Dear Friends, 
I'm off to the Teacher Rally, really a rally for us all!
With good luck, courage, steadfastness, and new city leadership 
a deal may be struck that will benefit all our children and neighborhoods.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 15, 2019, 2nd Grade Room 204 will visit the river to study the trees, flowers and animals and the weather. Join us right after drop off and we will organize ourselves. We leave at 8:30 and return at 10:30.

On Wednesday, October 16, 3rd grade Room 202, makes its first sojourn to  Sauganash prairie grove as Mighty Acorns.  They will seek out the 5 different ecosystems there, and practice the arts of "woodcraft", moving safely and respectfully in wild places. they will also do their part by gathering rare wild seeds. 
Join us at 9:00 for a briefing. Bus leaves at 9:30, back by 1:15, picnic lunch!

Wednesday night is our regular Garden Night at 5:00 until dark.

On Thursday, October 17, contract settlement willing, Kindergarden will be harvesting potatoes. 
Room 105 at 8:45
Room 107 at 9:35
Room 108 at 11:30
All hands on deck.  We will be harvesting, 
exploring the compost pile for bugs, and.... another activity, TBA.

On Friday, October 18, 7th Grade Room 302 will visit the Lake at Montrose Point.
We will take the CTA. leaving at 9:00, back by 2:00. Join us for this glorious trip. 

Jam packed week with glorious fall weather.
With gratitude, 
Pete

Dear Friends, 
Waters Ecology Program is Unique! It grew out of an educational philosophy adopted over 25 years ago. It sprouted in a land with no soil, but a remarkable natural history (giant oaks, the river bed below us). It was created bit by bit, by a community that had little means but very much heart. It grew year by year by creating and nurturing partnerships with science and advocacy groups around the city.  It is premised on the essential role parents play as guides and explorers. So that today, Waters students receive 9 years of field experience in ecology: the study of how this world, how Life, works. 
And, we receive no support from CPS! Well, a little from conducting composting workshops. But all the rest of the  funding for the Ecology and Garden programs is self generated, through grant writing, and through donations from our school community. We are in the middle of a fundraising effort and I hope, if you are able, you will contribute. Donations of all size are deeply appreciated, as is your on-going participation in the field and in the garden.
The Gardens are an essential part of the ecology program as well: an immense laboratory and storehouse of biology and beauty. It is used daily by classrooms from K-8 that receive access to a carousel of form and beauty, sounds, smells and tastes. 24-7 it serves as a meeting place for families and neighbors, a place for meditation and conversation. 
You can learn more and make a donation at waterstoday.org/pledgedrive

Dear Friends, 
I predict great Fall weather,
a hot pizza oven, 
woodsy smell of a grill burning,
wonderful pot luck surprises (no nuts!)
for the special BAC Garden Day Saturday 10-2..
We are still looking for musicians to share a song or two during and after lunch.
Face painters,
work group leaders, 
food crew, 
and clean up crew. 
Can't wait to see you, 
Mr. Leki

​Dear Friends, 
Does anyone know how to make pizza dough?
Would anyone like to host a pizza dough making party at their house before Saturday?
Does anyone have room in the fridge for 30-40 pizza dough blobs?
The pizza fire needs to be started 2-3 hours before noon to reach the needed heat levels.
If we can't get it together for pizza, we will get the grills going.
Mr. Leki

Dear Friends, 
Tomorrow morning (Thursday) I will be hosting volunteers to help prepare field journals for the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th grades from drop off until 10:30 in the Conference Room. Join us when and if you can and I will provide some delicious coffee and/or tea. 

Tonite, at garden night  besides doing garden tasks, we will be creating signs for the Climate Strike on Friday.
I have posters and markers and paints. Can you craft a powerful message to support our students and their concerns about the future of our planet??
I will also be making, with help, a very fine pico de gallo to go along with quesadillas later in the evening. Come and learn the secret recipe.

Friday's Climate strike events are still in flux, but it looks like a neighborhood gathering at Welles Park at 9:30, leaving for Grant Park at 10:30.  Some school families are organizing to march to Lincoln Square after school. I support it all. We all need to help each other to do better and more, and take the difficult political actions needed to make a CHANGE!

