This is Coral-reef, a delicate yet resilient and elaborate ecosystem of a human full of bizarre and beautiful and bizarrely beautiful creatures. Perhaps the name is also inspired by his wonderfully wild mass of curly black hair, which calls to mind one of those squangey, dangly, drifty seaweeds. But anyway. You’re probably wondering, after they published that essay on isopods (“anything of the Isopoda phylum earns my immediate respect”), slugs (“slugs, of course, are a given for any list which includes gastropods”), and hagfish (“a rather odd species indeed, hagfish produce a slime that can clog the gills of other fish”), rather than a photo of themself, in the 2015-2016 yearbook, if they are still interested in creepy critters. They are. They say they like to get his daily exercise from a “good swing on the swings, in any weather,” prefer to eat hot food, and often seek the quieter corners of the building. They’re into D&D, game development, and inscrutable jokes. He says he appreciates the open nature of our program and that he’s allowed to “figure things out for [himself],” their preferred method of learning. They’re often wrapped up tight in whatever they’re doing, but they’re always ready with a smile, or to pretend to be an angry moose, and they’re quick with a big, warm greeting every morning. Coral-reef, thank you so much for being such a colorful community of elegant and mysterious coraly features; we appreciate so much your sweet humor, singular intellect, and ardent curiosity – we are proud, and so are the hagfish.
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.