21 minute read
KINESTHETIC LEARNING
MEETING THE DEMAND
E.D. Walker will host Dallas ISD’s newest Montessori school
CLAUDIA MARQUEZ dedicates much of her weekday time toward her role as a teacher at Jimmie Tyler Brashear Elementary School. But on weekends, that role is reversed. She becomes a student and devotes Saturday afternoons and Sundays to studying.
Marquez, who’s been working for Dallas ISD for the past four years, is one of about 16 educators participating in a Montessori training program paid for by the school district. Marquez says the course load and time commitment of the training is similar to that of a master’s program.
“For me, it’s so worth it that I’m on board with all of this. I know it’s going to be a transition, but it’s going to pay off,” she says.
DISD needs more instructors to staff the new in-demand Montessori schools, such as the one at E.D. Walker Elementary, where Marquez will
Story by RENEE UMSTED | Photography by JESSICA TURNER
be working next year.
When it opens, the Montes sori Academy at E.D. Walker will help satisfy the need for more programs of its kind in the district, and especially in North Dallas. Walker alone will be able to take 240 students in preschool through second grade in the academy, and that number will grow each year up to 440 as third, fourth and fifth grades are added.
Brian Lusk, the chief of strategic initiatives for DISD, says the proven success of other Montessori schools in the district helps fuel demand for the programs.
George B. Dealey, which opened in 1993 as one of the district’s original Montessori schools, is right down the road from Walker. Last year, it received more than 200 applications for only 66 seats.
“The instructional approach is different and unique in the Montessori model,” Lusk says. “It’s a child-centered approach where students have choice and voice.”
Walker is nestled in an area where many families send children to private schools, and the district believes they may be attracted to the Montessori program.
“There’s also a market share that we definitely could tap into for families who would be in terested in this type of model,” Lusk says.
With Walker, DISD will have six Montessori schools, five of them located north of I-30. The district has plans for a seventh school in Pleasant Grove.
To house more students, Walker began construction of a new addition in 2019, in addition to renovating the existing middle school. While a library, gym, state-of-the-art STEM labs, and visual and performing arts rooms were built, teachers were using portable buildings and moving around as different classrooms needed improvements.
Ashley Toole, who is finishing up a whirlwind first year as Walker’s principal, has been leading the school, virtually meeting a LH new staff and overseeing a campus throughout a thorough renovation project.
“I just think it’s so amazing that Dallas invested in this school
Educating in Dallas for over 100 years.
New Gym Coming Soon! 2021-2022
6121 E. Lovers Ln. (@ Skillman) / Dallas, TX 75214 214-363-1630 ziondallas.org the way that they did,” Toole says.
Students will be admitted to Walker, classified as a trans formation school, on a lottery system. There isn’t any entrance criteria, but students still must apply. Ultimately, the district wants to maintain some diversity and equity by having a student population of which 50% have a lower socioeconomic status and 50% do not.
Within the lottery, certain groups will receive priority. First priority goes to families from nearby Anne Frank Elementary, which is over capacity. Then, students in the Hillcrest, Thomas Jefferson, W.T. White, Conrad or North Dallas feeder patterns will be considered. Next, any families throughout the district are included, followed by students outside DISD.
“I’m just looking forward to working with a great team of motivated people, and hopefully the community catching on and enrolling their kids,” Marquez says. “Because I really do firmly believe that this is a great methodology for them to share with their children.”
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By MATTHEW RUFFNER
Making room for one another
Working together as one in a post-COVID-19 world
We’ve been friends for over a year now. Our writer/reader relationship began in the midst of social distancing, working from home, homeschooling and the novel Zoom meeting. I recognize our friendship is a one-way conversation. I do hope my words and reflections have brought a sense of comfort, connection, and encouragement to you during this season of wilderness. As vaccine availability increases by the day and we begin to re-enter the world again, serious and universal questions await us, my dear friends. They are the questions found on the other side of the wilderness: Who am I now? What am I going to leave behind in the COVID-19 wilderness? What lessons will we bring with us as we “re-enter” the world? What residual grief will I carry from this time?
The wilderness has changed us all. All of our faith traditions reveal the universal truth: that people enter the wilderness as one version of themselves, and the challenges and hope of the wilderness change people. Simply put, the version of yourself that went into COVID-19 will be different from the one that re-enters the world in ways you can identify and ways you have yet to discover.
Not only did the COVID-19 wilderness invite us to examine our lives more deeply, the harsh reality is, it also more deeply divided us. We were divided over social distancing, masks, race, an election, re-opening strategies and an insurrection at the Capitol. COVID-19 revealed fractures in our relationships and families. As changed people, how are we going to make room for one another?
