Stories from Viviann Kuehl,
Sunfield’s school administrator and the Sunflower Kindergarten assistant, who gets a good view of Sunfield from many angles.

Read Viviann’s biography.

Treasure found

A map shows the way.

April 22, 2012

I was outside in the kindergarten play area when a girl came out of the classroom. She had a paper in her hand, and she stopped to show it to me.

I made out a few crayoned areas of color and some scrawled lines.

“It’s a treasure map,” she informed me, and set off purposefully toward a far corner of the play area.

I continued to watch over the children at play.

Soon she was striding back toward me with a closed fist and excitement on her face. When she got close she held out her hand, flecked with bits of soil, and showed me the rounded bit of colored glass she’d found, still fresh from the dirt.

“Here’s the treasure,” she announced.

It was the same as the “jewels” that anonymous gnomes occasionally scatter around the sand pile, on the opposite side of the play yard. It had been a while since there was a scattering, and they hadn’t been anywhere near where she went.

The evidence was clear. Treasure had been found. A map was involved.

Soon other children were asking for treasure maps, and they went inside to make theirs, emerging with maps in hand and high hopes.

More treasure was found, of different sorts.

One boy, whose map consisted solely of a squiggly line with an X at one end, announced his search, and then his discovery. He found a beautiful rock.

“Here’s a treasure,” he said.

He went back to the search. He found another.

“Here’s treasure number two.”

Further search led him to a stick, more rocks, a worm, a flower, a leaf, and more curious items.

He was able to find 11 treasures with his map, counting out each one.

I was astonished.

I’d been shown the secret of treasure maps.

Treasure is out there. All you need is a map.

Rowing together

Learning takes many shapes

March 19, 2012

For days we saw the students of the seventh/eighth grade out in the schoolyard in the mornings, all lined up in a double row of blue plastic chairs, with a rope outlining the rough shape of a boat around them. Holding brooms out to the side as if oars, they paddled their brooms across the waving grass.

At first, they just looked like brooms waving about in some mysterious game, but then they began to take a more definite shape, moving in unison in graceful sweeps, and the schoolyard became a sea to us as well as to the class.

Then one day they were gone, off to row with regular oars in a real longboat, on the liquid sea.

Their rowing skills impressed the boat’s captain, as it took them along new shorelines, seeking out the unknown just as the explorers they were studying had done. Together, they weathered the tides and wind and a bit of rain and gained a new understanding of the history hidden in their books.

Now home from the sea, they are embarked on a new adventure. They are learning to make a boat just like the one they, and their studied explorers, rowed. The students are apprenticing once a week at the Wooden Boat School, learning to mark out the shapes of the boat, cut and fit the wood with hand tools, sanding smoothness into their work and their understanding.

And the brooms are used for sweeping the floor.

Pussywillow Promise

A bright sign of spring brings bright sun

February 12, 2012

The first day I saw the pussy willows, the skies were dark, as was the ground, and everything else. The pussy willows, however, were shining white, a beacon in the drab landscape.

Their promise of spring seemed a bit unlikely, with all the wet snow lurking in the shadows, so I tried not to get too excited just yet. It was hard to do.

Then just a couple days later, the sun came out, and so did all the classes.

I went with the kindergarten classes on their morning walk, continually astounded by the blue sky overhead and the mild sun. When we got back, they began playing outside in the kindergarten yard, some running, some working with concentration in the sand pile, some setting up house in the trees. When I left for the office, they were all happily engaged.

Coming outside again, I saw the third and fourth graders busy with math and colored chalk on the pavement outside the office. Their heads were shining in the sun as they looked down at the bright lines and numbers near their feet.

Rounding the pump house, suddenly before me there was a circle of first and second graders engaged in rhymes and movement, flashing brightly in the sunshine. They were attending to each other as they wove in and out, creating patterns in their voices and hands.

As I went back to the office, out in the field I could see the seventh and eighth graders lined up to throw their javelins. As one group took a turn, the others stood back to watch as the javelins made graceful arcs across the field, glinting in the sun. It was mesmerizing.

I broke away, only to find the fifth and sixth grade class seated in a circle outside, practicing their play, dark forms against the light. They were concentrating on their scripts, and didn’t notice as I walked past.

Everyone was outside in the newly mild weather, soaking up the sunshine, but seemingly oblivious to it. Surely it permeated their being, as it did mine, but they were all attentive to their work, and the sun was shining.

The promise of the pussywillows was kept.