The Clearwater School

In the film Voices from the New American Schoolhouse, about the Fairhaven School near Baltimore, a student remembers being written up on her first day of attending, for having failed to wash her lunch dishes. "Did you think the dish fairy was going to do it?" she recalls being asked, with a laugh. Last Monday I arrived for my half-day of volunteering, and Gabriel asked me, "Did you see Robert wrote you up?" What? Written up? For what? I was at a loss. "Dunno," Gabriel shrugged. "I think you didn't wash your dish or something." I thought he was kidding. I conjured up a mental image of the water going over the plate and silverware. Did I trust my memory? In the Judicial Committee's box, I found the paperwork. Sure enough, in black and white: "Bryan didn't wash his pan." Ohhhh, the pan! Um, yeah. Now I remembered, the pan I'd cooked up my tempeh in. I almost never use the stove top. Of course I'd forgotten. I was, oddly, sort of excited to be written up; it had taken me about three years. Robert acknowledged that he'd been partly motivated by the desire to be the first person to write me up; but, he added, it had been a gross, smelly, oily pan and he'd had to wash it. I was embarrassed at having left a mess for someone else to deal with, and it felt different being written up formally than it would have if someone had said, "Hey, you know you left your dirty pan on the stove last week." Of course, most complaints and corrections happen, at Clearwater as everywhere, in that sort of informal way, but a J.C. case doesn't have to be especially dire; as I've been reminded before, strictly speaking you can ... Read More

On Saturday The Clearwater School hosted our first Fall Festival. Most Clearwater families spent a beautiful, sunny fall afternoon eating delicious potluck food, playing indoor and outdoor games, carving jack 'o' lanterns from more than 70 pumpkins grown in Clearwater's garden (thanks, Tim!), and generally enjoying each others company. The Clearwater Singers performed to a full house in the Active Room, and Christine and Chris played a lot of great Irish music (joined at one point by Bob on djembe). On Friday, staff and students worked to set everything up for the following day, and we had lots of help on Saturday cleaning up after the event. Thank you to everyone who came, and to those who worked to organize, set up and clean up. It was a fun and wonderful day! To see lots more photos go to Clearwater's facebook page (like us if you haven't already) or to Clearwater's flickr account (if you're not on facebook). Pumpkin carvers Simon and Pearl--in costume? You decide Chris and Christine Mat, Steve and Simon Meghan, steampunk girl Meghan, Maddy and Gregory Delayney, Niya and J.R.  Lily, Meghan and Jacy Joey Gabriel and Joey Bob, Chris and Christine Maddy, Alise and Jacy Corey and Robert Susan, Susan and Ginger Zoe (the little zombies are the scariest) Jesse and David Zoe and Chris Lily and her pumpkin  Niya and Maddy Stephen Tommy Niya and her pumpkin Justin and Jackie Bryan and his pumpkin Jason (Yoshi) and Hidy Jesse and his pumpkin  Clearwater Singers Lily, Alise, Keenan and Jacy ... Read More

Last Monday I played a very, very long game of Mao with Maddy, Lucas, Jacy, and Alise. Mao is a card game, more or less like Uno, complicated by a few unspoken rules which players must learn solely by observation and deduction; by watching others keep the rules, or by figuring out why someone penalized them. At the end of a round (when a player successfully discards her or his last card), the winner gets to make a new (secret) rule, and the game goes on. For some reason, our game seemed to take a record-breaking amount of time. Players would get down to their last card, and then be unable to play it, winding up with ten or more cards coming into their hand. Frustration was running high. Several times people stood up and slammed the table or muttered "I  %#@* HATE this game!"--and then kept on playing. (They had to complain under their breath because it's against the rules to speak during Mao.) Lucas finally did quit in exasperation, but the rest of us doggedly kept at it (mainly at Maddy's insistence) until someone--anyone!--finally won. The relief in the room was palpable. I don't even remember who played the final card. I figured that I'd have a hard time convincing anyone to play Mao with me again, and the next time I was driving up (that Friday), I mentioned it to the students in the car. "Yeah, I doubt it," said one. "They're sick of that game. They've been playing it all week!" Which teaches me, once again, that I don't always understand what it means when someone expresses frustration. ... Read More

Two summers ago I read Anya Kamenetz's eye-opening book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education and intended to write a summary to publish here, but never got beyond the research point. The book is incredibly content-heavy, and I'd already summarized Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. Fortunately, much of the content of this book is now available online, and if you are interested in what our kids are going to face if they want to continue their educations beyond Clearwater (or beyond anywhere, for that matter) you owe it to yourself to visit the DIYU web site. There was also a great article published in the Sept. - Oct. 2011 edition of Utne Reader, but the link to the article wasn't working when I tried to view it. Our kids are especially prepared to navigate this quickly and dramatically changing industry, and if they are going to be savvy education consumers they will need up-to-date information. ... Read More

This video is being posted by popular demand. The footage is from last year and includes; parts of a documentary by Leo, rough footage from the making of an unfinished short film, a game of Mafia, and some other random shots (there was limited footage available at the time of editing). The song is "Victory Dance" by My Morning Jacket and was played loudly on the bus during the many summer school field trips. The video is kind of silly, the song absolutely rules!

