Longhouse School

Movement 4, Embodying:

Krall points out that in the comprehending phase, issues arise that need to be confronted:

“We may be transformed; we may also be consumed. Even with transformation we may temporarily lose our grounding. Our being may be dominated by what we have learned. After excursions into other works, students may lose faith in what they have written, in their word as it stands against the word of others. To regain their bearing, they must integrate what they have comprehended into their experiential matrix” (Krall 472),

In the 76 comprehending movement posts, Guy and Bernie share many of their anxieties. They are stretched by the need to recruit, visit families, and orient all toward the new school year. The construction of the extension is finally completing and they move into two new classrooms. The collaboration with three student consultants from r/LoHeidiLita and one mother consultant starts during the July 4^th weekend.

Then, suddenly, their work stops short when the opportunity to develop a track, indoor pool, and gym in a joint effort with the local town and school district presents itself. Guy and Bernie now must concentrate on winning public support for a prospective public bond issue. Suddenly, the thinking for a vision statement for the new school year is thrust into the hands of the four consultants! The author is now writing through the eyes of new characters who see the world through their own unique lenses.

The new narrators in the embodying movement now choose to summarize what has been learned and developed so far through the mechanism of a “tour” of Longhouse School for a prospective parent and her son. They set the narrative some ten years into the future when all of the school facilities have been completed and the high school is at the point of graduating its first class in a couple of years. Those rising graduates are, in fact, the second graders from that initial year so long ago. They represent the “products” of Longhouse education.

During the tour, the prospective parent and son meet teachers, administrators, students, and fellow parents. During the tour there is a description of the school’s philosophy, program, and goals. All of this is narrative is based on posts from the prior three movements.

The primary author now is Lolita, once a consultant and now the school’s physical education/drama teacher. Also teaching at the imagined school are the other three consultants.

Lolita makes her draft posts as “episodes” on LoHeidiLita. The final version of her description is posted on the “LonghouseSchool” WordPress website. When compared to Reddit, this platform is simply more publicly available for viewing and commenting.

Here, something like a thousand “venturing” and “remembering” Reddit posts, highlighted into seventy-six “comprehending” posts, are now condensed into a narrative of a school tour described in eleven “embodying” posts. Readers will now have to decide for themselves whether what is presented is an appropriate vehicle for the ideals of the Longhouse. More fundamentally, readers ultimately must consider: “Is this a school to which I would gladly send my own children?”

Movement 5: Restoring

 

Movement 5, “Restoring,” is currently being written. Krall describes it as “one of restitution, restoring parity, and compensating. Personal history, analysis, comparisons based on a review of literature and final reinterpretation must be finely balanced” (Krall 473).

This stage involves completing data collection, data analysis, a bibliography, and personal reflections.

Reddit provides limited data such as the number of views and likes, geographical locations, comments, etc. The final data analysis, however, will study whether patterns emerge over time. Using the seventy-six Reddit posts in the Comprehending Movement, this entails frequency analyses of the keywords and the nature of the “New Human Revolution Themes.” The eleven segments of the “tour” will be condensed into a single WordPress post as will the multiple parts of this Rationale. Comments may or may not appear but posted thoughts will also form part of the data.

These will also be incorporated into a final draft to be completed in the 2025-2026 school year and, full disclosure, will also consist of an important part of Lolita’s coursework.

Next Steps

Perhaps this narrative of Longhouse School will become the stuff of a novel or Netflix series as suggested above. Or, more likely, will gently contribute to the educational ideosphere and inform the efforts of parents, practitioners, supervisors, or policymakers.