Week 15 2024-2025 in Review

Dear TCC Families,

The land and the weather shaped the ways we spent time together for this first week back after our winter break! We enjoyed four unprecedented consecutive snowy days of fun. We sledded, we sledded more, we sledded yet again - what a gift to have multiple sledding hills from which we can choose! We slid on the frozen pond, we explored the forest, we visited the creek.

What a treasure it is to spend our days with the land and one another. 

We agreed together on Monday that upon our return, we wanted to emphasize connection alongside the type of rest that winter encourages of us - a sort of slow intention. Nesting and nourishing. Books and tea. Crafting and garden planning. Fiber work and drawing. The forest and the animals around us are sleeping…knowing that we are animals, too, how can that guide how we move?

We began building our Set the Week board with series offering possibilities. We reflected on the first day of our last cycle, and recalled that our initial Set the Week meeting to set the board for the entire learning cycle was quite long and a bit overwhelming. So we decided to try something new - a "slow build," during which ideas and asks came from 1:1s, small-group conversations, and our usual practice of emergence. Sitting in the queue of offerings are Animation Basics with E, Creating a TCC Mascot with C, Current Events & Critical Thinking with Zoey and Sarah, a new witchy book-club read, Music as Political Resistance with Emily, Dancing & Singing with A and E, TCC Awesome Math, Music & Movement with Emily - and many more. Alongside the visible schedule, the "shadow schedule" is always running - this week it included pop-up lessons in drawing perspective, mascot planning, drawing games, a DIY fidget-building station, and robotic Lego-building. You may have also heard of the "formalwear" craze that caught on this week - it all began with one young person in a suit, and by Wednesday, folks were holding boardroom meetings in fedoras and others were twirling around in full-length skirts. Some snowboarding in a suit and tie may have also taken place. The way the young people here encouraged one another with such loving admiration to show up creatively and unabashedly themselves was so touching and endearing and beautiful. As someone said early in the year, "(TCC) is a place where you can not be made fun of. You can be yourself. It's supportive."

The young people here care for one another.

And they are rooting for one another. 

Capturing everything that happens here in a week through words and photos isn't possible (even if there are a couple hundred such photos, which is the case this week…); we can't convey the sounds and warmth of the laughter, abundant joy, and gratitude at being together again. That we shared and experienced all of that together is enough.

With care,

Emily, Sarah, and Zoey