On March 12, Waverly, along with other Pasadena area inde­pen­dent schools, decided to temporar­ily close the school campus in an effort to protect our chil­dren and commu­nity from the spread of COVID-19. Waverly parents Glen and Nadine were both worried and had faith in Waver­ly’s skill and commit­ment to making remote learn­ing work. Still, Waverly teach­ers blew them away. The facul­ty’s creativ­ity, compas­sion, and profes­sion­al­ism during this crisis is stun­ning — a testa­ment to teachers everywhere.

I remem­ber hating docu­men­taries when I was young. They were dull and fuzzy and seemed intended only for people who had nothing better to do. Now I find myself one of ​“those people,” as I seek out docu­men­taries regu­larly, both in theaters and on Netflix. It would not surprise me at all if someday a Waverly student creates a docu­men­tary about what is likely to be the phrase of 2020, ​“social distanc­ing.” Perhaps one of them will become inspired by some­thing here, a short list of some of my favorite docu­men­taries, with some­thing for everyone.

This weekend, the Raven Collab­o­ra­tive presents Thorn­ton Wilder’s classic play Our Town. Our Town is a master­piece devoted to commu­nity, friend­ship, the small and mean­ing­ful moments of daily life and loss, and the journey to first love. Wilder gives us some musings and gentle instruc­tions on how to live in and truly appre­ci­ate our present time in all its forms. Watch the Raven Collab­o­ra­tive’s produc­tion of Our Town, Novem­ber 21 – 23, in the middle school big room.

Every year, right around the time of the book fair, Waverly teach­ers are asked to create wish lists for books to be read in their class­rooms. So while the teach­ers are think­ing about books and liter­a­ture, Jen took the oppor­tu­nity to ask what every­one is currently reading. This is always a fasci­nat­ing peek into the secret reading lives of faculty and staff!

One of my goals this year is to read all the assigned books my son Sam will be reading in his senior English seminar courses. This semes­ter, he is taking Crash and Clash of Cultures, which is taught in conjunc­tion with the history class called State of the World. Both classes explore themes of moral­ity, violence, poverty and wealth, popu­la­tion issues, glob­al­iza­tion, immi­gra­tion, and corpo­rate capi­tal­ism from a liter­ary stand­point, and they look at the age-old and ageless responses to the idea that cultures clash and crash.

It began on a cool day in the late winter of 2005. My son, Harry, and I were much younger when Harry made his first visit to Waverly as an appli­cant for the preschool. We drove to Pasadena, a drive we ended up making approx­i­mately 4,480 times over the next 13 years.

One of our young alumnas, Shelby Ottengheime ​’18, has had an adven­tur­ous first year at Pitzer College.

This week’s post is from an email sent to Waverly’s art teacher, Michelle Dakan, from Anne Schiller, a colleague and friend from Pacific Oaks.