As a Montessori school, we believe philosophically in teaching the WHOLE child. This means that in addition to math and reading, our teachers and administrators put considerable time and care into nurturing social skills, character development, and work skills. We believe these “soft skills” are as important, if not more important, for life as academic skills. In fact, these soft skills feed and nurture the academic skills, helping the children blossom beyond what anyone may have expected.
Community service and generosity of spirit are elements of character education that we value. Students, even our youngest, give time to making our school community a better place by helping a friend, picking up trash or storm debris, putting the flag at half-mast, running our recycling program, or providing manpower in support of various events. As the students get older, we continue to find meaningful ways to help our community and the larger society around us by volunteering our time with local organizations.
This holiday season, our students will have three opportunities for you to help them help others. You will see notices in your newsletters and the Tuesday Memo. I thought I would introduce them here together, so you could see the connecting threads, and more practically, mark them on your calendar before it gets too busy:
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Upper Elementary coat drive for Warner’s Winter WarmUp will run October 21 to November 1.
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Upper School food drive will run the week of November 11 for the St. Louis Area Food Bank. Our 7th-12th graders will also have a community service day working there before Thanksgiving.
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Lower Elementary toy and book drive will run the week of December 9 for The Leadership School in North County. These items will be part of a “free store” where parents with little disposable income can shop for holiday gifts for their children.
If you have the bandwidth, you could build on these opportunities by inviting your children to choose the items, give something of their own, or use some of their own money to experience how fulfilling giving can be.