Executive Functioning: Schools as Tide Pools

From Roman Bells to Celtic Moons

Imagine schools as tide pools—goals written in seasons, readiness over compliance, the crone guarding kairos—learning rooted in earth-cycles rather than the Roman clock.

Opening — Schools as Tide Pools

Schools often imagine themselves as rivers—straightened, scheduled, obedient to bridges. Yet the children who arrive each morning are closer to tide pools, learning in pockets and eddies that answer to older calendars than the Roman grid on the wall. The twenty-four-hour clock, so proudly masculine in its march of minutes, has never quite understood the wax and wane by which bodies actually grow.

In my own practice I have begun to think of IEPs as seasonal documents. Goals written in spring sound different from those written in winter; readiness shifts the way light shifts across a field. The student who cannot begin at eight may bloom after lunch like a flower refusing morning frost. The essay that refuses the worksheet can arrive at dusk carrying its lantern of commas. These are not exceptions but expressions of a gestalt timetable—whole before part, meaning before the red pen.

Our inherited schedule still carries the scent of dominion—efficiency worshipping its small god, suspicious of celebration. Yet older traditions knew that festivals were not distractions but engines of learning. The Celtic calendar—Samhain turning inward, Beltane daring outward—understood education as a conversation with earth-time. Maiden, Mother, Crone each held a seat in the room; the crone especially guarded kairos, teaching how long a story needs and how many breaths a fear requires.

To honour such cycles would not be to abandon rigour but to relocate it. Assess readiness rather than compliance. Ask whether the soil is warm enough, whether the tide recognises the child. Let classrooms become shorelines with buckets and patient ankles, teachers as careful gulls rather than wardens of sand. Remove the dominionist from the schedule and invite the moon to co-author the syllabus.

The poem that follows imagines what might happen if schools remembered they were made of living weather. It is offered as a small tide pool where these ideas can stretch their legs without being graded.

Schools as Tide Pools

The school believes it is a river—
straightened between concrete banks,
ringing its metal noon
like a small emperor.

But children are tide pools—
salt remembering the moon,
learning in eddies and pockets
older than Romans with their squares.

The twenty-four-hour clock
is a narrow masculine corridor—
march of minutes in polished boots,
patriarchy counting its coins.

Beneath the timetable
another calendar breathes—
Celtic hinge of season and festival,
wax and wane like a gentle spine.

Maiden arrives with chalk on her cheeks,
Mother with soup in her pockets,
Crone with a basket of slow stories—
all waiting outside the bell.

Schools forget celebration
as though joy were extracurricular,
yet the body learns best
when the drum knows its name.

Write the goals in seasons—
autumn for gathering questions,
winter for the long listening,
spring for the shy verb to stand.

Assess readiness, not compliance—
is the soil warm enough,
has the seed met its neighbour,
does the tide recognise the child?

I have seen a student bloom after lunch
like a flower refusing morning frost,
watched an essay arrive at dusk
carrying its lantern of commas.

The gestalt timetable is tidal—
whole before part,
story before sentence,
meaning before the red pen.

Let the classroom be a shoreline
with buckets and patient ankles,
teachers as careful gulls
not wardens of sand.

Remove the dominionist from the schedule—
that small god of efficiency
who fears the Crone’s wisdom
and the Maiden’s wandering feet.

Honour kairos in the elder hour—
when the sun leans on the windows
and even the desks grow thoughtful,
wood remembering forests.

Imagine festivals in corridors—
Samhain for the turning inward,
Beltane for the brave beginning,
Lughnasadh for the first ripe word.

Children would learn the grammar
of rain arriving on roofs,
of darkness teaching patience,
of light learning to share.

The cycle is feminine water—
not weak but tidal,
carving cliffs without shouting,
carrying ships with her hips.

Schools could be tide pools—
not factories of minutes
but small oceans where minds
practice being alive.

Let the crone sit by the timetable
and loosen its belt—
she knows how long a story needs,
how many breaths a fear requires.

I want a classroom that remembers
the moon has a syllabus,
that grief has a semester,
that laughter passes every exam.

The bell could become a gull—
calling rather than commanding,
inviting the learners to wander
back when the tide is ready.

Until then we stand ankle-deep
in the old salt of seasons,
teaching what we can between rings,
dreaming of shorelines without walls.