On Sunday, September 22, Riverbank Neighbors, an intrinsic and local climate change action advocate will celebrate the Autumn Equinox at Hutchinson and the River, from noon until 3:00. It is a pot luck (no nuts, please), open stage and community sharing. Come for ten minutes or the whole time to help us celebrate our work and community.

Please check the school calendar for upcoming events as I have tried to keep it up-to-date.
Thanks, 
Mr. Leki

Dear Friends, 
I am re-doing the Mighty Acorns workshop for parents (especially 3rd grade parents) because I didn't give sufficient notice last week (only 2 people came). This time, tho, we can work on journals while we talk about parents' critical role in Mighty Acorns. After drop off until 10:00 am in the conference room.

Hornworm
Last Friday I brought a Hornworm to school to show to the little ones, Kindergarden and 1st Grade, as they gathered before school. It was so wonderful to watch the wonder (sometimes fear) in every face, child and adult,  as they took in this miraculous living thing. The hornworm is the larval stage of the Hawk Moth, an important pollinator of native orchids. It is a large, strong flyer, hovering in front of flowers and extending the world's longest moth tongue inside for nectar. They feed on Solanum species, including tomatoes and potatoes. If you see tomato branches stripped of its leaves, search for this well disguised visitor, forgive the trespass, and wish it well. More than 20 years ago I wrote of my experience with this caterpillar in the Chicago Reader. Here is the link if you are interested in the incredible transformations that take place, hour after hour, day, week and years on end.

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/field--street/Content?oid=885078  

Mr. Leki

Dear Ecology Volunteers, 

I had the fine opportunity Friday 
to meet with the 8th grade, 
in the garden. 
I realized, over the summer, 
with the help of the CAPE Summer  Ecology team (Hooper / Collins)
that I had not, 
programatically, 
told the story of our school, 
the grounds, 
our local natural history, 
the river, 
the oaks, 
the people....

So, I have tried,
as many times as possible, 
in these first days of school, 
to tell the story 
and to let the kids take it in, 
by way of tomatoes and cucumbers and pickles, etc. 

The story itself, 
if you haven't heard it, 
is a good one. 
Maybe I will try to tell it at the Autumn Garden Day,
Saturday, September 28, 10 -2:00.

But, as I write this, 
we are less than one week from the Climate Strike Day
called by Greta Thurnberg, 
the savant,
child - spirit that has entered our world and consciousness, 
asking us Why?
Why are we not taking any meaningful actions to stop the death spiral of climate change? 
On this one week away moment, 
I invite you to watch and listen to this young woman
explain herself. 
I earlier in the year sent a link of her narrative in musical form. 
But this link is from Democracy Now!,
a 45 minute exclusive interview with this exceptional person. 
I watched it with my grandchild, Nicole, 
about the same age, 
and with many of the same expressive facial mannerisms, 
and self-effacing style. 
There is something special about young people communicating with each other w/o adult intervention, 
but with adult interest. 
This child is asking us, 
in no uncertain terms, 
to take action to secure their future. 
But they are not waiting for us. 
they are taking action on their own, 
like Greta, 
leaving school, 
to sit at the Swedish Parliament every Friday, 
declaring that she was on Strike!
What was the point of studying and learning in a world bent on self-destruction? she asked.
Watch the interview with your child,
or by yourself. 
And consider where we are going and what we should do.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis  

Mr. Leki 

Below is the Summer email fyi


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rPC6oC_5rU  

That is Greta Thunberg, one brave, young person demanding her right to a future on this beautiful planet.  Our school, and garden and riverbank represent our attempts, over the past decades, to create a different and more healthy and ecologically sound way of living. Yet we must strive to do more: to decrease our use of fossil fuels by reducing our driving and flying. To grow more food, to eat and buy locally. To lower our consumption level and spend more time caring for each other, our community and planet.
But, we need to engage politically as well, demanding strong action by our government to institute urgent changes in policy. It is a bit dismaying that though our new addition will have some sort of LEED certification, it will not have a single Solar panel on its extensive roof. Why isn't this a requirement? We need policies that make carbon neutral buildings a requirement, the norm. 
Let's listen to Greta and take action

