Donna's Dispatch

July / August 2008 

A message from Donna Bernard

Superintendent of Schools

Greetings to you on a mid-summer’s day.

 

These are the days when young people of all ages learn in different environments than school buildings.  There are many lessons learned over the course of a summer... some formal and many informal.

 

Reflect back, if you would, on the summers of your youth and the lessons learned that you carry with you today.  For me, the summers of my youth were many, many years ago.  But the lessons hold fast to this day.

 

If you will allow, I would like to share a few:

 

1. I learned the value of learning, quality control and hard work. As the eldest daughter in a French/Italian home, I was well trained in cooking, cleaning, gardening, food canning and preserving, sewing, and childcare. Summer was a time of work and providing family assistance in many ways.  It was a time of harvesting, seasonal cleaning, and child care, as the schools were not in session.  There was only the “right way” to can peaches or make a pie. These lessons of learning, quality control, and hard work have served me well.

2. I learned the value of good food and sharing in a family mealtime conversation.  In those days, we grew our own food, ate without preservatives, and ingested what was “in season.”  To this day, I seek to care for my body and those of my family members by “living the 1940’s diet.”  To match the quality and proportion size of ingested food from those years would serve most Americans well.  In addition, the commitment to a family sharing a meal together was non-negotiable.  Even today, research validates the difference in the healthy behaviors of young people (less suicide, less substance abuse, better school performance), if even one meal a week is shared family time.

3. I learned the value of cooperation, creativity, and team work.  In the summers of my youth, children from the neighborhoods played in large and small groups outside, without many toys, and certainly no technology.  This means that we invented many scenarios and created environments with leaves, logs, blankets, and lawn chairs.  We worked as teams in groups for everything from lemonade stands to theater productions in the garage.  We sang, danced, and played sports together.  The only limit was our imaginations and the need to come in at dark.  The lessons of sharing, leadership, and “followership” are exercised in my life to this very day.

4. I learned the value of nature and being outside at play. We played with mud and berries and leaves.  We played in the sunshine and in the puddles of rain. We collected flowers and spent time in the woods and on the grass.  We climbed trees. The lessons learned in those summer days created the drive to value our earth and how we need to tread lightly on it. The lessons on interacting gently with other living things are serious understandings that could be of international value today.

 

It is important that you share your summertime learning with this next generation.  They need to hear the stories from their elders.  They need to have someone to whom they might tell their stories. Study the summer experiences of the young people in our community.  What are the lessons they will take with them to the future? Can you help them learn the lessons that will serve them well?

 

Thanks, as always, for your support of our young people.

 

Donna

 

PS – Please join me for the Second Annual Donuts with Donna at the Coventry Farmers’ Market scheduled for Sunday, August 24 from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. at the Nathan Hale Homestead on South Street.