Changes and Community, Our September at Higher Elevations

Every September at Higher Elevations starts the same way, with a room full of children who are mostly new to each other. Our theme for the month grew right out of that: changes and community.

We do not hand our teachers a script. Our curriculum is emergent. It follows the children and what they are curious about. In September, one thread runs underneath all of it: who are we together?

Teachers begin with three questions they ask the children. Who am I? Who are you? Who are we together? A two-year-old answers by learning a friend's name. A four-year-old answers by working out how to share the block corner. Bit by bit, a group of strangers becomes a classroom.

This is how a room finds its footing. Children who build the culture of their class together learn that their voice shapes the group. They set expectations they can keep, because they helped make them. Here, the children build community themselves in the first weeks of every year, and what they build, they keep.

September is a month of change, and change is a lot to hold when you are three. So we hold it together. By the time the leaves turn, these children know each other's names, know their teachers, and know this class is theirs. That is the community they built.