Raise your hand if you've been to the cheesecake factory and had a slice of cake. Not cheesecake, plain cake. Like the chocolate fudge one or the carrot cake. Now, if your hand is raised could you please tell those without raised hands just how deeply insane the height of that slice is? Could you tell them please that it is at least a zillion layers of tasty cake and frosting? Then please tell them just how much of it you ate. OK fine if no one is willing to share how much they ate that's fine - maybe you could just raise your hand if you were sick afterward?
As for me, I'm more of a pie kind of girl. Cake just doesn't really appeal to me like warmed fruits do, go figure. So imagine, a pie lover writing about cake. I have only made this risky choice because I am very hungry and this writing is for the sake of the education of our children. And also I do like the cream cheese frosting on carrot cake so I'm not completely anti-cake.
I have often thought of education as a cake. Seriously I have. The cake part is the basics - its the cost of entry into being called a cake. Without cake part there is no...tasty dessert. So too with the fundamentals of education... without math, science, social studies and writing there isn't really an education. The frosting is really where the variety comes in. The frosting is the other stuff. For example, at the international school here in town, fluency in a second language is the frosting. At the Jewish day school, learning Hebrew and about Judaism is the icing. At my oldest daughters school, flexibility, individuality and creativity are the icing layers. You see the cake may be fine and tasty but the icing makes it rich, creamy and exciting.
Some people would never eat the cake without icing and so those educational bonuses like language, religious learning or creativity, may in fact seem central. However, without math or any of the core fundamentals Id wager that there may be some discontent with that schooling. Almost no one eats just icing but many people do eat just the cake. In other words, few people just teach their kids religion but not math but many teach just math and not religion. Some people even supplement the basics at home or with extra lessons. Kumon or other "Saturday schools". I once almost sent my kids to Japanese school on Saturdays just for this purpose - supplement with a global perspective and a little language. I didn't do it because I couldn't read the website but I did think about it.
So I have thought of education like a cake - trying to find the best balance of cake and icing, worrying over the thickness of each. Until recently that is. My most recently withdrawn-from-public-school son has been through 2 weeks at his new school. And I'm not afraid to say that it's a Friends School. Yep, we have gone Quaker. It's not religious in the sense of enforcing a set of beliefs but it is very guided by Quaker values. And those are cool although it's only been two weeks so I can't exactly remember them all. There's a peace one and an equality one for sure. All of them are nice and good and wholesome and things you would probably be at a loss to argue with wanting your kid to have in their lives.
When I first went to check out this school (as seems to be my latest hobby - checking out schools), I was expecting a cake baked with math and science and social studies and language arts. I also expected some delicious frosting of equality and peace and the other palate whetting things that I can't remember right now. And, at first, I was sort of freaked out to have not found those familiar layers. Ask anyone that I saw after my first visit to this school. I said some variation on this to everyone: "wow it seems really interesting and I am very compelled and mildly uncomfortable at the same time". I wasn't completely comfortable it's true. But I loved it. Like a lot of love. How can that be? You either like the whole bite of cake or not, right? Well, as it turns out, not so much.
So I took another bite. I sent my sad sack of a son who couldn't be switched to a new teacher in his present school without withdrawing and the re-enrolling, to check it out and spend the day. And he came out of that day with a new, fresh smile. He loved his taste of quaker cake and wanted more. For the two weeks that we deliberated about this, his mouth was watering for more and, as I later learned, he had told everyone about it. In particular, the pervasive calm and a sense that "people seem to truly respect each other and there is a sense of equality between the teachers and students". No kidding that's what he said.
Because that comment was enough to compel me, I trusted his taste buds and took the plunge. Only a few days into his experience, he came home with a new glow. He came home with a sense of peace and joy and balance that I have truly never seen in him but have always known was there. He came home happy and confident and excited to see what the next day would bring. And I fell in love with this school / cake and want to know where the bakery is because I'm serving it at every single holiday meal.
Here's what is different that I have managed to figure out to date. I think that this is a completely different recipe. See, some of the ingredients are the same. Like math and science for example. Some ingredients are usually seen only in frosting. Like social justice and peacefulness. The difference here is actually in the process of cake making. The difference here is that when you make this cake you mix all of the ingredients together, frosting and cake and all.
In other, non bakery based terms, the difference is in how the process of learning happens. It is in how the values of the community are baked in (sorry - bakery term slip up). The richness of the learning experience is interwoven completely with the experience of living and being a spiritual human being. And what that makes for is an education that is not only informative, but is also interconnected and foundational. Not that this can't and doesn't happen elsewhere, I just am overwhelmed by the baking process here.
I told my son that every time I drop him off (7 times now) I feel joyful. He said "well, that sounds like the perfect way to start your day". And he is right. I can't wait to see how he progresses here - all of our kids are forming like a slow cooking cake and the recipe we choose for them matters and is as different as each child. Now with four kids at four schools, it is my fondest hope that they are each able to learn, live and simmer to their own level of perfection. If not, well then it's just a whole of lot schlepping around town.
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