Samadhi has been a student at Clearwater for 9 years--he enrolled when he was four and is now almost 14 years old. He has been drawing since he was six and began making comics two or three years ago. This year he started writing and illustrating a science fiction graphic novel series titled Cosmos. He has completed 16 pages in the first of seven planned books in the series. Book one is subtitled "Sol System", and will be around 200 pages long. He is using Adobe Photoshop to color the comic. Samadhi has another comic series in mind, also science fiction. He maintains he cannot make a comic series without outer space in it. He explained that the humor in his comic is inspired by Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which combined sci-fi and comedy so well. Many graphic novels fill Samadhi's shelves at home. Some of his favorites are Bone, Usagi Yojimbo, Amulet, Missile Mouse and Lackadaisy. He admires the last one because it is well drawn and combines comedy and drama. Without further ado, here is Cosmos. Many pages are followed by Samadhi's comments. Click on each image to enlarge for reading. Comic Prologue page 001 Comic Prologue page 002 Page 003 Shipslicer! (click to embiggen) Page 004 The Vanishing... (click to embiggen) And, now The Title Page! (Click to embiggen and discover the name of this Opus) And The first page of the actual comic! (Click to check out those awesome night time effects close up) Page 007 (Sodalicious!) Page 008 (Suddenly, better shading! Wow!) Page 009 (Lamps with eyes are the best kind of lamps. I’d totally buy that lamp.)  Page 010 (Oh wait no that’s no lamp. Shocking twist. What is even ... Read More

On the morning of September 13th (the first day of school) I walked throughout the school shooting video. Later that day I found Leo, Cass, and Lucas improvising music and quickly started recording. The result can be heard as the video's soundtrack. The piano in the beginning is by Delayney. The school year is off to an inspiring start and I feel truly lucky to be a part of this community. Thank you. - Matt G

It's the first day of school and everyone is so excited to be here and see each other again.  Thirteen-year-old Thad created a classic rock quiz on Sporcle and has invited several people to play it today at school. Thad graciously agreed to share his quiz with Clearwater's blog followers. Join us in the excitement of the first day by testing your knowledge of classic rock lyrics by typing the correct title in the Can you name the Verbose Classic Rock Songs? quiz. Sample Question Queen - Are you prepared? Are you prepared for what is about to transpire? Has your body shifted to the borders of your sitting area? Leave a comment with your percentile and how many you answered correctly. Begin! Thanks, Thad! End of post.

Clearwater parent and writer Amanda Klein has written a wonderful post as a guest blogger at Offbeat Mama. Her story of her family's experience with Clearwater is warm and personal, and she does a great job of touching on some of the key aspects of the school and the model. Read the post now!

When walking around Clearwater's grounds, I'm always impressed by the student-made toys and weaponry. Home made or heavily modified Nerf guns morphed last year into potato artillery, and potatoes were deployed with gusto, to much applause. If you don't think the word "industrial" could be used to describe a hula-hoop, you haven't seen the Clearwater hula-hoops. So this last month or so, swords and shields have been cast around the play yard or used in battle. They look to be made of 90% duct tape, but these photos show that is not the case. Leading the charge, so to speak, is staff member Mat. When the zombies attack, you want Mat on your side. ... Read More

Many Clearwater students and all four staff members are spending the week in a state of high expectation and preparation for Whistlepig, Clearwater's fourth annual festival of music, food and sun, this Sunday, May 1, 1-6pm. (We hope the sun cooperates and shows its welcome face on Sunday.) Details of all the great things you can see and do at Whistlepig are at the end of this post.First, here's a sneak peek at two of the performances that will be featured at Whistlepig.Jacy, Maddy and Keenan are the 1, 2, 3's, who will be performing their latest choreographed spinning routine, Spintastics. I sat in and videoed some of their latest choreography.As I watched, I was struck by the deep friendship between these three that enables them to work together with ease, honesty and mutual support when creating their spinning choreography. They have been friends for many years and the trust and respect between them is evident.This mutual trust and their affection for each other is a product of years spent figuring each other out, working hard to understand complicated, difficult feelings, learning to appreciate each others quirks and strengths, and their commitment to honesty.When they work together on a project such as their upcoming Whistlepig performance, they know each other so well that they can jump right in, communicate clearly without worrying about stepping on each other's toes or feelings, and collaboratively create something they love with efficiency and skill.Most schools are not equipped to provide uninterrupted time, space and an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect for children to explore and develop honest, rich relationships with each other. Fortunately, at Clearwater, students can devote the fullness of their energy, creativity and time over days, months and years (not just at recess or breaks between classes) to developing ... Read More

