Body, Mind and Spirit

"’While there are plenty of schools that promote being smart as the pinnacle, Olney Friends School believes in a deep commitment to goodness as well as intelligence,’ says Sidwell, the head of school at Olney. ‘The curriculum is built around the premise of 'God in everyone.'

The idea of ‘God in everyone’ is a root belief for the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers. It informs all that is done at the school in Barnesville, Ohio.

At Olney and beyond — in religious and nonreligious private schools, as well as public schools across the country — this philosophy is known as holistic education. Holistic education asserts that everything is connected; everything is in relationship.

Holistic educators, in the words of Parker J. Palmer, ‘must commit to being authentic adults ... whose lives are built around caring for new lives.’ Palmer has come to be a leading voice about spirituality and education.

One need not venture very far into the school to find this commitment to goodness, intelligence and relationship at Olney.

Meet Musa, a 17-year-old senior from the West Bank who has been at Olney for three years. His parents are in Palestine, and Musa hasn't been able to visit them; Olney has become his family. Musa grew up taking religion classes in Islamic fundamentalism; not surprisingly, Olney has been a life-changing experience for him. ‘I've taken the women's studies class, and now I even know the difference between 'gender' and 'sex,'’ he says proudly. Musa has a quick answer for what he most prizes at Olney: ‘Open-mindedness. . .’

‘At any time,’ Sidwell explains, ‘a classroom or faculty meeting may turn into a 'tuning session' where we pause and look for unity.’ Such introspection helps define curricula for teachers and students alike at Olney . . .

Melissa Poole, teacher and dean of students at Olney, said concepts of self and identity are at the heart of the 9th-grade humanities curriculum: What is identity? How is our identity shaped? Who or what impacts it? What is our individual personal responsibility in our own identity's formation and growth?

Such questions become vital considering 20 percent of the students at Olney Friends School are from different countries. Students speak different languages, are of different races and ethnicities, come from different socioeconomic classes, are shaped by different faiths and have different learning abilities. . .

Students are multifaceted, a combination of strengths and weaknesses. Olney students put on several musical plays throughout the year, for example, and students participate regardless of musical abilities. Conant described one student who had a prominent solo and sang ‘terribly and happily’ as a full participant. When finished, there was a burst of applause and acclaim because the student had successfully tried something difficult. At Olney, it's OK to be off-key.

Sam, 15, is an openly gay student from Columbus, Ohio, who plans to spend an academic year abroad in Costa Rica. He says he cherishes Olney's supportive and nurturing environment.

When asked what lessons he hopes to take with him when he leaves Olney, Sam describes a teacher who took time every day at lunch to have a glass of orange juice with him, a special time beyond any classroom project or lesson, one of Sidwell's ‘tuning session’ moments. ‘Relationships are what I'll take with me,’ Sam says. ‘An appreciation of community.’

Jeff Sapp is a curriculum specialist and writer for Teaching Tolerance. He points out that private schools are not the sole province of holistic education. Plenty of public school educators consider themselves holistic educators, too.

Two decades ago we had a Colombian graduate student whose father had enrolled him in an English-language high school. This gave him the opportunity to work, as a college student, hosting groups of North American student tours. Most, he said, scathingly, took the view that “we were little brown people who needed help running our country.” There was one group, he said, from a Quaker school, who came wanting to learn. He had no idea I was a Quaker. And PBS’s NOVA program recently described a woman physics professor at Rice, Naomi Halas. Speaking of barriers to women, she said she had attended Bryn Mawr College, which was friendly to women. Bryn Mawr has strong Quaker connections. So some people are doing things right. If you want to know more about Olney School, ask Dmitri.

April Business Meeting

Jen Moran’s request that Meeting permit her father, who has bought the property to the east of the meetinghouse, to connect to the sewer line which runs along the eastern boundary was approved.

Janet Southwood presented the report of Outreach, noting the visits of Julie Harlow of Friends House Moscow, Adrien Niyongabo of Friends Peace Teams in Burundi, and the Friends Peace Teams Coordinating Committee. FPT runs AVP workshops there and would welcome donations. We have heard from Earlham School of Religion asking if they may use our mailing list, from advocates of the Peace Tax Fund, and an Express-News reporter wanting to write an article about the Meeting. We are seeking more information.

