I wanted to share some anecdotes about my stepson Jyles' experiences with The Circle School, because to me they embody the beauty of this program. In the evening, after his first visit to TCS in September, he said to me, "You know Marianne, at first I thought that it seemed like kindergarten there. After a while, I started to feel that it wasn't kindergarten at all, but that it was like college. Finally, now I've realized that it really isn't either of those things. What it is there is life."

Several weeks into the school year, we took him out of public school and enrolled him in TCS. His displeasure with public school had been rising continuously - his experience there being one of boredom and frustration. The take-home impact was a ten-year-old boy who did well on his report card, but who each morning begged, cajoled and feigned sickness in an attempt to stay home. He put no extra effort into anything that could be associated with school and schoolwork. A trip to the library was viewed with trepidation and he wouldn't dream of reading anything to himself except " Calvin & Hobbes ". Somehow he always seemed to be protecting himself, as if someone were going to trick him into doing something he didn't want to be doing.

I'll begin with a little background about my children coming to The Circle School. Last year I came to the school as a new staff person. Zeb and Jyles, my stepchildren, were soon to follow, enrolling last year. My own three children have gone through an arduous campaign with their birth father to do the same. There was jubilation in our household late in the summer when he finally agreed to allow them to come.

By all measurable standards, the children are all bright successful students. They were in the gifted program, received excellent grades, had friends, and participated in various extra-curricular activities. However, despite these classical standards of success and enrichment, the children were neither happy nor satisfied with school. Instead, they constantly felt bored, unchallenged, and frustrated. There were many behavioral manifestations of these feelings. The most obvious one was a constant resistance to going to school each day - usually under the guise of being sick. Less direct, but equally disturbing, were the furrows in their brows while discussing their boredom in class. They felt isolated because they were smart, or different, or did not choose to get in trouble or shave their legs.