This is Katie Rose, a Fire Keeper with a dazzling array of experience and an incorrigible curiosity and excitement about education. Her primary role at school is managing our organized activities as our Programming Clerk. She’s a good fit for the job, having participated in a lot of diverse programming herself over the years, from graduate work at the Sorbonne (mostly eating croissants) to studying research biology at Stanford, to becoming a certified NY wildlife rehabilitator, to running the volunteer program at Jim and Lisa’s Circle Home (hospice) in Kingston, as well as organizing and facilitating a lot of programming, from nature-based preschool programs to tutoring middle school students, to teaching French and philosophy at NYU and in high school, to creating the very popular and sweet Community Fire Circles. Whew! KR also loves to split wood (like, large amounts) and dance jigs when she finds cool mushrooms in the woods. KR came to ZDS seeking a community working towards authenticity, care, and self-expression, and to manifest her deep belief in self-directed education. She is dialed in, well-organized, and deeply excited be a member of the ZDS Staff!
Opportunities
At Zena Democratic School, we pride ourselves on offering our students endless opportunities; they are free to pursue their interests, dabble in this and that, or to fall head over heels into a subject without interruption – for as long as the interest remains, or to follow it wherever it may lead.
But the most valuable opportunity we offer students is the time and space to discover who they are. Students at ZDS have time to be, to think, to talk, to play, to discover what they enjoy and appreciate and, equally importantly, what they don’t enjoy or appreciate. We offer an opportunity to practice crucial skills such as motivation, persistence, articulation, and humility, to be part of a democratic community, and to experience acceptance, cooperation, recognition, and celebration. This unstructured time is where the real beauty of the ZDS experience lies and where the most important learning usually takes place.
However, many people do love content and instruction, and there is plenty of organized and formal activity at school. Students often organize this on their own, or with the assistance or leadership of a Staff Member, but they may also request the Programming Clerk to facilitate whatever kind of instruction or activity they’d like to have, from basic reading instruction to skateboarding lessons to sex education; every topic under the sun is theoretically available for our students to explore and to receive instruction upon.