Lifting our Spirits
Dear Friends,
It’s Spirit Week! Our student government is leading the way into Homecoming with a week of themed spirit days. Spirit week generates energy and connection and helps keep everyone moving through these more challenging weeks of the end of the quarter.
Wednesday is our first Community Service Day of the school year. We will travel all over the area to serve: Martha’s Table, Food and Friends, A Wider Circle, Shepherd’s Table, The Library of Congress, Senior Living Center and Bread for the City. Each of these organization’s take their work very seriously. Our students should arrive on time, dress appropriately, be extra careful about their use of language, and work steadily. Each group is accompanied by a Nora School teacher or two. Community Service Day is a socially conscious action! We hope you love your day and learn something about our wider community.
Finally, this weekend the Admissions department will be hosting a Nora School table at The Black/Latino Student Fund Fair on the UDC campus. We will be there between 2:00PM and 5:00PM. Thank you.
It’s a longer letter, this week, but we are all mindful of how difficult it may be to move through the daily motions of the school year when the wider world is reeling from the violence of Hamas in Israel and the outbreak of war. Our community is made of many individuals and each is having a personal response. Our main priority is care and understanding. Some classes may take time to delve into weighty discussions. I appreciated Bob Mattingly’s words this week, from the organization he leads, Center of Spiritual and Ethical Education: “As educators we cannot fix the globe, but we can push our students not to slip into stereotyping, othering, or any other kind of dehumanizing activity. Rather, help them seek to understand the unique true reality of each person and group.” No matter our intention, these are highly charged times. Here is a Unicef resource that may help too: How to talk about war and violence with your children
Peace,
Mara
