Emily Barton
Still Waters is a remarkable place. I arrived there as a total stranger, but a young girl immediately offered to take my coat and gave me a tour to help me feel at home in the classroom. Within minutes, another girl asked me to read with her; soon after, a third requested my company while she worked on a homework essay. A fourth child offered me a slice of pizza before taking one for herself; later in the day, she gave me a series of pictures she’d drawn. It’s as if the space itself is imbued with a rare and welcoming warmth. Everyone within it, child or adult, falls under its spell. Everyone shares (pizza, cookies; their own work and their attention to others’), and everyone listens. So much of education in our era focuses on external metrics like standardized test scores, but Still Waters drives home what any parent can tell you: that the main thing a child really needs to grow and thrive is a little quiet attention, someone to listen to her. Still Waters not only provides a space in which children are fully seen, heard, and listened to, but teaches them to listen to each other—a skill that will serve them, and their communities, all their lives.