Thursday, September 17, 2009

Fancy Hair, and the Children are Singing for Peace

One of the many things that I love about Montessori is that peace is actually a subject on the curriculum. In the girls' class they talk about it a lot, and one of the kindergarten works that I'm looking forward to for Will is this thing called "Our Peaceful Classroom." I'm also, in my role as Parents' Library librarian for the school, transferring all of these conference proceedings from cassette to CD (oh, what a pain in the butt!), and it's interesting to hear all kinds of conference talks about teaching peace and modeling peace and practicing peace for all the age levels of Montessori.

Anyway, there's usually at least one big ceremony for peace during each school year. Last year, the Peace Pole was dedicated (thankfully during the morning preschool, because this ceremony has also become famous as The Hornet Attack of 2008, In Which the School's Emergency Preparedness Plan was Put to Use and Many Small Children Were Traumatized), but this year the girls will be joining their classmates and 65, 807 other children in Montessori schools across the world in a chain that will sing a single song about peace for 24 continuous hours. The song is called "Light a Candle for Peace," written by a Montessori teacher in Canada, and it's a simple, benign little ditty, as sweet as a homemade cookie. I know this because the girls have been "practicing" nonstop:

Willow's got the words down pretty well when she's not being distracted, but I think it's funny how Sydney clearly knows less than a quarter of the words, and will just sort of sing "Peace, peace!" over and over in her own little tune, or join in with the lyrics about a half-beat behind her sister. Perfect little ambassadors to the world, don't you think?


In other news, the girls requested "fancy hair," for School Picture Day, with some exacting requirements, and me, ME, me the person who has actually buzz-cut my own head for years at a time just to avoid having to fix my hair, I listened to these exacting requirements, I bought BOBBY PINS, lord help me, and then I created this unto my children:
Here's a close-up so you can witness the wonder of my bobby pin action:
I was afraid the girls would get teased at school, bless their hearts--their tastes are so wonderful and so eccentric, and I dread the day that eccentricity gets beaten out of them--but of course they didn't get teased, they got loaded up with compliments, and now I fear that every day may be Fancy Hair Day around here.

2 comments:

5 orange potatoes said...

I think the song is so cute and I just love the hair. It had to have taken quite a while to do though! I wish we were closer I think our four little ladies would get along great. My girls like to wearn their hair in eccentric ways too, well Fauna is getting a little girly perfect hair on me lately! She has a new attitude since she turned 8!

how's the book publishing going? I've thought about trying that myself but the time to do it needs to be balanced into the day.

And what a nightmare of a story you shared about your babe and the lead test then the roseola!
lisa

Abby said...

LOVE the hair. They look like Bjork! LOVE IT!