The Highlander School

It’s in the context of play that children make meaning of their world and her endless possibilities. The realm of realities and imagination merge. We see children replaying the scene of getting their hair braided, boarding a plane, creating a robot or transferring water and feeling the earth against their skin. Our role as educators is to listen, reflect and cultivate environments that support this wonder and joy! Grateful to my colleagues and community that make this work possible by honoring the sacredness of childhood.

Offerings to the mother tree and celebrations of spring and the new year

From The Imprint 1/16/2026
"In a rare and urgent appeal, a group of former Georgia child welfare leaders have called on Gov. Brian Kemp to rectify what they describe as an “accelerating” crisis in child welfare funding.

A Tuesday letter signed by four previous heads of the state’s Division of Family and Children Services describes the agency’s $85 million budget shortfall as a threat to thousands of families’ stability by actively eroding the network of providers contracted to serve them."

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It all starts with the children….💕💚

The Weelaunee Coalition is calling for a Week of Action beginning January 18 and ending January 25, 2026.
As an organization rooted in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace, the home of the movement to Stop Cop City, and in remembrance of our comrade,who was assassinated by the police while defending the earth, we are moved by a deep commitment to building a world grounded in peace, justice, and anti-war principles.

As educators, students, parents and caregivers working toward the world our young people deserve, we call upon all our relatives across the country and around the world to bring this generation’s movement of anti-war and peace into their classrooms, schools, and communities.

“The Weelaunee Coalition is a multi-racial, intergenerational group of educators, students, families and neighbors organizing to stop Cop Cities, end militarization and all carceral systems locally and around the world, and defend the Weelaunee Forest (South River Forest). We ground our organizing in radical solidarity with all colonized peoples, using principles of Black, brown and Indigenous liberation struggle. We use cultural organizing and education to build power with children, families, and neighbors of the forest, [rematriation] to grow our relationships with the Weelaunee Forest and each other, and to create a world liberated from environmental and racial injustice and violence.”

As we continue to honor the children’s connections with the earth and the foods it provides, we invited Lowry and Timothy to help prepare persimmon bread. Our first step was reviewing the recipe that our friends had kindly written and illustrated. Timothy immediately noticed the artwork.
Timothy: (studying the image closely)Look at how Tariq drew it— like a fish!
Jessica: Do you see the circle shapes on the paper?
Timothy: Yes, I see them.
Jessica: The circle shapes are persimmons.
Timothy reached into the bag and picked up one of the persimmons, and soon both he and Lowry began exploring it through smell, touch and gently squeezing it.
Timothy: I like squishy persimmons. Do you like squishy persimmons, Lowry?
Lowry nodded her head back and forth, offering a soft “yeah.”
Second step: The recipe says we need five persimmons, can you guys make sure we have enough?
Timothy: Oh yeah! I don’t have one at my home, they are at school.
Lowry: (counting) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Timothy: (gave her a hug) Good job Lowry!
Step three: They scooped the pulp out of the ripen persimmons into a bowl.
Timothy: I love scooping it out it’s so much fun. I’m mixing it, first I need to push my sleeves up. If I taste it it’s going to be juicy and yummy.
Would you like to stir with me Lowry?

In a separate bowl they took turns measuring and adding the dry ingredients. Then, Timothy volunteered to mix all the ingredients together and Lowry chose to go outside.

Timothy: I mix the eggs at home with my mother. (singing) Mix, mix, mix it up. Wow Jessica check it out when you mix the persimmons. I’m mixing it real good.

How does the persimmon bread taste?
Cortlyn: Good
Lowry: Good
Timothy: Yummy
Noelle: Apple
Remy: It tastes like persimmons.

Reflections
Exploring the many languages of food is deeply rooted in the culture of the school. The experiences of food holds some of the most nostalgic memories of our childhoods, celebrations and connections with this earth. Exploring and preparing food also creates a context for children to build skills related to math, science and language and literacy. What fields of knowledge did you notice unfolding in this story?

As shared by our Infant Educators…
As we began our school year, we were faced with the question of which materials we would first introduce and offer to the infants, while keeping in mind our question of intent what is our identity in relationship to this earth? We discussed offering clay as one of our first sensory explorations.
What better for the children, brand new to our world, than dirt, earth itself? We were so excited about the possibilities. What will this teach us about their identities and our collective identity?
Betsey Crawford, an environmental activist, writes about the relationship between humans and dirt, saying, "It is an integral part of our own bodies, grounding us on the breathing planet at our feet, which in turn links us to the deepest and oldest forces on earth, taking us farther and farther back, through the mother stars, all the way to the invention of the uníverse."
Why did we choose clay as we study what our identity is in relationship to this earth? Dirt
-clay— has the ability to connect us to the earth, her history, and to our ancestors. The land we reside on, the land of the Muscogee people, carries so much history, both beautiful and painful. Today, the land carries our children throughout their days, protecting them, watching them, offering fruits, herbs, leaves, and trees to climb on. The earth takes care of us and we do our best to reciprocate and care for her. As we study identity and our relationship to the land, clay can be a way to ground us. Clay is Earth. We are deeply curious about the children's reaction to this textured, natural material.

Step into our nature-based, anti-bias living rooms where learning is rooted in relationship and liberation. Discover how The Highlander School’s living pedagogy of community, justice, and joy takes form.

Discover our philosophy at its source and see our community come alive. Please DM us or email us at [email protected] if you will be in attendance. We hope to see you there!