"Checking In"

(Checking In)
 

The Thursday faculty meetings at the school (Shining Mountain Waldorf) I used to work, after I have joined the College of Teachers (the core faculty members), lasted about 6 to 7 hours. First, I would attend the High school meeting, and then I would go off to the all school meeting, and finally, I would attend the College of Teacher meeting. This last meeting may become longer if we had to meet with the Board of Trustees. We adopted the "Consensus decision -making" system, so that each one of us was responsible for our decision.

I've loved the High school meetings and the College of Teacher meetings. I cannot go into the details, but what I liked about these meetings is that we did the exercise called, "Checking In," in the beginning of each meeting.  

The faculty members were asked to share the mental/emotional state we were in that day (or that given moment) in the unique way, and we would go around answering.  The facilitator(s) would choose the metaphorical theme for that day and ask, for example, "What would your feeling(your mental state) be if your were to describe (express) it as the type of a flower?"  

I remember once, we've had to describe our feelings by referring to the lyrics from the classical rock music... and we had to sing the appropriate lines!
I like the fact that the creativity was actively incorporated into the otherwise "could be dry/cold" meetings. 

This may sound strange, but I miss those meetings from time to time even though some of the meetings were very intense!

So, how was your day like if you were to describe it as the shape of the cloud? ...mine?  It would be "Cirrocumulus cloud," high up in the atmosphere.