Dear Friends, 
So often Garden Night brings the unexpected. Yesterday was so hot and muggy, I decided we would all do one thing: clear the weeds from the Kindergarden potato patch in preparation for harvesting. It was shady at least. And we got it done. We were all sticky and greasy with sweat. We had visitors from Rodgers Park, and our former Alderman Ameya Pawar visiting. There were lots of people and some gardeners wanted to make a fire for cooking even tho we were cooking with  out fire.
But at about 7:00, as the sky was beginning to dim,
we were looking up northward, at a swarm of dragon flies doing aerial ballet,
when we noticed simultaneously something strange going on in the sky. a huge, swirling disc shaped clod formation, like a starship taking up half the sky.
It was turbulent, and approaching. It was so astonishingly beautiful that we stopped and set up benches just to watch. It kept shifting and changing and then it would be pierced, illuminated, back lit and shockingly shot through with brilliant lightning, and the deep belly rumbles of lightning. The winds picked up, and the temperature dropped. But, it was hypnotic and difficult to leave. By this time the night had fallen and the cloud / lightning display became more dramatic, with endless forked, and even circular strikes of lightning. One family left, out the gate at Sunnyside, then came running back, like town cryers: "The Moon! The Moon!" And sure enough, in the clear southeast sky and almost full moon was coming up like a giant orange pumpkin. Tiny droplets of rain like some gift, a mist-er to cool us. What a night.

It reminded me of that beautiful song by Bob Dylan. Almost all the lyrics came back to me and I have reprinted them here for you. You don't have to read them all at once. But they are as fresh relevant today as when they were written in 1964. It is a song that sides with the underdogs "the abandoned and pursued and refugees on the unarmed road of flight". It reminded be that in 1998 or so, Waters School accepted hundreds of students and families who were refugees from the wars in the former Yugoslavia and from Central America. In a year long project there stories were collected, turned into artwork, the mosaic tile, and installed on the stepping stones and bench in a newly created garden at the front entrance of the school: The Journeys and Refuge garden. I was very happy this week to be able to share this story with our sixth graders, at a time when refugees are being treated like criminals.

Well, I hope our school still stands as a safe harbor for all those in need. And this Earth continues to inspire us with displays of brilliance and transcendence.

Here's the song:

Chimes of Freedom
Bob Dylan
Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Through the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsake'd
Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Source: LyricFind

Mr. Leki

​Hello Friends, 
I have received many responses from teachers to my invitation to make use of, as in, visit and share the wonder of, the Gardens. Often teachers venture out on their own, with their class, to get some air, to decompress, or cool off, without  a plan in mind.  For me, I have a hard time keeping the attention and focus of 30 kids, so, I always try to gather up some extra help from our volunteer community. This allows me to divide the class into smaller group and activity stations.  So, if you see a class on my schedule bound for the garden (ecology activities are all posted on the school calendar), and if you have the desire and time, please join us. Every teacher appreciates an extra set of eyes and hands.  And, it is a way for parents to experience the methods and philosophy that we cherish at the school: hands on, real life experiences for learning and doing. 
Here's the schedule so far:

Monday, Sept. 9, after drop off from 8:30 until 9:30, parents, especially parents of 3rd graders who will beginning the Mighty Acorns experience, are invited to a workshop in the Conference room (ecology office) to learn about their important role as "guides" and co-explorers on these trips into the wild.  I will make coffee and tea available to all. I think it is a good story, and an important one. Tho' it focuses on parents of 3rd graders, all are welcome.  

At 9:30 (until 10:30)all three kindergardens will get training in how to sort their lunch waste. The Kinder teachers are deciding the order. I appreciate the chance to take special time to introduce these sweet small humans into the culture of waste reduction. Any and all are welcome to witness and help. We will be in the sorting section of the lunchroom. 

At 1:15 all newly appointed Recycling Captains, from 1st to 4th grade, will attend a workshop explain their role and responsibilities. 

After that, at ~ 1:45, I will scoot out to the garden, to meet Ms. Nunez-Johnson's 1st Grade class, to tell the story of our grandmother/father oak trees, a quick history of this land and our garden. Ms. Collins and Ms. Hooper invited me to talk to their summer school arts / ecology class on this subject. They had asked if I regularly share this story with our students, and I realized that I did not. So this is a beginning to fix that omission. It is a beautiful, heart breaking and warming story of the land. 
After the storytelling, the students will take time to render, in their own way, an image of one of our oaks. It will be part of their final product : A Field Guide to the Trees of Waters School. Obviously, help and supervision will enhance this activity. 

