You need to touch grass! 

If you talk to people online and they think you’re out of touch, they’ll say you need to touch grass! It’s true. We need to get in touch. We need to see what else is out there, under­stand what we value, and under­stand the value of others and find ways to commu­ni­cate across differences. 

Field trips and excur­sions are happen­ing at Waverly now. Fifth and sixth-graders are return­ing from their annual trip to Leo Carrillo, high school students spent the last three days explor­ing Los Angeles and Pasadena, and middle school students are gearing up for a trip to Astro­Camp. Our youngest students regu­larly sojourn to the farm for moments of getting dirty, running around, and remem­ber that our health and our human­ity is depen­dent on closing down the machines, forget­ting the screens, and being outside. 

The world should be a class­room. We take students across the city, the region, and the world to remind them that the other people we encounter are our compan­ions in learn­ing. They don’t need to be hostiles or ​“opps” (oppo­nents). Our prac­tice of listen­ing to each other should filter into the class­room and our classroom.

Prac­tice of friend­li­ness, listen­ing, and compas­sion should hit the street. 

Our rela­tion­ship with outdoor smells, breezes, moun­tains, rivers, and streams needs to be nurtured over time. It starts with our farm, but needs to extend much further. In the coming months, we will artic­u­late a more robust and thor­ough expres­sion of what getting outside means to us. Every Waverly student needs a fluency with the outdoors which reminds them of the value of feeling the wind in your face and dirt on your hands. The learn­ing there is cere­bral, commu­nal, spir­i­tual. Inte­gral. Ravens are among nature and so shall we be. 

Touch grass. Take flight. 

In Commu­nity,

Clarke Weath­er­spoon
Head of School