Denise Wilkinson is arranging for a change of website with Colby Glass, who has generously offered to pay any expenses. The name will be something like quakers-sanantonio.org.

A request from the Re-formed Congregation of the Goddess for the use of another room for their daughters was approved. We need to prepare a statement of conditions for use of the meetinghouse. This matter was referred to M&O.

Ken Southwood gave the Meetinghouse Development Committee’s report. A contract has been signed with Breda Construction at a cost of $265,078. Extra costs will be incurred for architect’s and engineer’s inspections and for change orders. Meeting approved that four change orders, totaling approximately $4,380 be sent to the corporation meeting for approval on May 1. The installation of a sunscreen at the east end and metal-wrapped ducts instead of fiberglass were not recommended. A number of other items were deferred, for consideration when the meetingroom is complete. An outlay of about $160 for bathroom fixtures was approved.

The building is expected to be completed by mid-August. Should this not happen, the builder will not receive the 10% of costs which have been retained until completion. Meeting approved that the corporation be asked to agree that construction items costing $5,000 or less may be approved by Business Meeting without recourse to the corporation. The purchase of builder’s liability insurance during the construction phase, at a cost not to exceed $1,500, was approved.

Craig Bejnar reported that, while expenses had exceeded contributions in March, the accounts for 2005 so far are balanced. An increase in Lucy’s hourly rate from $14 to $15.75 was warmly approved.

It was agreed that, to avoid delay, Janet Southwood would be added as a check signature in case Bill Wilkinson and Craig Bejnar were out of town when a large check became due.

Arizona Minutemen Driven Largely By Sense of Insecurity, Victimization

“The vigilantes patrolling the Mexico-US border have received lots of attention, but a closer look reveals complex, often contradictory motives and a cynical, almost desperate worldview. . .

[The project is] . . . the fulfillment of a dream for Gilchrist, 56, a retired accountant and Vietnam War veteran from southern California. Last October he sent out what he now calls the ‘email heard round the world,’ asking for volunteers to come to Arizona and become ‘part of a blocking force against entry into the US by illegal aliens [in order to] protect our country from a 40-year-long invasion.’ . . . most simultaneously claimed victimization at the hands of undocumented immigrants.

Around the protesters, a handful of people wore red and white shirts denoting them as self-proclaimed legal observers. One of these volunteers was Caroline Isaacs, director of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). She said the AFSC, in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, planned to monitor the activities of the Minutemen throughout the month-long operation. ‘We already know which roads they will be using, and so we will drive along the same roads until we find them, and set up ten to fifteen feet away,’ she said. ‘We’ll tell law enforcement anytime we see people’s civil rights being violated.’ “

Yet, do we not need to listen also to those feeling insecurity and victimization?

Don't Think of an Elephant!

This book is an antidote to the last forty years of core conservative dominance of the national public policy debate. It explains how core conservatives think, and how to counter their arguments by talking in terms of values instead of programs. People tend to support policies which align with their values and identities, but which often run counter to their best interests. He outlines in detail the traditional American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways in which hardline conservatives have framed the issues to focus our attention in ways that favor the objectives they are promoting, such as defining our response to 911 as a "war on terrorism" rather than a "crime scene investigation" as we had done with the Murrow Federal Office Building destruction and provides examples of how progressives can respectfully reframe issues. For example: In the first of his three debates with George W. Bush, 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry argued against the war in Iraq not by directly condemning it but by citing the various ways in which airport and commercial shipping security had been jeopardized due to the war's sizable price tag. In so doing, he re-framed the war issue to his advantage while avoiding discussing it in the global terrorism terms favored by President Bush.

Ginger and Jim Kenney

Ginger and Jim will present a 3 day seminar at Intermountain YM on Beyond War.

A Nomination Analogy

May 1 Sunday ....Potluck lunch. No Forum. Brief Corporation Meeting.
May 8, Sunday....9 a.m., discussion of Quaker By Convincement
	Forum – to be decided by Peace and Social Concerns Committee.
May 13, Friday .. Bring and Share evening, 7 pm at the Meetinghouse
May 15, Sunday... Business meeting.
May 19, Thursday.. Midweek meeting at the Drennons, 7 pm
May 22, Sunday ... Haji Om ar Shakir and Al-Hajji Asmar Townes 
	describe the Hajj pilgrimage.
May 29, Sunday ... Forum – Worship Sharing on Advice and Query