Dear Friends,
I know I've written about this before, 
but Waters School Gardens, 
and the Riverbank Neighbors site
both had sprung from the head of Zeus (or Athena) at the same moment in 1994.
They were both natural outgrowths of Waters School's decision to embrace
the path of progressive education: 
doing real stuff,
engaging families 
and communities 
and changing them for the better.
We've done pretty well,
tho so many challenges still face us.

Next Monday, July 24, from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at 
Half Acre Brewery
(across the street from Jewel on Lincoln)
Riverbank Neighbors will be holding a fundraiser that includes
Tacos!
Beer! and 
Music! (including, The Pete Leki Family Band w/ friends).
Riverbank Neighbors and Waters School are kindred entities.The Waters Garden and RBN site have a huge overlap in volunteer workers.
Our children visit and study the River at the RBN site.

Soon they will be able to visit the other side of the river as well,
which is spectacular.

RBN,  with Friends of the Chicago River helped to initiate that project back in ..... 1998!

I would encourage you to come to the event, 
or make an extra donation. 
Our riverbank has never looked better. 
Mostly because for the past year or so
we have been able to pay 
adult riverbank workers, 
with experience, 
and stamina, 
and knowledge,
to carry on the work almost daily,
to organize and lead additional work crews,
and to keep the energy high and happy.
We've also been able to purchase materials:
cedar split rail fencing,
refreshments for workers, 
signage and plants.

The unique relationship between Waters and RBN begs the question:
don't we also have a strong relationship to Sauganash in the Forest Preserves,
and all of those sites under restorations?
And Montrose Point and the spectacular dune ecology that is re-asserting itself?
And the railroad native areas planted by the American Indian Center and Community groups organized by the Alderman's office?
Do you know what that looks like to me?
These are pieces of a once whole mosaic of natural beauty
being reassembled, 
painstakingly,
bit by bit from the ruins of "progress"?
The school gardens?
Little Gompers Park?
The restoration at Eugene Field?
At River Park?

Jeff Skrentny (birder, Waters' family, restorationist) said that when migrating birds reach Sauganash, the southern terminus of the Forest Preserve District, 
and look out over the vista, 
they say 
"Shoot...!"
Nothing! No food, no shelter.
But today, 
if they fly up a bit, 
or the Monarchs fly up...
they can see islands of sustenance,
way stations for life,
for survival,
for one more chance, 
one small weight put on the balance between life and extinction.
We are doing that!

Join us!
Dance. 
Eat.
Drink.
Sing.
Love.
and Work.
Work hard!
It is the best thing we can do.
For our kids, 
our families, 
our communities
and our world.
Our Future.

Riverbank Neighbors Fundraiser at Half Acre
4257 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL 60618

Ticket price: $45 before July 24, $50 at the door
Ticket includes: house beers and sodas, taco bar, live music, and brewery tours.
This is a 21+ event. 
Space is limited!
​Buy your tickets online or make a donation.
or contact Sue Murray to pay in cash or check.
Find out more.

-Mr. Leki


 

.... hair flying up,
eyes wide, 
knuckles drained of blood:
the last week of school!

In ecology it looks like this:
For 1st Grade Trees:
Monday, June 12, 
11:30, Room 208
12:10, Room 210
12:50, Room 211
1st Grade greets the opportunity to display their knowledge about the trees of Waters School. 
Any parent that wants to witness this event is my guest. 
It is an amazing thing. 
I passed one of our students in the alley this weekend, on my bike. 
He said, "Mr. Leki, look what I found," and held up a seed. 
Correcting for deafness, I finally turned and asked, 
"What is it?"
"Silver maple," he said. !!!!
Lessons learned early.
Recognition of family ties!