Last month the first chapter of Meghan's original story set in the Warcraft world appeared on this blog. She has written five chapters so far. If you'd like to re-read the first chapter, click on the link above, then enjoy Chapter 2, below. The story is told from the point of view of Salith, a female half-elf, half-troll rogue. Tales of Warcraft Chapter 2 A Terrible Reunion Salith’s consciousness returned only when she was shoved roughly up against a stone wall and was surprised to find her hood intact and upon her head. “And so we meet again, my slippery little friend!” said a cold voice from above her. Salith opened her eyes. Before her were the shin-high boots of a human she had met only once before and she did not plan on repeating the encounter, though she felt this would be entirely different. Salith discovered there were at least two more armored humans behind her; one of them took hold of her tattered hood and ripped it off her cloak entirely, revealing red-orange dreadlocks that fell just past her shoulders and a face much less like what the human’s thought she was. Her face was bluish with a tint of lavender and her eyes were glowing orbs, a ghostly ivory. The human before her reached out a gloved hand and took hold of her dreadlocks. Not wishing to have her hair pulled out, Salith was forced to look up into the face of the human she had dreaded ever meeting again. “Where be dah true king!?” she demanded, and the man tightened his grip on her dreadlocks. “I am the king, Half-breed!” Salith bared her yellowish teeth. “You are no king!” Before she knew what was happening, the man had ... Read More

--by Susan Milton, Clearwater parent and member of website committee.An all new Clearwater website is currently in the works. To help out with this project, I volunteered to gather quotes by members of the Clearwater community that could appear on the new website. One thing I did was to ask students for quotes when I saw them at school. I asked if they would be willing to say something they liked about Clearwater, or something that people interested in Clearwater should know about, or just anything at all that they thought would be a good quote for the website. Many students said they would need more time to think about it. But for right now, I thought readers of the blog might enjoy seeing my unedited list of off-the-top-of-their-heads quotes by Clearwater students about their school. So here it is:I like Clearwater because there's pizza there sometimes. - Imogen, age 5I like Clearwater because of what Imogen said, and because the teachers never boss you around. - Jaime, age 8You can make up languages. Nikos and I made up a language. - Vera, age 8I really like Clearwater. It's the best school I've ever been to. It's really good. - Blessing, age 6Attending the Clearwater School has enhanced my soul chakra beyond my natural bodysphere by about 12 octahedrons - Simon, age 14I kinda like the Clearwater School - Thad, age 12Creek Village! - Chiara, age 8Creek Village is a really fun game. - Stevie, age 11Clearwater is a good school because you make your own choices. - Stevie, age 11I like the outside part of Clearwater. - Tommy, age 11The creek is awesome! - Tarka, age 9Clearwater has more computers than any other school. - Tommy, age 11As far as the computer room ... Read More

Fat alder buds (Alnus rubra)As early tree and shrub buds were swelling and opening last week, signs of human habitation suddenly appeared on the west side of North Creek. Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis)--one of the earliest blooming native shrubsI spotted this mysterious structure on the far side of the foot bridge and crossed over to look more closely.After I crossed the bridge it became obvious there was more to the lonely structure than what I could see from the other side of the creek.Soon I spotted another structure with a little pile of firewood in front. (Fire is not allowed on campus, but firewood is essential for authenticity.)One group constructed a long house of sorts and were inside refining the structure and enjoying each other's company.This hamlet is the latest incarnation of Creek Village, which for the past four years has arisen and flourished for about a month, in early or late spring.During the first year, four Clearwater students created homes within the natural structure of shrubs, trees and underbrush across the creek. Matt, the only staff member in the village, acted as lodge keeper. Creek Village residents paid him in salmonberries for the opportunity to sleep at the lodge, located at Second Beach. (There are three accessible beaches along Clearwater School's stretch of North Creek. Starting with the most northern beach, they are consecutively named First, Second and Third Beach.) Every day residents trooped to their village. Someone yelled "Breakfast!"; five minutes later, "Lunch!"; after five more minutes, "Dinner!"; then "Night time!"; and finally, "Morning!". They shared food from their lunches and ate salmonberries at meal time.A year later the four original village founders were joined by two more people. In addition to the daily schedule, they added picnics ... Read More