Volume 25, Issue 1
2021-2022
About U.S.
A Publishing Tradition of The Unquowa School
A Message From the Head of School
T
he two-year anniversary of our global pandemic has been
know we possessed to just keep going. Countless articles also
marked with a sense of relief by the gradual reopening of
abound about how children have fared globally and what they’ve
many countries. Sadly, at the same time, racial and environmental
lost over these two long years, especially if they have not been
reckoning and now unimaginable warfare in Eastern Europe
fortunate enough to have been in school for a large part of that time.
vie for our attention and action, challenging that relief. In trying to reconcile this reality, I am simultaneously haunted and emboldened by the question posed by Salman Rushdie in his
Fortunately, however, what you will see in the pages of this issue of About U.S. is a testament to the fact that our children here at Unquowa and their teachers who work alongside them
spring 2021 essay on
every day, have found
the history and impact
the resources within
of the wonder tale.
themselves not just to
The fables and fairy
keep going but to do
tales we tell our young
so with remarkable
children are filled with
enthusiasm and
monsters and magic,
accomplishment. Pre-
villains and heroes.
schoolers imitating
In his essay, Rushdie
the heroes of fairy
reminds us that at their
tales, Lower Schoolers
base, these tales share
following the examples
truthful messages
of heroes in history,
about human nature:
and Upper Schoolers,
bravery and cowardice,
inspired by the powerful
honesty and trickery.
protagonists in both
Implanted in their
fiction and non-fiction,
messages are the basic
have carried on
enduring questions of
school life with joy and
modern literature that are also the basic enduring questions about human life. One of the enduring questions that Rushdie poses in his essay
success. In his newest collection of poems, Time is a Mother, Asian American poet Ocean Vuong poignantly asks, “How else do we
addresses the impact of the pandemic specifically. ”How,” he
return to ourselves but to fold the page so it points to the good
asks, “do ordinary people respond to the arrival in their lives of
part.” As we adults feel ourselves running out of energy for “doing
the extraordinary?” He suggests that, as we see in the ancient
hard things,” as we whisper a wish for everything to suddenly
wonder tales, fairy tales and subsequent centuries of fictional
resolve itself because our inner resources are running low, let’s
characters that have followed them, sometimes we don’t do so
look to our children, the believers of the enduring messages
well, but at others we find resources within ourselves that we did
from fairytales, fiction and historical heroes. Let’s also look back
not know we possessed.
through the pages of these past two years that are “folded down
Articles and books about how adults have fared over these
to point to the good parts” of our children’s lives and of our own.
past two years of global pandemic are abundant. No one dared
In doing so, may we all find the spirit and strength to proceed
to imagine how long we would have to pace ourselves, but here
until life returns to what we recall as normal. I suspect that we
we are - people in all walks of work and parents with children of
will find that the new normal will prove to be even better than the
all ages. Most of us have found the endless resources we did not
pages our memories have folded down as the good parts.
Sharon Lauer, Head of School