Saturday, November 26, 2005

Greenhouse School Cultivates Multiculturalism

While many elementary school students across the United States were coloring cutouts of pilgrims and Indians this Thanksgiving, students at the Greenhouse School in Salem, Mass., heard Rob Allen, an Alaska Native, speak about Native culture in Alaska.

Daniel Patrick Welch, administrative director of the Greenhouse School and contributor to Press Action, explains: “Especially around the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s important that the kids get some sense of the depth and variety of Native culture and history—particularly since the European settlement of the continent resulted in most of it being obliterated.”

Operated by Welch and his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde, the Greenhouse School is a small independent school that serves many low- and middle-income families from Salem and surrounding towns. The school was founded in 1983 in a renovated greenhouse and an adjoining lot and 3-story residence.

Allen, who is of Tlingit heritage, the Native group from Alaska’s Southeast region, chose to speak about a recent trip to remote Eskimo communities along Alaska’s west coast. “I went as part of a needs assessment trip for a foundation I work with; it was an amazing experience, seeing all these kids growing up in a subsistence culture,” Allen says. “It’s a way of life that has endured for thousands of years.”

Nambalirwa-Lugudde says that she and the students were struck by the similarities between Allen’s talk and her tales of growing up in Uganda: scarcity of water, the necessity of manual labor and daily chores and the uncertainty of basic needs.

Meanwhile, the Greenhouse School earlier this month received a major art donation from Gail Rosenthal, an artist and teacher from Needham, Mass. She and her husband Leonard, both retired, are in the process of selling their home in Needham and moving to Portland, Ore. She chose the Greenhouse School to receive almost her entire collection of art books and materials, collected over decades from an eclectic and fascinating life.

“I was looking for someone who would make good use of it ... who has a multicultural approach and serves poor kids too,” Rosenthal explains. “A small place where it would make an impact.”

The donation includes more than 100 art books, spanning virtually every imaginable medium, time period and geographic focus. Also included will be the makings of a darkroom, a sizeable amount of clay, specialty tools and materials, and a host of slides from museums around the world. “It’s the kind of gift that can change a school,” Welch says.

To learn more about the Greenhouse School and ways to support it, visit greenhouseschool.org.

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