Theme Week

This April, we hosted our inaugural Theme Week at Oak Grove School relating to our theme for the school year: The Wholeness of Responsibility.

Benjamin Mertz: Artist in Residence

Coinciding with the annual one-week residency with Benjamin Mertz, who is a human rights and racial justice activist as well as a composer and song leader specializing in music of the Black Spiritual tradition, Theme Week was an opportunity for our whole community to explore the Wholeness of Responsibility in relation to social justice.

“Several months ago, we began to wonder how we might deepen our time during these short residencies with Benjamin. How is the theme and how is social justice alive in our curriculum, culture, and community as a whole?”

“Each year, we center Benjamin’s visit around our exploration of the school’s annual theme through the lens of social justice. Last year we explored our theme of Listening with Great Care, Attention, and Affection. This year we explored the Wholeness of Responsibility,” says Jodi Grass, Head of Oak Grove School. “Several months ago, we began to wonder how we might deepen our time during these short residencies with Benjamin. How is the theme and how is social justice alive in our curriculum, culture, and community as a whole?”

World Cafe Inquiry

In the run-up to Theme Week, our faculty and staff engaged in a World Café style inquiry around inclusion and belonging with former Oak Grove parent Nusa Maal, founder of the Center for Multisensory Leadership. The result was a series of mind maps reflecting and connecting the dialogue that took place during the inquiry session.

These maps were then displayed as part of a gallery in Main House showcasing how and where social justice is integrated throughout curricular and co-curricular programs at Oak Grove. Teachers submitted a sampling of books, activities, and projects that reflect social justice themes across the school. This gallery was an invitation for us to reflect on what we are doing well and the areas where we can expand our work and do more.

“What was interesting to me was how each grade wanted to explore different areas of social justice.”
– Benjamin Mertz

Exploring Social Justice in the Classroom

During his residency, Mertz was able to offer each one of our students the opportunity to engage directly with him in the classroom and through assemblies. Visiting every grade, from preschool through our seniors in High School, Mertz was able to explore the Wholeness of Responsibility and social justice with all of our classrooms. “What was interesting to me was how each grade wanted to explore different areas of social justice,” says Mertz. “Third grade was doing a unit on ability, and they wanted to explore that, so we talked about accessibility and neurodiversity; while in fourth grade they had been talking about the Civil Rights movement, so they wanted to discuss segregation. It was really inspiring for me to see how the teachers have this emergent teaching style and how they really lean into what the kids are interested in and allow that to become the direction of what is being taught.”

Parent Engagement & Beyond

Additionally, Mertz met with the Oak Grove School Board, spoke directly with staff and faculty, and offered two opportunities for parents to connect with him. During these parent engagement sessions, he explained some of the discussions that had taken place in the classroom, talked about non-violent communication tools, and engaged parents through song and movement. By relating his work to the teachings of our founder J. Krishnamurti, Mertz was able to inspire parents to step out of their comfort zone and reflect on their own understanding of the meaning of responsibility and social justice.

And finally, members of the DEIB committee hosted movie screenings on four mornings and on two evenings around topics of social justice. Films included Pride, the story of a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners’ strike in 1984; Selma, a chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s epic march from Selma to Montgomery; Who We Are, a Chronicle of Racism in America; Temple Grandin, a biopic of a woman with autism who has become one of the top scientists in the humane livestock handling industry; and End of the Line, the Women of Standing Rock, the story of the indigenous women who established a peaceful camp in protest of the Dakota Access oil pipeline construction that desecrated ancient burial sites.

Theme Week was a rich and diverse exploration of Oak Grove School’s annual theme of the Wholeness of Responsibility through the lens of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.