This interview has been condensed and edited from its original form. 

SC: Ruth Charney, what is your relationship to the Center School? 

RC: Well, I was one of the six initial founders. And I was a parent, my children went there. I taught for, oh, I don't know, maybe 20 years there, starting out with the Primes, or seven and eight year olds, and then really finding my niche with the older kids, with the Uppers. And particularly being able to focus on things that I love teaching, which were literature and writing. But also I loved the sense of community that I think we all created. 

SBC: How did you do that? How did you create that sense of community? 

RC: We worked hard. I think it was a combination of creating a curriculum that we thought would help us build the kind of community we wanted, articulate that community, and work together to enact it. 

SBC: What was essential in creating that curriculum? Like was there a driving question? 

RC: You know, I'm remembering when we were sitting on a cold winter night trying to talk about what we wanted to build, that we thought we didn't see elsewhere in other classrooms. We just didn't think it was easy to come by. And it was a question of, I remember somebody phrasing it as: we know how to teach kids to read. But do we know how to teach them to be good people? 

SBC: That was there from the beginning, huh? 

RC: That was there from the beginning. And I think by good people, we didn't necessarily mean obedient or follow the rules all the time. I think we meant the ability to, I think, we framed it as take care of themselves, each other, and their environment. 

SBC: So the starting of the school was because you were like, I don't see what I feel like is possible in teaching.

RC: I think, again, we all understood that in order to integrate what we called a social curriculum with an academic curriculum, we wanted to see how it progressed. We wanted time and we felt like we would have to somehow have some control over school. It couldn't be an add-on in a school. We wanted to see if we could generate it from the time kids were young as they grew up through middle school. 

SBC: That's interesting. What was it about that seventh and eighth grade developmental state that really drew you in? 

RC: I think it was the capacity for dialogue. And the capacity to see how kids could really embrace a culture and a community. I remember someone came in seventh grade, so they were new to the classroom, and they started to tease someone because they made a mistake. And one of their classmates turned to them and said, “we don't do that here.” But to see you guys, when you were students, hold that community, by then you had embraced, most of you had embraced them, not 100%. At times people tested and at times people struggled. But you had really, I think, internalized a lot of what you had learned over the years. 

SBC: How did you approach struggling students at that age?

RC: To problem-solve together, to name the struggle. I think we had to have faith. I think kids had to have faith in us that we knew them. And so when I would say to someone, to you or to one of the other kids, I know this is frustrating, I know this is hard, I also know you can do it. And you gotta do it, they believed. If they didn't believe that I knew them, if they didn' believe when I said I know you could do it, they probably would have resisted or would have shut down or it would have become a power struggle. 

But I think it was clear then, that we were on the same side and that doesn't come out of nowhere. That comes out of a curriculum that's building that kind of relationship.

SBC: How would you recognize that a day was successful? What did you see in students or what did you feel? What made you feel like, oh, something happened today? 

RC: There's probably many answers to that, but I was thinking about how... It was sort of my habit at some point at the end of the day, I would review in my head the kids I had spoken to, something they had done each day. And I would often notice who I forgot, who I hadn't spoken to. Who I had made no connection with. And sometimes it made me feel very bad. It was a kind of habit that at least gave me a chance the next day. 

SBC: Are there any more rituals that stick out to you?

RC: I think Morning Meeting was the anchor. I mean, it's a daily ritual. It made a place for laughter and tears. And helping us all learn how to respond to each other. It was work where someone who wasn't popular or wasn't well known by other kids would share something and the room could go silent. And so we had to be there to say that doesn't work. To have people understand that it was expected that you respond to people who aren't your best friends. 

Also, if someone came in with something that was heartbreaking, it could go silent, unless you learn what things you can say when somebody says, my grandmother is sick, or my puppy was run over. It wasn't what kind of car ran him over? It was how do you deal with those hard moments. 

SBC: What’s the origin story of the Morning Meeting? 

RC: Origin story... I think we all came from places where the day began with a circle, as teachers. What we didn't come from, what we began to generate was that the Morning Meeting, would become a ritual of four different components. I mean I remember when I was teaching seven and eight-year-olds and I would stand by the door and say “hello” and that kids were just walking in with their heads down at their toes, and nobody said “hello” back. And so somewhere in there I said, we have to begin our morning meeting with greetings. 

SBC: Oh interesting. I love that. 

RC: And we've had all kinds of ways that people have greeted each other across the circle. Opera songs, or I mean, crazy ways and serious ways. 

I mean, so the power of looking at somebody and saying hello to them and sharing various ways of saying hello, standing up, walking across a circle, shaking someone's hand… And I can remember some of our very, very quiet kids who had said that the only time I heard someone say my name was in Morning Meetings.

SBC: What was your favorite Center School song?

RC: My favorite Center School song… some of them I still hear and I start to tear up. 

SBC: Oh, yeah. 

RC: River was a big one. 

SBC: I sang that to Eligh when he was a baby to get him to fall asleep. What was your favorite  GCS birthday song?

RC: Oh gosh, I always loved Joyful. Rock and Roll birthday was the one the kids always wanted. Loved it. 

The Woods Primes practice of portraiture -- of seeing and honoring themselves and others -- has also become a meaningful way to mark special moments and guests. These students have used their developing skills to create portraits of visitors and school founders as a gesture of welcome and appreciation. Read more about this practice here and here.

SBC: Is there anything that you feel like you developed or contributed to the school that still remains? 

RC: I wish I knew the school better in some ways. I think that there still is a real sense of belonging that's very powerful there. And when I went recently to see the celebration for Charlie, I was struck with what a brilliant audience the children were. 

I mean, it was maybe an hour and a half, two hours, whatever. And nobody was… I mean there was no chatter. There was no fidgeting. There was not disruption. They were interested. And somehow that sense of being able to stretch children. And give them a sense of respect and honor even. I think that's still very much a part of it. 

It's very hard to see that in other places. That expectation of self-control, of paying attention, when other things are going on. I mean a lot of it was way above some of the little ones' heads, but they weren't unhappy. They were enjoying watching what was going on. And it wasn't on their level. It wasn't geared to them. It wasn't funny games. It was a way of saying thank you to another adult, someone that they knew and probably admired. And yes, they were experiencing this ceremony and this ritual and they felt part of it. And having them see it and know how to behave through it, I think are some of the very essentials of social curriculum. 

SBC: Beautiful. Are you still in touch with students? 

RC: I wish I had done that better. I love being in touch with students. I don't have a regular way to do that. I didn't set up something that was a regular way to do it. So I feel when it happens, It's always very warm and very affecting and means a lot. These shared memories are very precious to me too. 

SBC: Yeah, me too. Thank you so much Ruth.

RC: Thank you, Sara.