KNOW, our large, amazing class of high school students and their parents, is growing into the kind of community every teacher loves to teach: brilliant, warm, energetic, kind-hearted, and funny.

We find we're now able to begin to reflect back on what elements have helped to create this new community. We're certain presence, determination, committment, and honesty are some of the emotional components that have helped us land in this fine space.

Becuase we want to improve our skills with building good relationships outside the classroom, we'll continue to pay attention to how we're doing this here, at WiseBodies.

Since our first class in September, students have used lots of games and strategies to learn names, get to know personal histories, find inner connection, and discover shared interests.

Students have helped prepare and serve lots of bowls of soup, biscuits and breads, fruits, and desserts. They've participated in scrubbing dishes, sweeping floors, and putting away utensils. We've found plenty of joy in repeating our shared, now known, routines.

In our classroom, we've focussed on building trust.

This is worth repeating.

In our classroom, we've focussed on building trust.

In addition, the students have developed a perfect list of topics they would like to cover this year.

We've begun to discuss our first subjects, discovering deep interrelationships. The students are participating fully in our conversation-based learning, sharing insights that are remarkable and profound.