I have no doubt that all the classes will do well.
I have struggled over the years with the idea of "competition":
between kids, 
teams, 
or rooms.
We came to a solution that brought students in each room together as "teams" 
that would confer and collaborate to decide on the best choice for an answer to the 50 questions posed. 
They have every reason to cheer their classmates on, 
since they are one big team. 
That in itself is wonderful to witness:
the intense discussion,
the dissent, 
the arrival at a decision.
The rooms "compete" with each other,
but only to the extent that there is an inevitable (minor) variable between results. 
Any room that answers 90% correct, 
in total, which includes every classroom in the last five years,
has achieved excellence (in my view).
Each room receives a "cookie" trophy,
a slice of tree trunk that states their achievement. 
These "trophies" go back 6-7 years now and stay on display for the next school year.  
This feels so good to me,
to establish a "tradition" 
an excitement about our trees.
As the song says :
"Oh the trees 
Oh the trees of our neighbor hood
I will love them just like my own friends."

I don't know how the school year ended so quickly.
But we have yet another chunk of work to do with 1st Grade.
On Tuesday, all three 1st grades will visit the garden to complete three tasks:
*a crayon rendering on 11X17 paper of one of the ancient trees on Waters School,
the bur oaks

(this is the back cover of their book) 
((if you don't know why these trees are sacred, please contact me soon)),
*also, a leaf rubbing, on 8.5 X 11 of a selection of our trees for the cover of the kids books,
and....
* the medallions!
Each year, 
I slice sections of local tree branches to create circular medallions.
The kids select,
sand, 
oil,
and create wonderful necklaces, 
often the same age as themselves,
to remember that they are kin to trees. 

Schedule:
Tuesday, June 13,
Room 211  10:00 am
Room 208  11:30
Room 210  12:15
Please , please join us,

especially if you like to do art stuff. 

Later in the week we will work to add these last two pieces to the kids:
 Field Guides to the Trees of Waters School. 
Work on these is on-going and we hope to be finished by Friday ( or Monday... or Tuesday...not Wednesday next week)

Pheewwww,
Then, 
Tuesday, June 13, 
2 minutes after we finish with 1st grade, 
8th grade is coming out for our traditional feast of homemade pizza,
and ice cold, 
home-made fruit drinks
from 1:15 until going home time. 
Kids will be juicing lemons, 
blending gooseberries and currants, 
rolling pizza dough, spreading garden pizza sauce, 
loading it in to the oven of friend / gardener / neighbor Sarah, 
and having one of their last, big garden activities together. 
No need to say, 
we will need help setting up , 
making it happen, 
and cleaning up. 
And it will be HOT!

Wednesday is Awards day, 
where we will be thanking our 8th grade compost and recycling captains for their exceptional, 
day in
day out, 
fall, winter and spring work for mother Earth.
This amounts to printing out beautiful certificates and saying a few words. 
Anyone like to do certs?

Also, I will be rehearsing with the Kinder kids for their graduation, 
accompanying them on 
"We are the World"
and 
"Tomorrow"
beautiful songs that should be in every child's repertoire. 

On Thursday!
Recycling Luncheon for ALL recycling captains.
Help needed from 10:30 till 1:00 
setting up the food and drink, 
fetching pizza, 
serving  these wonderful workers 
for their fine efforts over the past year. 

On Friday I will attend 8th grade graduation  
and attempt to keep myself together by working  in the garden afterwards. 

Another moment,
of stars, 
planets, 
people, 
beloved ones. 

More to come, 
Mr Leki

Tree book prep is so fun ...
... and interesting!
These 1st graders have been working for months
trying to make sense,
to differentiate (teacher term)
one leaf  from another,
one seed from another,...etc
I can only imagine, 
that from their POV this was bogus,
just another demand put on them by the big system....
But the leaves themselves, 
each one unique, 
each one different from the other trees,
must be like growing up!
Each day a crazy surprise and revolution from yesterday's view of reality.
If only you could be with me over these weeks and months,
to see their faces, 
their distractions (hand sanitizers????)
their discussions and arguments,
leading finally to next Monday, 
where they will test their knowledge,
work with each other (@#$%^&*()
 to find consensus on an important question like:
"Which tree has its seed within a pod that is bright green,
smells like lemon ..."
What you will see is a team furiously discussing this issue, 
and gradually, 
almost always, 
coming to a correct answer to a question 
that is basic to their  (our) world:
What is it?
Who do we share this planet with?