The apostle Paul gives us an excellent metaphor: “Now the body is not made up of one part but many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body....The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’”
The world has taught us to cut one another off if we disagree on substance and consequence matters. There is another way, and frankly, we need to remember this good news now more than ever. We are ALL members of the body; we need one another now more than ever. We can no longer cut one another out. We are members of the same body.
Friends, as we return from the wilderness, we need to make room for the grief we carry. We need to make room for the differences that have been revealed. We need to make room to hear one another, see one another and forgive one another.
We are a changed people. May all that we have learned in the wilderness shape how we return to one another. With great hope, Matthew
REV. MATTHEW RUFFNER is the Senior Pastor at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. He is a husband to Sarah Ruffner and a father of two. You can follow Matthew on Instagram at @thisismatthewruffner and visit PHPC. orgto watch the church’s live stream and listen to sermonsand churches listed here. For information about helping support the Worship section, call 214.560.4202.
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By JANE MANASTER
More alike than not
A neighborhood book club brings women of different faiths together
Agood friend took me to meet the Daughters of Abraham. Their meeting that evening was held at the MAS Islamic Center of Dallas. I followed those entering in front of us, leaving my shoes in a cubby in the hall, choosing a plateful of Muslim-inspired snacks, then sitting at a long table beside two strangers who fast became friends.
The Daughters, as we call ourselves, is a group of Jewish, Christian and Muslim women who get together monthly, rotating our meeting place between three houses of worship.
Our purpose is to gain personal awareness and individual growth; the group is neither political nor deliberately scholarly. Women of all ages and backgrounds invite friends to come and get to know others, then add their email contact to a growing list.
We enjoy no leadership hierarchy or subscription, just gather together on the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. Our meeting places are Temple Emanu-El, MAS Islamic Center and several different Christian churches in the Dallas area.
The organization was launched in 2001 when Janice Lord of Fort Worth, prompted by the tragedy of Sept. 11, explored a way for women to come together to freely express their feelings and thoughts about it and endeavor to find a path toward mutual understanding and ultimately a peaceful interfaith dialogue.
Now there are chapters all over the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Metroplex, and the sense of welcome and friendship is tangible in each one. Daughters of Abraham meetings offer an opportunity for the development of personal relationships among women of differing backgrounds, both cultural and religious. No one denies the differences of their faiths, but the focus is on similarities, and as authentic friendships developed, the differences seemed to matter less and less.
Members of DofA are sometimes asked to visit with local organizations, civic organizations and religious school classes. An unofficial leadership team composed of a member of each of the Abrahamic faiths gives an informal explanation of the purpose of DofA, talks about her personal
connection with the group and answers questions from her individual perspective. It is important to convey that everyone in DofA presents her opinions from her own life experiences and does not presume to speak for all who share her religion.
Every December, our group decides the topics for discussions that will take place throughout the coming year. Just last month, our Christian coordinator, the Rev. Dawn Anderson, shared a list of topics our chapter had discussed since the founding of the Dallas Chapter in 2012. The variety is amazing.
As well as the predictable subjects, directly related to our religious backgrounds, we include several that in another setting might have proved controversial. We have shared our views on the stereotypes and misconceptions of each other’s religion and medicine (which included ethics, euthanasia and organ donations), and we also talked about gender roles, though these differ less from each than they did a couple of generations ago.
For 2021, a few of the topics that have been chosen are “Social/Racial Justice,” “Our Purpose/Why Are We Here?” and “COVID, Faith and Grief.”
Some meetings are more lighthearted as we describe our festivals like Passover, Ramadan and Easter; our weddings (some brought their commemorative photo albums); and the traditions for naming our children.
Snacks have always had a special appeal, often related to our religion’s traditions. Many bring homemade snacks. Others grab a packet of chocolate chippers as they hasten in from the office. We don’t hesitate to ask for the recipes of any particularly delicious, previously untasted delicacy. It’s not competitive, but the homemade contributions are always favorites.
The atmosphere is always congenial, even when we tackle topics that may worry us personally or within our religious settling, for example sexual harassment, death, afterlife and burial rituals, divorce and singleness. For many of us talking about these topics is cathartic.
It is often difficult to avoid talking about politics, but we do our best to stay true to the purpose of Daughters of Abraham, finding a way through respectful and enriching dialogue to develop personal relationships.
Our lofty goal is to discover and understand that we are indeed more alike than we are different.
The website is daughtersofabraham-tx. org. We may be followed on our Facebook page.
