Looking for the Helpers

Dear Center School Community,

One of my favorite quotes is a fairly well-known one from Mr. Fred Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” Something I admired about Center School’s philosophy long before I worked here was that kids are encouraged not only to look for the helpers, but to be the helpers.

Every year, our teachers begin the school year by inviting students to think about what it means to build a community together – including all the ways we can contribute, pitch in, notice what needs doing, and help make our community a little better. Center School has a long history of doing just that beyond the walls of the school, too.

This year marks the 23rd Annual Green River Cleanup, an event Center School students have participated in almost every year since its inception. This Friday, our 5th–8th graders will head to the Green River to help haul all sorts of things out of and away from the river.

In a 2005 interview with The Sunday Republican, Center School teacher Rebecca Golden talked about how working together builds community, but also about something bigger: “The Green River is part of their sense of place. I think getting to know your surroundings, making a connection to that place is very academic.” Last year, teacher Kara McColgan shared a similar idea with the Greenfield Recorder, describing the cleanup as a chance for students to see “a very clear visual of our impact.” She also noted that it’s a great opportunity for a little ingenuity – including, apparently, figuring out what to do with a muddy shopping cart full of trash.

I love that these two teachers, interviewed twenty years apart, were describing much the same thing: that helping in the community is also a way of learning – about science, about place, about one another, and about what it means to belong.

And the Green River Cleanup is just one example. Seventeen years ago, Center School students helped build the platform at the top of Sachem’s Head. Last week, our 7th and 8th graders returned to help repair it, alongside two of the original builders, Chris Sanborn and Rebecca Golden, who were Center School teachers then and are still part of the Center School staff today.

One of the less glamorous parts of building or repairing a platform on top of Sachem’s Head is getting the materials there. Specifically, getting 2-by-8 boards to the top. So, just as they did 17 years ago, the students set up a shuttle: carry a board part of the way up, leave it, go back for another, and repeat. There is something wonderfully Center School about this: a group of kids and adults figuring out how to get something done together, doing a job that is useful and sometimes hard, because the finished thing will belong to all of us.

To give back is, in part, to belong. It means noticing what needs doing and knowing you can be part of making it happen. Perhaps that’s one of the most important things we can give children: the ability not only to recognize the helpers, but the confidence to think, I can be one, too.

Thank you for all the ways you help make this community what it is – whether you’re an alum, a parent, a staff member, a teacher, or, of course, a kid.

Warmly,

Emily Redman

Director of Admission & Advancement