So, 
we are desperately trying to put together the children's work from this year, 
into "Field Guides to the Trees of Waters School". 
This is just pasting up the kids work and drinking coffee or tea. 
Want to help???
I know tomorrow is Field Day 
and I don't want to pull a single person from that, 
but if you need a break, 
come to the Conference room and Witness this wonderful work, 
Mr. Leki

​Beautiful Spring weather and how can anyone stay inside?
There has been a parade of classrooms visiting the garden, looking for bugs, inspecting flowers, collecting this and that. 1st grade had lettuce tacos last week.

We are heading into the final days of this school year and it is hard to believe it.
Next Monday 1st Grade will demonstrate their prowess in Tree ID, working in teams to answer 50 tree clues with a correct response. They have been working hard all year.  I hope, with help,  to have have the "Trees of Waters School" Field Guide ready for each of them: jam packed with their leaf collection and all the work they have done this past year. There is ALOT of pasting and collating and stapling  to do. I am going to get set up this morning with the files from each room, reams of construction paper and pots of glue. Anyone wishing to help please contact me and you can come in whenever your schedule allows. Many thanks.

Our Recycler's Luncheon will be on Thursday June 15th during the student's regular lunch period.  I will need help setting up, running for pizza, pouring our special lemonade / garden berry juice, and serving garden salad. Once again let me know if you can assist and watch this very dedicated group of kids be honored in this way.

I am putting out a schedule for several classes to come out to the garden on Friday! (I know, Field Day) to have some work and eating experiences. Classrooms will sign up as they are available. More next week. Stay tuned and I will post the times on Thursday.

Many Thanks, 

Mr. Leki

Dear Friends, 
Our week in ecology starts with May Day!
For most of us May Day means a plea for assistance when a boat is sinking.
But May Day is known throughout the world as International Workers Day!
And it started here in Chicago as an Homage to the Haywarket Martyrs, 
a group of trade union leaders framed for the death (by an anarchist bomb) of some police during a big rally. This is a song I wrote .... 30 years ago when I worked at a pump factory. I wish I could sing it for you some day:


A hundred years ago
So the story goes
Folks were working 16 hours for the boss
And so they organized a strike
Parsons grabbed the mike
Made all the factory owners so up-tight
He said ,"Friends there is another way 
We're into battle for the eight hour day!"

Give it Up!
Give it Up!
Into battle for the eight hour day

Well, it occurred to me
Cuz you could plainly see 
1000 people waiting to take my job from me
And they got bills to pay
They got kids to raise
My friends laid off
While I work 12  hours a day
There just got to be a better way
Into battle for the six hour day.

Tell all the kids
Writing on the walls
Tell all the cashiers 
Workin' at the malls
And you can tell them at the mills
Working on the drills  
Tell 'em at the hot dog stand 
and Capitol Hill
We're not talking 'bout no cut in pay
We're into Battle for the six hour day.
Give it up!

Monday May 1 there was another march for worker's and immigrant rights. 
While the main rally and march began at 1:00 p.m. in Union Park, concluded around with another rally at 4:00 p.m. in Daley Plaza, actions throughout the city began as early as 6:30 a.m., while the Chicago Teachers Union held five different rallies at neighborhood public schools.
I was there as in the past. It is astounding to see the many facets of the popular movement: for peace, for work, for Justice ...  When will there be a harvest for the world?  Maybe it's a-coming!

On Wednesday, May 3, Room 308, 5th grade traveling to the resplendent Sauganash Priarie Grove to bid adieu to their time as  Mighty Acorns, reflect on the good work that they have done, and help remove invasive weeds to make room for a rebound of the native plant community. We leave at 9:30am and return at 1:15. Meet at the fish tank at 9:00 for a briefing. Pack a picnic lunch!

