Third Year
An average of two dozen children and youth visit this sanctuary for reading and writing every day.
This year, in addition to homework help and tutoring and our weekly writing groups, Still Waters has expanded to include “home learning.” A half dozen children have been taken out of desolate public schools by their parents and are learning at Still Waters instead. They are practicing reading and writing, mathematics, science, history, music, art, drama and French. Much of the learning happens on weekly trips around the city. This year we have hiked up Mount Taurus in the Hudson River Valley, gone horseback riding in Pelham Bay Park and ice skating at Chelsea Piers, explored the Bronx and Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, The New York Aquarium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Museum of Natural History, The Drawing Center, The Reading Room, The Staten Island Museum, The Staten Island Zoo, Central Park, The Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park and The Prospect Park Zoo, The Butterfly Pavilion, The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Chinatown and The Performing Garage, among many other fascinating places.
Special projects have included a 6-month photography class with Emma Strugatz of NYU (exhibition coming soon), an ongoing yoga class, beginning piano lessons, playwriting with Big Green Theater, a child-written-and-photographed blog about city playgrounds, and correspondence with children in Canada, Ireland and Fort Carson, an Army base in Colorado.
A parade of amazing writers and artists has visited Still Waters to work with the children, including novelists Peter Carey (True History of the Kelly Gang), Calvin Baker (Dominion), Colm Toibin (Brooklyn), Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin), Richard Price (Lush Life), Peter Hedges (The Heights), Russell Banks (The Sweet Hereafter) and Patrick McGrath (Asylum), best-selling authors Julie Powell (Julie and Julia) and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (Random Family), poet Tom Sleigh (Army Cats), playwrights Carlyle Brown (The African Company Presents Richard III), Florencia Lozano (underneathmybed), and Liz Flahive (Nurse Jackie), theater artist Kate Valk (The Wooster Group), publisher Larry Smith (Six Word Memoirs), photographer Ashley Gilbertson (Bedrooms of the Fallen) and zither virtuoso Lan Li.
The number of students is going to double this coming fall. We’re also operating full time this summer.
All of these services remain free of charge to Bushwick families, most of them Spanish-speaking recent immigrants living below the poverty line.
9-year old Solomon came to Still Waters in a Storm in January completely illiterate. He couldn’t spell “dog.” Now he is reading The Call of the Wild and loving it. Charlotte, 13, is apprenticing with Kate Valk at The Performing Garage. Yesterday, novelist Calvin Baker affirmed that Lilah, who has twice repeated third grade, is a gifted storyteller. Beatriz, age 8, labeled ADHD, is finding serenity at the piano, composing her own sweet and funny songs.
Word of mouth is racing through Bushwick. Children are bringing other children to Still Waters. Students who rejected reading when they arrived are asking to borrow books from our splendid, growing library. Mexican mothers, having heard that students’ school grades skyrocket after only a brief time at Still Waters, bring new children every day. We now are working with two dozen families, and we have 35 families on our waiting list.
The major goal in this, our fourth year, is to maintain existing programs while continuing our transition from homework help into a free, neighborhood co-op school, a humane place for peace and joy and surpassing quality of education.