After overenthusiastically approaching her in the restroom at our annual school event, I was thrilled to find out that the wonderful woman who had blown my mind with her seventh-grade class’s da Vinci creations would be Alako’s teacher for the next eight years. Five years in and we couldn’t be happier.

This year, for the first time in the seven years I have been parenting schoolchildren, I was wrangled into being a class parent, and thus part of the Parent Association. This is something I have carefully avoided, not because I don’t want to participate- I very much do- it’s just that I do not consider myself to be the kind of person I would like to depend on to remember important deadlines. I already feel like a headless chicken dipped in frazzle sauce managing the calendar of events for my family of five, much less for the entire class. Creative, cooking, or cleaning projects are much more my wheelhouse, although admitting that honestly gives me a bit of imposter syndrome, because I’m not a fantastic cook, my house is a deep-cleaning disaster, and everything I create feels like I’m “borrowing” from someone else’s imagination, but you get the idea. All that being said, I could not find a way to convince my friend/president of the PA that I was not qualified for the job. She just laughed and told me I was no more scattered than anyone else. Thus, I am officially the First Grade Class Parent, responsible for classroom communication as well as helping with events and fundraising opportunities.

There are a number of seasonal festivities that take place at our school functioning both as celebrations and fundraising opportunities. Traditionally, the festivals are open to staff, students and families, as well as the public, however the unusual circumstances of the last two years have forced us to adjust. This year we already modified our fall and winter events to accommodate distancing requirements, and much of the planning for spring has been tentative at best. Fortunately, we got the approval for our annual school auction event that is open to the public and attended by parents and staff. Along with all the other auction items, each class is responsible for creating something that can be auctioned off to raise money for the school, and that job usually falls to the Class Parent and/or any other willing assistants that can be found. Sometimes a class has a number of parents who are willing to come up with an idea and make it happen, but most of the time it is a maximum of two or three people.

I am always that parent who always volunteers to help my children’s teachers. In fact, as I sat down to write, I just received a text message from Alako’s teacher, asking me if I can help with costumes for the play tomorrow afternoon, which I obviously agreed to. Anything for her. But honestly, anytime I see the sign-up list for volunteers I feel an innate sense of responsibility. Don’t get me wrong! Like most people, I would prefer to ignore the requests and assume “someone else” will handle it, but that only makes me feel guilty. Because we all it is always the same small group of people coming together to make things happen. And if we can agree on that, I am certain we agree that teachers are some of the most dedicated, creative, selfless, generous, dynamic, compassionate, and supportive people our children will encounter in their lives. They make up an enormous component of the “village” that raises our children and supports our family on a daily basis. Teachers deserve all the help and gratitude parents can possibly bestow on them. This year, the job of coming up with and creating the auction project fell to me.

I settled on the idea that we make a quilt comprised of squares hand-painted by the children. Having attended many school auction events in the past, as well as participating in the creation of auction projects (with varying degrees of success), I knew the quilt was a very “Waldorf” item that would have wide crowd appeal. I put out a request for volunteers and one mom in particular went out of her way to gather materials, test fabric samples, and coordinate with the teachers about painting days. This was an incredible help to me, because I am more of a visionary than a skilled crafter. I can come up with ten great ideas but I need help actualizing them to their full potential. I am not a quilt maker and I don’t know much about fabric.

Luckily, my mother is that person with the skillset to actualize my ideas! Not only did she offer to “help” me, she basically finished the entire project. She let me use her fancy cutting tool and board to perfectly square off the gorgeous silk squares created by each cute little student. She went with me to multiple stores to find the correct backing material, as we wanted to find a fabric that was wide enough to cover the back without requiring a seam (we settled on a Martha Stewart sheet that was on sale at Macy’s). She went back to the store without me to find the correct thread, because I am a very particular kind of sewing genius who purchased thread without bringing my fabric to match the color correctly. She spent her entire day off ironing and sewing for me, then continued working after I went home and finished the entire work of art without me! And what a work of art it is! A glorious watercolor rainbow with sky blue lining and trim, that looks like a tapestry one could purchase at the Louvre gift shop. Each square is as unique and beautiful as the student who created it, and at the center of each square is the student’s golden handprint. The result is absolutely stunning and I couldn’t be happier or more grateful to my mother for making my dream into a spectacular reality. Hopefully she will be willing to help me next time too, because I think it may take me a few more tries to master the art of quilting. Volunteering, however, is something I will not ever stop doing. Because there are never enough of us, and because there is something truly magical about being one of the many hands collaborating to make a work of art.