In 2005, Kindergarten teacher Andrea Patel used tissue paper collage to create this work of art with her students, many of whom are currently in eighth grade. Each child wrote the word “peace” in a different language and decorated the earth with white peace doves. Each year since then, every kindergarten class has added new expressions of peace, in different languages, to their “peaceful world.” The children express greetings to one another in these languages during their December Morning Meetings. Now scores of different languages are represented in the work of nine different kindergarten classes!
Often in collaboration with parents and peers, and with special gratitude to the Parents’ Association, our students have expressed their support for a peaceful and better world through acts of service and citizenship. We are a privileged community, and I am proud of the ways in which students have taken action in personal and collective ways in the service of others. It is especially poignant that our children have chosen to be responsive to others in need this year. As shared at Thanksgiving Soup:
- Students from every grade provided gifts to area children during the holiday season (donations will be made to the Elizabeth Freeman Center, Department of Children and Family Services, and Lee HeadStart)
- Kindergarten students cooked baked goods and created pictures for Stockbridge residents
- Upper School students helped prepare and serve meals at St. Stephen’s table in Pittsfield
- First Grade collected winter coats for South County residents
- Second Grade worked on art projects with residents at Kimball Farm in Lenox
- Music students sang at Kimball Farm and Riverbrook in Stockbridge
- Sixth Grade students joined with parents, faculty, and staff members to knit blocks for an afghan that will be donated to the Columbia/Green County chapter of Warm Up America and an anti-violence project
- Families school-wide donated warm clothing to people in Nepal
- Ninth Grade worked at a soup kitchen in Great Barrington
- Each Eighth Grade student designed and documented a service project (students volunteered at Berkshire Humane Society, Habitat for Humanity, BCD, Gould Farm Christian Center in Pittsfield, Animal Den in Ghent NY, Albany Medical Center, and in their neighborhoods)
- A BCD student initiative responded to the people who were catastrophically affected by the recent tragedy in the Philippines by collecting donations at this year’s Talent Show
- Several families sang carols at Kimball Farm and Riverbrook after the Winter Concert last week.
Thank you for sharing your children and your hopes for them with all of us at Berkshire Country Day School. On behalf of the faculty and staff at BCD, I send best wishes to everyone for joyful holidays, a relaxing vacation, and a peaceful New Year! We look forward to welcoming everyone back in January 2014.