Wonderful Wednesday

Well, today I had the chance to go into Putney since we only have a half day on Wednesdays since we have Saturday classes as well. It was nice to be able to walk around in town and get a cup of decent coffee, along with the opportunity to just be outside a little bit. Putney seems like a nice town, very small, which seems typical of Vermont. The countryside is dotted with little towns about fifteen minutes apart, and in between on the hillsides are scattered houses. I always thought of the Northeast as quite full until I came to Vermont and saw the watch out for moose crossing signs and the vast expanses of open hillside. It all adds to the loveliness of the area, and the isolation that The Putney School feels in its own little world. Today is the halfway point in my stay here, and I'm not sure that I want to go home. Yes, i certainly do for all the people I miss and my friends and family, but at the same time I slid into this community much more easily than I ever thought I might of, and I sort of like where I am. It feels like I've been here for ages, not simply a week and a half. At this point, I know most everyone's names and the faces to put on them, the drama going on, who's in trouble, who ought to be, and much of the inner workings of the school.

Anyways, today I had my day off from AM Barn, and so got to sleep in all the way to 7:15. My two classes were poetry and Ceramics, and I got most of the body of my mask finished. I'm making an elephant, and tomorrow I ought to be able to begin sculpting the face in preparation for painting on the slip (liquid clay that behaves as paint) in preparation for glazing. I'm still slugging through my poetry project, and it seems to be taking a lot more work than I anticipated, but it's still fascinating all the same.

One aspect of the school that I've been learning more about this week is their Standards committee, which has been in existence since the founding of the school in 1935, and is a student and teacher collaboration that discusses any transgressions of the students and hears their case before assigning them a punishment. Earlier this year, there had been some mishaps with the student members of Standards, and so the system was overhauled (for the first time since its founding), and elections were held for new student members. The philosophy behind the committee is very interesting, and also very Putney. Nearly everything here, from the care taking of the school to the hiring of new faculty members, relies heavily on student input and decision, and so the student body has a huge responsibility to their own lives and school environment. The idea that student leaders in the community decide on the punishments and ensure that any doled out are deemed fair and just to the crime is, to my mind, fantastic. Not only does it ensure that the students are not disgruntled and feel put upon by the administration, as may occur in other schools, but they also are invested in the process, and so do care that students are punished when they ought to be, which contributes to the school environment in a huge way. I think that the idea is marvelous, and, perhaps, one that could be implemented anywhere. This idea of student activity and student leadership is not limited to only enforcement of the rule, but to all areas of school life, leaving the school a better place because of it.