This community, the sharing and holding of something in common with others, of our mutual participation and association, is what Ridgeview aspires to when its aspirations carry it beyond the narrowness of the classroom.

Shakespeare has Macbeth deliver a nihilistic soliloquy that begins, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” When death waits for each of us, what can be the ultimate meaning of our lives regardless of how floridly or cleverly they are described in exquisite language?

It is our custom to associate gifts with Christmas rather than to think of Christmas as a gift. In this custom we are not wrong, but fail to see deeply enough.

I would encourage all of us to embrace Thanksgiving and to make it real within our homes this year.

Yesterday was Veterans Day – the 99th since President Wilson brought it into being as Armistice Day in 1919. It is interesting to note in acknowledging this day that there are no calls for students to be released from the schools on this day as there are for other holidays. A part of this might be attributable to the growing rift between those who have served and the ordinary citizens they have served to protect.

Much has changed over the last seventeen years in terms of how parents and teachers communicate with one another, but the importance of them doing so has not diminished.

In many places throughout America, the turkey shoot has remained a popular pastime as frozen turkeys have been substituted for live ones. Typically, the turkey shoot is a straightforward event, similar to a shoot-out-the-bullseye, carnival-style game. In Ridgeview’s case, it is rather more elaborate.

If you have not yet had a chance to read with our students, you are missing more than you might imagine, but still not as much as they are.

Comments made during the parent weekly reading groups and the Principal’s Coffee last Friday raise important questions about how Ridgeview can promote itself.

This time of year makes it remarkably clear how fortunate we are to live in Colorful Colorado.

We thank our service members who return home from having defended our freedom from external threat, the law enforcement personnel who uphold our liberties at home, and the firemen, paramedics, and search and rescue crews who are the first to arrive when things have gone badly awry.

Ridgeview, always a promoter of conversation, would prefer to resort to something like what is known in Great Books circles as “shared inquiry.” This bit of jargon means simply this: people from a variety of backgrounds come together to read a text and explore the ideas, meaning, and information they find therein.