On Thursday, May 4,  Room 307, 4th Grade  travels to Sauganash to have a closer look at the native wildflowers. In class we learned about the cascade of unlikely miracles that goes into reproduction: the creation of a new generation of seeds and the array of diversity created. Where is the "brain" in a plant? The root? The flower? The Seed? How on earth does the plant know what to do next: from sprouting to flowering? Turns out that if you look very, very closely at a bit of plant tissue, you can discern a pattern that looks like a brick wall: the cells. Tiny brick with rigid walls. You can make out a little dark spot in each. If you zoom in another 2,000X you would see that this structure, the nucleus, is filled with spaghetti: pasta so fine that if it were stretched out instead of tangled, it would be many feet long. If you zoom closer, you will see that it is not a single strand, but two strands.....These strands are the "brain", many million copies, one in each cell, hard to believe, spectacular. Anyway, this lesson goes on and on and leaves me vibrating with the unlikely miraculousness of it all.  I think the kids get part of that ,too.
On Thursday we will be looking at the flowers in a new way, closer, seeing all the repeated patterns, and all the distinctions between species.  They will look for flowers with three petals, four petals, five, six, eight,and more petals. They are all there. 
We leave at 9:30 a.m. and return at 1:15 p.m. Meet at the fish tank at 9:00 a.m. for a briefing. Pack a picnic lunch!


Friday, May 5, Room 301, 7th Grade will travel by CTA to Montrose Point to go a-fishing in the Harbor. It is part of a lesson in Lake Michigan food web and invasive species.  After lunch at the Yacht Club, they will walk to the beach and, in teams, collect debris, natural and man made, and construct a composition: fanciful or literal, reflecting that moment, that place, and those kids, within a "framework" in the sand. They will present to each other. We will take photographs, then remove the man made stuff (garbage) and scatter the natural items. It has been a lovely activity in the past. Hopefully the day will be warm and sunny.  We leave at 9:00, and return just before dismissal. Pack a lunch.  Hope you can join us.

Garden night Wednesday 5:00 p.m. until dark.

Mr. Leki

River Action Days
My old friend Laurene Von Klan, past head of friends of the River, then head of the Nature Museum, and currently living in LA reviving rivers there and working on her surfing skills,
well, 10 years ago she proposed that during big storm events we refrain from use of water that ends up in the sewer: yup! hold on dish washing, laundry, showers, even ... flushing. If five million people cooperated, delayed the urge for eight, 10, 12, 20 hours, we could avoid making the decision to allow untreated wastewater to enter the river system. 
Today, this is MWRD policy! See press release.
Take it to heart. It is a small inconvenience, that, practiced by multitudes, could change the world. 

River Summit
Ready to swim!? I think I wrote about the very hopeful and forward looking conference that anticipates the regularization of places for swimming in the Chicago River. During non-storm interludes, the river settles, the water clears, the smell diminishes, and the bacteriological assessment of this water says: safe to swim. Obviously there are other factors that preclude the impulse to plunge, 
but,
that did not stop....

 ... Two burglars that took the plunge to avoid capture by police after crashing a stolen car. 
Can you imagine the discussion:
"Dude, they're coming. I read an article that said it's alright to swim in the river ..."
"Stop!"
Plunge. 
A half hour later they were dragged out.
Health results pending.

Lanyon at Sultzer
25 years ago Waters School 
and Riverbank Neighbors hooked up with Richard Lanyon, 
then Superintendant of the Water Reclamation District, 
to assume management of the riverbank from Berteau to Montrose. 
Dick became a fast friend, 
he is an alumni of Waters Elementary School!!!, 
a progressive voice in leadership of this vast, 
serious, important and ground-breaking institution. 
Dick retired some years ago but continues to research, write, publish, and advocate for the River. 
On Wednesday night, (tomorrow) at 7:00 p.m.
he will be presenting at Sulzer Library about the advent of the modern CAWS (Chicago Area Waterways System) from the original vast, diverse, wetland that was post glacial Chicago. 

The forecast for tomorrow's Garden night is cold and rainy. 
Good to keep in mind that we changed our "opening" day for gardening when daylight savings time changed, two, three, four, five years ago, 
to take advantage of the extra hour of light. 
Maybe we should have waited for May?
Anyway, it's not surprising that the work nights have been rained out or called off. 
That's early Spring. 

So tomorrow night, 
some of us might go to the garden, 
but then go to the Library to honor Richard Lanyon,
his research and curiosity, 
and our very fruitful relationship over the past 20+ years. 

Mr. Leki