MLC Alumni Event, December 14, Mark Your Calendar

Third Grade Mosaic

This mosaic mural of Portland had been growing year by year, with lots of help from Anna's third grade class, and Mark, our mosaic guy!

Murals: Space Whales

This mural lives in the entry to the Commons and to Jeff's office, at the end of the high school hallway.

Yearbooks Are Here!

Hello, friends!  Grab your excitement hats, because the MLC yearbooks are here!

The yearbooks have finally come in, and are ready for sale!  They are $20, and can be bought outside of the Main Office before and after school.  You can buy a yearbook any day, as supplies last.  We already sold 17 on Tuesday, the very first day they were available, so get your yearbook ASAP.

I already have mine (I got the 9th sold) and it's SNAZZY!  They're super fun, and colorful, and are also hard-cover.

I repeat:  HARD-COVER.  This is awesome!

So, bring your wallet when you come to pick up your kids, or send them with money or a check.  Make checks payable to Metropolitan Learning Center.

Here is what the front and back covers look like.  The front was done by Tom E., and the back by Audrey L. Aren't they amazing? Here's the inside cover, designed by Ashley B.:

Get your yearbook before they're all gone!

Murals: Hikers

This mural lives in the high school hallway outside of Mike's room (rm. 204).

Murals: Tree Women

This mural lives in Bianca's room (rm. 108).

Lunch Options

MLC students have an hour-long lunch period. Starting in sixth grade, with parental permission, students can go off-campus to buy food at one of the many restaurants and grocery stores that are nearby.

Choices include:

• Trader Joe's
• Blue Moon (a McMenamin's)
• Pizza Schmizza
• Ken's Artisan Bakery
• Fred Meyer's
• Portland Bagel Co.
• Pepino's
• Laughing Planet
• Escape From New York Pizza (owned by MLC family)
• Mio Sushi
• Cha Taqueria
• Moonstruck Chocolate
• Starbucks
• Fat Straw
• Pizzicato Pizza
• Coffee Time
• Love Via Crepes
• and many more!

GSA!

 Okay, you know the GSA is cool if it has a dragon as part of its logo. There's no going wrong with that. The GSA meets every Tuesday during lunch in Steve's room (rm 300). Snacks provided!

MLC's GSA group sits for a yearbook photo.

Egg Drop

The Egg Drop is another long-standing MLC tradition. Students (and staff) of all ages are invited to submit contraptions invented to keep an egg protected in the three-story drop from the roof of the building. Ten lucky students and a few staff members coordinate the event roofside, while a couple of students emcee. The whole school comes outside to the staff parking lot to watch the crazy contraptions fly off of the roof. If the egg breaks, the student rings a bell; if it's still intact, they honk the horn (of course, we switch it up every now and again--sometimes it's vice versa). It's a great spring activity to get everyone outside for an afternoon, and teaches everybody a little something about physics in the process.

All-School Mosaic

Every student in the school is helping to make a huge mosaic to be displayed in the Commons. It will be a giant yin yang, surrounded by a gradated rainbow square with the five character traits (courage, respect, integrity, self-discipline, and compassion) around the edge. Each student created two fused glass squares that will be included in the mosaic, and one to take home. We have all been helping to put it together, and so far it looks awesome! Thanks so much to Mark, who is making this all happen!

Nathan Sadowsky

Nathan Sadowsky is a sophomore at MLC, but next year, he'll be leaving us for college!  When Nathan moved from Chicago to Portland two years ago, he skipped the eighth grade and jumped straight into the community.  There was a wonderful article written about Nathan, which can be viewed here.  Nathan is a great kid, and one of my best friends in the world, and I can't wait to see what he does next.  Congrats, Nathan!

Michael!

Michael Sosne has been a fixture at MLC since he first started teaching in September of 2006. Since then, Michael has become one of the best role models and teachers MLC could ever have. We are so sad that he is leaving us at the end of this year! Frequently seen wandering the halls with a box of dry cereal or a guitar under his arm, popping into classrooms to explain adverbs or teach calculus, Michael always has a smile on his face.

More Senior Power...Not To Brag, But....

Seniors at MLC are required to design and complete senior projects in order to graduate. These projects can vary widely, from choreographing a dance piece, to writing a blog like this one, to volunteering at an organization. It has to benefit the community in some way. Seniors write proposals which are reviewed by a panel of staff members and are approved or tweaked until they are satisfactory. We fill out time sheets, and at the end of our projects, write a three page reflective essay. Here's a few examples of what seniors are doing this year:

• Choreographing and directing an original dance composition
• Casting and directing plays
• Writing a blog that explores a social issue
• Writing and creating a graphic novel
• Holding a secondhand clothing sale as a fundraiser for Loaves & Fishes
• Taking a solo backpacking trip through the Oregon countryside
• Drafting and creating a costume for a fellow student in one of the high school plays
• Designing, producing, and selling event teachers to raise money for the school
• Teaching art classes to younger students
• Raising money to pay for wells in Bangladesh

Ashland!

This last week, the entire high school had the privilege of visiting Ashland, in southern Oregon, for three nights and four days.  Ashland is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is famous throughout the country as an amazing company.  OSF produces eleven plays a season, and we were lucky enough to get to see three or four of them, depending on our itinerary for the trip.  All of the students on the Ashland trip saw Animal Crackers, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, and Romeo and Juliet; while some also got to see Seagull.

A group of students on "the Bricks," the brick area that connects the theaters of OSF (the Angus Bowmer, the Elizabethan, and the New Theater). It's a common meeting place for school groups before and after shows, and a great place to hang out!

Students were put into three large groups: Theater, Outdoor Adventure, and Wild West. The Theater group focused on workshops and backstage tours, and got to see Seagull. The Outdoor Adventure group got to go on some amazing hikes and visit Table Rock. The Wild West group focused mainly upon history, and spent half a day in Jacksonville seeing the historic sites there.

From these groups, students were also split into ten strands, making things even more complicated with timing and chaperones. On Thursday afternoon, students embarked on many different adventures, everything from visiting a creamery, to a hike in Lithia Park, to meeting Matt Damon (not THE Matt Damon) and his class of third graders. This was a ton of fun as well, and provided a great opportunity to experience something beyond the normal "Ashland-Theater" experience.


Students and Lewis taking a quick rest on the Lithia Park Hiking Adventure, one of the many amazing activities we did!

All in all, the Ashland trip was a huge success, and everyone had a fantastic time adventuring through Ashland!

Make sure to thank the high school teachers if you see them, they put a LOT of work into this trip!

Yearbooks!

According to Jostens, our yearbook publishing company, our contracted ship date is May 21st. This means that the MLC yearbooks should be here soon! They will be $20, and even more important than that, they will be AWESOME! We've worked really hard to make sure that the books contain every student at least twice, and should be a lot of fun to page through and look at the year. MLC students and parents will be able to buy the yearbooks from the table next to the main office before and after school, and during the day from Kathleen in the main office.  Don't be the last one to get your yearbook!

Update:
Here's a little taste....

Renaissance Faire

Every year, MLC has its own Renaissance Faire fundraiser. Volunteers run booths of every kind, from cotton candy, to fortune telling, to Michelangelo pudding painting, to henna, to hair braiding, to stockades, to bean bag tosses, to cake walks, to used clothing sales, to archery--you can find it all! Medieval-looking banners and pennants are hung in the hallways, and everywhere you look you see a velvet dress or a pirate shirt. It's a great opportunity to dress up and have a great time!

Third Graders

Here are some more photos that we couldn't squeeze into the yearbook, of Anna's third grade class:

 

 

Blast from the Past!

We just found this photo on one of the MLC facebook pages, and thought it was far too awesome to not post. We think this is from sometime from the 70's or 80's, but if you happen to know, we'd love to know the right year. This room is now Steve Lambert's room, (room 300). We assume that this was a Base Station (maybe Rita's?). Base Stations were something akin to homerooms, but will all of the grades instead of just a few. We now operate with Metros (high school), Retros (7th and 8th graders) and just classes for the rest. Base Stations had every grade from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and were super cool! I wish we had them back, they were definitely something that helped build community. Base Stations don't exist anymore, but back in the day, when they did, they were pretty fantastic. What a great blast from the past this photo is!

Update: Found this...Lewis Holland there with the hair and the glasses and the I love Oregon t-shirt...shows just how long he's been a part of MLC! We love you, Lewis!

Halloween

Every year at Halloween, the entire school has a Halloween parade. Students strut around the neighborhood in their amazing costumes after gathering in the auditorium and watching the staff do their Thriller dance.

Winter Craft Fair

Students and parents show off their wares, 

while former MLC staff member Ruth

Frankel and others browse.

Every year after Solstice, a Winter Craft Fair is held in the gym. Students and parents sell their merchandise, and everyone can find something for winter holiday presents.

A Taste of Solstice

Solstice from 2009 is an interesting thing indeed. The entire high school portion is featured on YouTube...your authors are in part 4--see if you can spot us!

Part 2
Parts 3 & 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

All School Photo

Tim Horn, the parent of one of the kindergarten students at MLC, is a professional photographer, and was kind enough to take a ton of photos for the yearbook!  One very important thing that he did was take the All School Photo, which he did from the roof!  Every student and staff member present that day is in the picture, and we are so thankful to Tim for doing this for us.

Can you find your friends in there?

Marimba!

Here's a taste of what one of MLC's marimba bands sound like:

Update: Here's one from a few years ago:

Portfolios: So Much Better Than Finals

High school students at MLC don't take finals. (Yes, you read that right.) Instead, we complete culminating projects for each class. The piece can take almost any form imaginable--it could be a persuasive essay, a painting, a compilation of poems and photographs, a lab report, a math problem, a recipe book, or a video, to mention a few options. At the end of each year, we present three of those pieces--a writing piece, a problem solving piece, and a piece of our choice--to a panel of judges who score the presentation. Sophomores and seniors present to outside panelists--volunteers who may be parents, teachers' parents, or members of the larger community (for example, people who work at businesses nearby). Freshmen present to juniors, and juniors present to seniors.

This alternative method of proving what you have learned is, in my mind, a much more accurate and all-encompassing one. It lets the student explain what they learned, how they grew, and what they had difficulties with--it forces us to metacognate, and to really show all aspects of what we got out of a class, not just how well we take tests. It's yet one more thing that we love about MLC.

Hearts!

Look at the cool art some of the K x 3 family made for Valentines Day!  Aren't they beautiful?
These are still up in the hallway by Avril's room, near the main office, if you want to swing by and check them out in person.

Doug, the Douglas Fir

Doug is too big to fit in one picture. Here's the top of Doug.

John's class of first and second graders have been talking to Doug here. Doug is a Douglas Fir, and he's got a lot of fairy friends. They help him do what he can't...like write letters to his friends in John's class. They've been studying trees like him and his tree friends, and have been to visit Doug in his home forest at Forest Park. Doug watches over the hallways for us and loves to get letters back! 

Here's the bottom of Doug.

High School Plays

Every year, Bianca, the high school Art and Language Arts teacher, co-teaches a Theater class with an employee of Profile Theater. This year, they put on two plays by Terrence McNally. The first, Bad Habits, follows the inhabitants of a marriage counseling retreat called Ravenswood and a rehabilitation center called Dunelawn. The second play, It's Only A Play, follows actors in NYC as they impatiently wait for the opening night reviews of their play and what happens when they read them.

Here's an idea of what that looks like:

Murals: We Are All Connected

This mural is on the stairway going up to the high school hallway from the exit to the back parking lot. These photos offer two views of the same part of the mural: one directly facing it, and the lower photo as one would see it entering the school.

Fun Photos

In addition to creating this blog, Olivia and I had the privilege of being advisors for the MLC yearbook committee.  We've been able to get many of the awesome photos for this blog from our resources for creating the yearbook, which has been very helpful.  Here are some of the great photos that were submitted to the yearbook that we weren't able to publish.  Enjoy!

Awesome Things We Overheard at MLC Today

MLC kids tend to have some pretty awesome conversations. In just one day, these are some great things we overheard:


I can think ANYTHING! - 2nd grader

Whatcha doin', honey buns?! - 3rd grader to 12th grader

Has anyone patented vampire dentures? -12 grader

It's basically a pygmy puff on a stick -12th grader

I made a paper airplane that can't fly.  Isn't it cool? - Kindergartener

Let's burn the dragon! - 10th grader

I didn't get a haircut, I dyed the tips of my hair invisible! - 9th grader

Solstice

Every year, MLC puts on a celebration of the winter solstice. Every grade participates in some way, whether it be reciting a poem, dancing, or singing a song. The kindergarten traditionally sings What a Wonderful World, signing along in ASL. This year, Avril's class and John's class (1st and 2nd grade mixes) performed This Little Light of Mine, and Ned's class (6th grade) recited King John's Christmas, a poem by A.A. Milne.

In this picture, the school's marimba band performs while students and parents are sitting down. 

The kindergarten kids end their song with a bang.

The staff have a part in the performance too: every year, they rewrite the lyrics of a song they all know and sing to us about how much they love working at MLC. Where else could that happen but here?

The staff hold up paper stars in the middle of their song and dance...may we draw your attention to Ned's face (far left) for just a moment? We found it entertaining. 

The last portion of the celebration is a dance pageant done by high school students, which ends in the dancers leading the audience out to a bonfire in the parking lot. The pageant is created and run almost entirely by students, with a few staff supervisors. The pageant's plot always includes a few key points: there is always a Sun and Moon, and something (kidnapping, impostors, overgrown weeds) that takes the Sun away from the Earth for a while. Over the course of the dances, the Sun finds his or her way back to the planet, signifying the lengthening of the days, and the dancers celebrate his/her return. Students design and create choreography, plot, costumes, lighting, and set, and it all comes together in the hours before the performance in Bianca's room. 

Bianca (our awesome high school language arts and art teacher, and the one who really makes solstice possible for us) paints gold makeup on the Sun (Violet Lane-Ruckman).

For the high schoolers, one of the best parts of the process is getting ready to go on stage the day of. They hang out in Bianca's room and proceed to don costumes, makeup, and what seems like tons of glitter, teasing each other's hair to ridiculous heights.

Here, two sisters pose for the camera in all their glittery glory. 

After an hour or so of preparation comes the waiting. Since they're already in costumes, they're not allowed to escape into the hallways. They stay cooped up in the basement in anticipation of the show, growing crazier and more excited by the minute. Inevitably, someone decides a group photo is in order.

Here they are...both of your authors are in this photo, but I bet you can't find us! 

Finally, the moment arrives where they are let out of Bianca's room and led upstairs to the halls outside the auditorium. There, more waiting and controlled pandemonium takes place, until at last, everyone's turn comes up to be on stage. In the end, every dancer returns to the stage, and leads the audience outside. Once there, the entire school dances around the bonfire for a while to the drumming of students, staff, and parents.

The Jupiter group dances around the stage.

Meanwhile, representatives from each class burn the scraps from this year's power animals. This tradition consists of ripping animal shapes out of construction paper and writing our hopes for the coming year inside. After we finish writing, we staple them onto a string. The animals are put on display in the commons, where everyone can enjoy them. On the scraps that are left over, we write what we want to put behind us from the past year.

Burning the scraps, drumming, and dancing! In other words, the awesomeness that is the solstice bonfire. Be not deceived by its small size.

A staff member drums while students and parents look on.

Solstice is also one of the most popular times for alumni to come visit...we usually see graduated students and retired teachers walking around and reconnecting. A good bit of tomfoolery goes down, and everyone enjoys themselves. Of course, the free cake doesn't hurt! It's a great opportunity for students to bond, and crazy pictures get taken (as evidenced by the pictures you see here). Overall, it's a great way to showcase students' creativity and imagination, while having quite a bit of fun in the process, and is one of the traditions dearest to the MLC community.

The Imposter Sun, Sun, and Imposter Moon pose for a photo. They look awesome! 

P.S. On a side note, Lewis Holland's ex-wife was the creator of Solstice at MLC. Lewis is the high school math teacher, and has been teaching at MLC for 40 years!