Stone Soup
What gift do you bring to the pot? I bring….love in the form of a carrot, laughter in the form of a beet, curiosity as garlic, friendship as a pepper, leadership as celery, dance and art as potatoes, kindness as green beans, adventure as a potato, gymnastics as onions, empathy as black pepper, silliness as broth, and the list goes on and on. With great joy and pride every learner in our Acton village named and placed their symbolic gift in our village pot of Stone Soup. Each villager watched with amazement as learners shared their special ingredient that makes Acton delicious!
If you don’t know the story of Stone Soup ask your learner for the full theatrical version, however here’s a mini synopsis to peak your interest. Two travelers come to a village and are very hungry. They ask every villager to spare some food and no villager shares. The travelers decide that this village is in great need of their help and announce that they will make their magical stone soup. Suddenly a pot appears, a fire is made, and one by one small ingredients are added. The pot grows and what seemed small is now enough for everyone. They feast and even have extra! All it took was a magical stone and an invitation for community.
You may be wondering, did the stone really have magic? Magic is this funny thing, for me, I believe that magic is connection. The simplest of stone can have magic if we believe it can. At Acton, we wholeheartedly believe that every child and person in the world has a special gift to share that will change the world in a profound way. Gifts do not need to be large or measured, gifts are special because they are uniquely each persons. This is what we celebrate at Acton and this magical belief is why we invest in our newest ritual of creating a Stone Soup at school.
To share more, the process of our Stone Soup was not simply adding ingredients to a pot. Instead, over the last few weeks learners harvested ingredients from their planted garden. They washed and cared for ingredients and set them out with elegance on the table, learners baked bread as offerings and cut flowers to create beauty. No one person took from the garden as their own, instead the garden is for all to share. As a full school we read the book Stone Soup, shared ideas in a socratic discussion, and then we used all of our senses to watch the pot grow and honor each persons gift with wonder. The smell of our magical soup wafted through the air and after breathing in and relaxing it was shared that “it smells like holiday!” At the end of the day we feasted together with laughter, relaxation, and joy.
At Acton we are committed to building community and growing together. It is when we have community, a sense of feeling seen, heard, and loved that each of us feels safe and honored to grow. The beginning of the year is the time where we invest most in rituals that bind our community and create magic. With great evidence we know that when learners feel part of a community they can do even greater things than if alone.
What gift will you bring to the Acton pot? What gift do you bring to the world? We believe in your magic!