Several years into my teaching career at my school, St. Anne’s Episcopal School (SAES), I was offered the opportunity to attend the People of Color Conference in Dallas, TX. On the second day, I noticed on the program that there was a presentation being given by two teachers from my own high school, Agnes Irwin. I decided to go without even checking to see what it was that they were presenting. The minute they began talking I was enthralled, perhaps even called, to bring this project, The Dream Flag Project, back to SAES because it so perfectly aligned with our school’s core mission.
Upon returning back to school, I ran the idea by my Lower School Head describing to her what the project was all about. Students would read and discuss the Dream Poems of Langston Hughes, an African American poet and leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Following this, they would learn about Tibetan prayer flags, which are often found strung along trails and peaks high in the Himalayas. Then they would write their Dreams for the World on a square sheet, decorate them, string them on a line, and hang them in the school. I asked my LS Head if I could do this with my class and then hang the flags in the hallway of the Lower School. She responded by saying, “I was wondering if…,” which I knew to be, “I would like you to do this project with the entire school.” Someone, (was it me?) said, “of course!” And I walked out, stunned. A colleague later looked at me and remarked, “Mary, you hate craft projects and now you are organizing one for over 300 students?” And it was (and still is) true; I am not a creative person in that sense. Who or what had been behind that commanding and all-out, “yes, I will do it.”?
Fast forward several months and many hours spent coordinating teachers across all disciplines, and especially with the maintenance staff who forever until I retired called me, “Sarge,” I had arrived with what felt like a total buy-in from the entire school. How that had happened, especially from teachers who are notoriously covetous of their time in class with their students, I did not have time to really process, but I was grateful to have their support. After a brief chapel service in the gym where my class introduced Langston Hughes and the Buddhist Prayer Flag tradition, 300 students spread out on the floor and began to decorate their flags with paint. At one point, a teacher walked up to me and said, “Mary, stop. Listen. What do you hear?” What I heard was silence. What I saw were 300 children from age 3 to 14 engaged in this project.
When all the flags had been carried to the cafeteria where teachers had been busy stringing them up on lines crisscrossing each other from the ceiling, I finally had time to go into the cafeteria to see how it looked. When I walked in, there they were—300 dreams! Dreams for healing, for hermit crabs and other pet and human friends, dreams for enough food or water in the world for everyone, dreams for strife in families to cease, dreams for peace. No dream for self, only dreams to make the world a better place. It was breathtaking, but I am ashamed to say, my first thought was, “I created this and it is awesome.”
At last I had an opportunity to bring my class into the cafeteria, hoping to instill pride in them for all their hard work in presenting a chapel service describing the project and acting as facilitators during the decorating of the flags. I asked them, “who created this?” Through my 38 years of teaching, I needed constant reminding that when given the opportunity, children cut to the chase and speak the truth. They look at you and hold you to a higher standard and force you to at least attempt to be a better person. So it was no surprise, in retrospect, that when I asked them the question, “who created this?”, after a moment of silence, one student replied, “God. I think God created this.” Of course. Namaste.