At 2:15, I will do the Recycling Captain training for grades 5 thru 8.
That's Monday.

One Tuesday, Sept 10, the three 6th grades will visit the garden to work and learn, from 1:15 until 3:00. We will be pulling weeds, raking and sweeping, picking seeds, and hauling wood chips, with possibly a time for read aloud and a garden treat of tomatoes and cukes.  Help appreciated. 

On Wednesday we will repeat the 6th grade visits.Same times. The students are MAPP testing in the morning, and the garden visit are a stress antidote.

Wednesday Night from 5 until dark, is Garden Night, full of work, fun, learning, friends, fire and food. 

Other classes and grades will be visiting but have not yet scheduled. So, look for updates. 

Many thanks, 
Mr. Leki

​Dear Ecology Friends, and new families, 

School starts tomorrow. 
This is most exciting, 
and hardest for new families, 
parents of "kinder-gardeners", 
and the kids themselves. 
I saw volunteers marking off the gathering places 
for the Kinder and 1st grade kids today, 
at the patio outside the Green Wing Annex. 
I will be there tomorrow morning,  
passing out wildflowers for the kids to give  to their teachers (never hurts!).
I am very aware of how this parting with your child feels, 
especially for some parents (with less than 10 kids!)
leaving your prize, 
your flower, 
your brave little one, 
to the....
to the community that you have entered and entrusted. 
I can tell you that it is hard for many kids (and their moms and dads),
but I can assure you that there are many many people around watching, and aware, 
and ready to help and soothe and facilitate and comfort these lovely new students. 
I will be there during lunchtime, to help guide the kids through the end-of-lunch waste sorting routine. 
This experience could be considered comical, 
if one has never witnessed the bravery and baffled look in the eyes of new kinder kids as they are asked their choice of lunch selections, 
or being given instruction on sorting their lunch waste. 
It is a stress on the kids, 
.... but it can be a good stress, 
a challenge, 
if the atmosphere is full of kindness and understanding and help. 
I know our lunchroom staff. 
And they have kindness and understanding aplenty, 
So, 
if anyone would like to join me in helping our newest students learn the ropes of the waste sorting line, 
please join me at 11:00. I will meet you by the fish tank -- just inside the main entrance, under the stairwell.
Thanks. 

Also, more ruminations on Islands, like ours.....
I was thinking about Washington Island.
Thinking how "progress" spread its transformative fog over the land,
from the industrial centers,
up and out into the hinterlands, up to this remote peninsula,
and finally leapt over "Death's Door" to Washington Island.
If you drive up from Chicago you recapitulate this process.
And the farther you go, the more the "atmospheric pressure" drops, 
the cleaner the air gets,
the horizon opens,
the air quietens,
the density of humans drops.
When you cross the strait at Death's Door,
and the mists swirl around you,
and the cormorants and pelicans lead you on,
you are crossing another threshold.
And when you dock and disembark,
you are standing on a remnant. 
You are as far as progress can go.

Islands are separate.
Darwin recognized that islands are places for experiment.
On Washington Island they are experimenting with organizing a better life and community.
They are experimenting with self-sufficiency.
They are wondering about clean water,
and clean energy.
They are wondering about producing organic foods,
and producing clothes.
They are wondering about their sewage and how to handle it.
And they are wondering about transportation and gasoline,
and about propane and heating homes.
They are an Island and so they can see their borders and can imagine their limits.
They can imagine the power, coming from the mainland, being cut off,
and the supply of food, and cell phones, and batteries, and.....
ending.

Can you imagine how our lives would change if our "island" were our city block or two.
And that we were responsible to handle all our waste on site?
And all our sewage?
And produce our own energy?
And grow our own food?
Our inputs and outputs today are almost magical.
The stories of their comings and goings are shrouded in mystery.
And mostly, we don't care or pay attention or just take things for granted.

But that cannot last.
Alas, our Big Island, 
our own lovely Planet Earth,
is destabilizing under the weight of our abuse
and thoughtlessness.
What if this were the only planet we had?

Mr. Leki