Dr. King and the BWS Star Code
In January at BWS, we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and legacy with a personal connection and special reverence. Dr. King’s work is the basis for our school’s own North Star, our Star Code.
As a school that values storytelling, teachers and administrators strive to make history relatable and personal through biography. “Biography punctuates history,” as one of our mentor teachers, Pamela Giles, puts it.
An important part of Waldorf curriculum starting in Second Grade is what our teachers call the stories of “Golden Hearts,” people who live their lives according to their values.
Pedagogical Lead Christianna Elaine Riley (one-third of the BWS Leadership Team) opened our in-school assembly by introducing Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the First through Eighth Grade students, starting with his childhood.
Punctuating History with Biography
“If he were alive today, Dr. King would be 96 years old. He was born on Tuesday, January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, to a family of loving parents and an older sister. His younger brother was born a year later. Mike, or M.L., as he was know to his family, grew up when cars were replacing horse-drawn buggies as transportation. He and his siblings loved playing baseball and football, and they learned piano from their mother.
Dr. King as a child, known as Mike or M.L. to his family.
“Dr. King said he grew up believing in the goodness of people because of his loving family. He attributed his courage and his faith in all human beings to the support of his family. He grew into a man of great courage, and became the recognized leader of the Civil Rights movement in America in the 1960s because he had the faith and courage to stand up and speak out for the equality and dignity of every human being.
Our Guiding Star
“Our school was born in 1971, just a few years after Dr. King’s life and work were cut short. By this time, most people drove cars instead of horses, but no one had computers in their homes. Our school grew and grew, and after a while there was a storm of disharmony, when the students forgot how to treat their school friends, classmates, teachers, parents and even the sports equipment with respect.
“Led by founding teacher Jean Zay, together the faculty and students went through a process of talking about how they wanted to be treated and how to treat others. Guided by the teachings of Dr. King, they came up with these five core values.
When students and teachers finally agreed on these five core values, they gathered to post them and saw that the five points made a star. Thus they named these five values to strive for the Star Code.
Practicing Courage
During our assembly, Pedagogical Lead Christianna Elaine Riley related the history of the BWS Star Code that the children see throughout the school as it connects to Dr. King’s work. The Star Code guides our community to practice respect, kindness, celebration, appreciation and responsibility every day, in ways big and small. What the five points of the star have in common is that practicing these values all takes courage. So practicing the Star Code is practicing courage.
For example:
- Opening the door for someone or smiling and saying hello is practicing kindness.
- Picking up a piece of trash and throwing it in the garbage, or making sure to put the sports equipment away nice and neatly, is practicing respect.
At BWS, teachers also strive to bring life to history by bringing first person experience to historical events. In Mrs. Riley’s experience following the Freedom Trail and speaking to folks who were personally involved in the Civil Rights movement, it was the every day choices and courage of many, many people which strengthened Dr. King’s leadership into a non-violent protest movement that changed the world.
Eighth Grade Class Teacher Alessandra Profumo spoke about her elder brothers’ experiences in the Civil Rights movement. One was a freedom rider, a group of citizens who came from all over the U.S and the world to stand with protesters boycotting unequal services on buses and in restaurants. Her other brother was a reporter, who was in the crowd for Dr. King’s last speech, and witnessed, and had to report on, Dr. King’s assassination.
New Year’s Resolution
The Sixth Grade class recited a poem from National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. Here’s how Sixth Grade Class Teacher Christine Good introduced the poet and her poem, “New Day’s Lyric,” a poem of resolution for the new year.
“Amanda Gorman is a young poet from Los Angeles, who struggled at school as a child and even had difficulty speaking.
“With the encouragement of her mother and other teachers, Amanda grew to love reading and poetry and began to write her own poetry. She overcame her speech impediment and gained the courage to present her poems to the world.
“She is now 26, a Harvard graduate, and was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate.
“Amanda often recites a personal mantra to help settle her nerves before a performance.
“’I’m the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters, who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.'”
After the assembly, Grades classes joined to create cards or sun catchers for elders at Hillcrest Commons in Pittsfield. These elders know our students from previous Presto Strings concerts. They rarely receive visitors or presents, so these gifts of life and love will likely decorate their nightstands for months to come. This gesture extends Dr. King’s legacy and values to our students in a deep and meaningful way. They experienced that caring words matter, and can warm someone’s heart, even when sent to a recipient they’ve never met.
Sentiments from BWS students include: “I hope you live as long as an oake tree,” “I hope you run like a horse,” and “I hope the book of your life never ends.”
New Day’s Lyric
By Amanda Gorman
May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
*
This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.
*
What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we foreswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once altogether beaten,
Now all together beat.
*
Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
*
We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.
BWS Fourth Grader’s illustration from a biography book project in Library class.
For past BWS articles about events and reading celebrating Dr. King and other “Golden Hearts,” visit:
