Silence is Golden

Whew! It has been a year of changes and challenges. Much of that time I have felt the need to keep my own council though if someone acting as their own lawyer has a fool for a client, someone listening to their own advise is in even more trouble.

With the advent of 2014, I am resolved to share the pearls I learn through out the days of the year. Already I have learned too much to share tonight but I will start with a day soon after New Year's Day, volunteering at SAM.

Schools were still on break so I was surprised we had a school tour but it turned out to be two groups of teens from the downtown YWCA program. The girls viewed the exhibit from Ancient Peru then explored drawing a chosen Seattle hallmark site as it might appear one century from today. It was fun to hear and share their ideas. Several of the girls were from Evergreen Campus High School in the Burien/White Center area. I was intrigued by what they told me about their school It actually has 3 schools: Arts/ Literature, Science/Technology and Health Sciences. I have tried to investigate more about the school and have succeeded in finding out about several interesting programs in the Highline School District but very little about the Evergreen program which I suspect now has a new name in their hierarchy.

While clicking around ( I love that you can look into all kinds of ideas with this crazy new-fangle internet) I discovered a further step in White Center's challenge to offer their community a future: The White Center Promise at http://whitecenterpromise.org/ .The girls at the museum talked about their school as being connected to elementary and middle school programs in the neighborhood and I notice they are trying very hard to develop a whole-community learning approach. White Center is a multicultural area with the challenges of new immigrants from diverse backgrounds. They are impressively taking on the challenge and showing a great road to the future that we might all want to consider. They also have a darn good Thai Restaurant, as Colin, Susan, David and I discovered on the way to the airport after the holidays.

David and Duffy
Road Crew on Tulin Rd.

If you are not from Seattle, look around your old town to challenge your old prejudices and find some new ideas growing. If you are from Seattle, look around this wet and gray town for the interesting new ideas that are trying to move us into the future and share them with others.

Learning something all the time,
Mama Llama