Profile on
Kasia Bock-Leja and her daughter Savannah

Occupation
Kasia: Teacher, Mother, and Artist
Savannah: Student in Grade 5

In a Nutshell
When we say that Wingra is about the individual child, what we mean is that our curriculum does not come out of a kit or box and was not written by some faraway group of people who are following the rules about when children must learn about certain topics.  

You can't put Wingra in a package and sell it. It's too big and too complex and too alive. The teachers here care enough about every student to manipulate the environment, the learning material, the schedule, and their teaching styles to meet the needs of each one.

As a parent, I sent my 2 oldest daughters through the public schools until high school graduation and never batted an eye. The oldest, now a successful college student, literally cried every day at school until part way through third grade. She had daily stomachaches. I thought she was just too sensitive. The second daughter hated school from the start. At 18 she is hard-pressed to think of a happy school memory.

Then my third daughter came along and ended up at Wingra. She has always been an easy, happy, social person. No bumps in the road.  I've always been thankful that she has been much easier to raise than the other two.

Until today I thought that she was easy to raise because of her personality and because she was the third child. Now I know - even though I thought I knew before, since I teach here - that Wingra has made Savannah who she is because everyone in the school allowed her to be who she is. In my daughter's 5 years at Wingra, she always wanted to go to school. Last year she begged me to let her go to school when she was sick. "Please let me go, I don't want to miss anything." She never said she was bored and she never complained about her school work except when she was trying to figure out how to organize her time with her first plan sheets. Once she had that under control, she was proud of her time management as well as the quality of her work.

After 3 weeks of Savannah attending her neighborhood school, we are hearing the words that so many parents think are normal: "Please can't I stay home tomorrow? I'm really not feeling well. I had a stomachache at school today. And a headache. I'm just sick of crossword puzzles. I'm sick of waiting in line. I'm sick of coloring presidents according to directions. I'm too sick to go to school. I need a break. I'm just not a school person."

Well, this does not have to be normal. At Wingra a child will not be asked to color a picture of a president, read a fact page about that president, and fill in a crossword puzzle based on the fact sheet  every single day until they run out of presidents. At Wingra, a 10 year old will not be dreading the election because another president will be added to the list and that will mean one more crossword puzzle. Here math is real and meaningful. A child will not be asked to do 20 of the same kind of problem day after day until she hates it.

When we say Joyful Learning at Wingra, that is what we mean. If people don't understand that, then they don't know or remember what it is like for learning not to be joyful.