This is AF, a new student who has been kind and pleasant af since she arrived. Even before she arrived, she was impressing us by managing her own enrollment process like a boss. This is the eighth school she’s been to and guess what it’s her faaaavorite. And she’s not just saying that ok? She is real af. She says the experience of integrating into the community was smooth, and helped along by a few particularly friendly students. AF feels happier here, much less stressed, able to take her “me” time.
AF says she was initially a little worried about the age-mixing at our school, because she doesn’t have a lot of patience with little kids, “but the littles here seem more evolved and they know what they’re doing. They don’t test me a lot.” She is surprised to feel like a role model. She says, “it’s weird, as an only child; I haven’t had this experience before. But I notice younger kids watching me. Or they ask me to do things. I don’t mind; it’s going well.”
She’s been spending most of her time preparing for the SAT and making a lot of collage, origami, photo shoots, and clothing creation, so she’s got a good balance between the two hemispheres of the cerebrum. And speaking of cerebrums, AF thinks they’re pretty interesting. She says, “everybody’s brain is different, and it shows in their behavior, and that’s really cool.” She thinks it’s so dang cool, in fact, that she wants to be a therapist. AF’s own cerebrum must be wired together and firing in some pretty creative patterns, because she also does a lot of cooking, singing, acting, and biking. AF, we are inspired by your quiet zeal for life and by the courage you’ve shown jumping into our community. We’re happy you’re here, and we’re looking forward to getting to know you better ✨
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.