This is LiloBadido, a curious and independent thinker who likes playing in the mud so much that he and a friend carried dixie cups of water outside to “revive” one of our best puddles after it had dried up over the weekend. LiloBadido is a mad-scientist sort who likes “to break physics” with magnetic power, cups, and water. Upon request he provided us with several scientific mini-lectures, explaining, for example, that the earth is not a perfect sphere (and he hypothesizes that neither are eyeballs), that green is the rarest eye color (except purple), that many babies have blue eyes that transition to other colors, and that vacuum cleaners are a “perfect technology.” He ended the mini-lecture series abruptly with a series of profound philosophical questions: “why do people do the stuff they do? Why do I do strange things?” He also issued this dire warning: stink bugs may be invading the world. Then he suddenly had to go, having been informed that there was “an anomaly in the playground.”
LiloBadido is new to the school this year, and he has been working hard to transition to our unique program, which is situated at the fulcrum of freedom and responsibility. He appreciates very much being able to go outside (or inside, for that matter), when he wants to, rather than at arbitrary times enforced by grownups. He says, “I think only I can know what’s best for myself.” He can also eat multiple giant bowls of pasta.
In his personal life, LiloBadido is many things, among them mariner; he sails and kayaks with proficiency, knows how to handle himself during a capsize, loves to swim, and catches more fish than LeBron James. Once he even made a “perfect cast” when a small mouth jumped and hooked into his lure before the lure even hit the water, so yeah.
LiloBadido’s buddies say he is a really good friend and good at fortnite. They note that he can be uncompromising when it comes time for the gang to choose an activity, but they don’t mind much.
LiloBadido, we are so thrilled to have you aboard, dude. We trust you, we believe in you, and we like you. A lot. If stink bugs really do invade the world, we’re glad we’ll be with you.
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.