Maud’s Mumblings
By Maud Clawson
Maud’s Mumblings
By Maud Clawson
It is another beginning of another school year. What’s going to happen this year? I hope good things for everyone.
I hope there will be a day this year when people won’t fight. I hope there will be a day this year when people can just sit among themselves for a moment and think about what they are doing. I would enjoy it if people would open their minds and do what they truly and wholeheartedly want to do.
Let’s make it the year of The HUMAN. Let’s make it good. Let’s make it peaceful. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make it. Or break it.
Lester is still active in cable T.V. She attended a seminar in San Francisco this summer and has informed me that the video on Mini-School she has been working on is nearing completion. She has also made arrangements for 12 Mini-School students to attend a class through the Lake Minnetonka Cable Commission on producing T.V. shows — an exciting opportunity for our students. If the November experience (four 2-hour sessions) goes well, the opportunity may be there for other Mini-Schoolers throughout the year. Lester is also sharpening her knowledge of computers and is really becoming Mini-School’s liaison with the high-tech world.
Also, Lester’s Mini-School Women’s Studies group is bigger and better than ever. Most of the ladies in Mini are involved (about 20). Pat Brown, contact plus outreach worker for the YWCA, has assisted Lester with the groups this year. They’ve had several good sessions on teenage pregnancy, adoption, etc., and Dr. Linda Burns of the Park-Nicollet Medcenter met with their group on one occasion. They also visited the West Suburban Teen Clinic for a session with Kathy Anderson. Women’s Studies continues to be a terrific information and support group for the Mini-School girls. The guys in Mini are getting jealous and Randy, Norm, and I are receiving pressure to start a “Men’s Studies”.
A big “thank you” is in order to Amy Mook from all of Mini-School for showing us the slides of her trip to China this past summer. Her experience was a real once-in-a-lifetime and she made it real meaningful for us. Also, a thank you to Joanne Elliott-Storlie, the Mini-School aide of a few years back for volunteering for a day to drop us into the Namekagon River and shuttling the vehicle, trailer, etc. It was great to see her and have her involved with Mini-School again – just like old times. Also, thank you to Nancy Ward, Director of the English as a Second Language Program at Minnetonka, and mother of old Mini-Schoolers Tom and Ryan, for inviting a group of Mini-School students to one of her ESL classes to meet the Asian kids. It was a really neat experience for the Mini-School kids – they were impressed!
Randy and I are scheduled to attend a short outward bound course Nov. 7-12 called “Outward Bound and Youth-at-Risk” at Joshua Tree National Monument near Palm Springs, California. It should be a nice experience, and hopefully we will bring home some strategies for working with Mini-School kids. Also, the High School Writer, a statewide high school magazine, has expressed an interest in publicizing Mini-School and perhaps publishing some of our students’ writing.
There has been some talk of hiking the Grantsburg Trail along the St. Croix River again this year during Thanksgiving week. If we do it, it would be the fourth consecutive year we have and it would mean about 40 kids have participated in this hike. For current Mini-Schoolers, Jeff Jambeck and Paul Peterson, who are interested in doing it, it would be the third consecutive year that they have hiked it.
Speaking of trips, I’d also like to call to the attention of our supporters that Mini-School, as usual, is in need of a van for our longer trips this year. If the trips are local (within a day’s drive) we usually can get by with our own vehicles, but if we need to go a greater distance (Florida, Grand Canyon, Great Smokies etc.) we need to have access to a van or maxi-van. Leasing is pretty prohibitive for us financially, but we can afford to pay something. If any of you can help us out, we’d like to hear from you.