NBS Covenant

NBS Covenant

We should always: be striving for good/better in concert with others, even if that involves discomfort; believe that organization and belief can bring something unpredictable and great about; be doing concentrated and focused work towards a purpose as great as ourselves.

NBS runs smoothly when everyone is happy with themselves. We stipulate to this statement from all evidence hereby seen, felt, and experienced at the North Branch School. We run smoothly when we feel comfortable to cry and when we feel like we can help each other with our problems. When we can function completely independently then we will run smoothly. To run smoothly we at North Branch must accept everything, have patience, be generous, want to give their all and dedicate themselves, and try to put as much love as we can into everything we do.

We must be motivated by our wanting to be and do good, be confident in ourselves and our work, be generous and give to ourselves and others, and overall, learn to love, ourselves, our work, and others. We should all try to be like a family. We will always love, trust, and be honest with each other, like a family would be. We should all be committed to the whole, and do our part, to the best of our ability, to make the whole (which is that we all want to be safe and learn and grow) the best it can be;

That we try to see everyone as a whole being, and not block out their friendship or trust by judging, or discriminating on the basis of not letting the person speak up for themselves, or only looking at one part of a situation. We need to do things more acutely and we need to be fiercer in what we do, and clean better with more vigor;

To do things with a whole heart and find the source of our most complicated feelings; By knowing how we act and feel in curtain situations, it will help prevent problems. To respect each other in all situations, learn to forgive, and to do everything to the greatest of our ability, in order to demonstrate greatness.

Things in school can connect to things in our lives. All students of the North Branch School should and could be more respectful, honest and trust worthy. It is stipulated that we will learn important things and be smarter than the Average Joe; be willing to sacrifice personal wants for the common good; respect/honor each other.

We all need to have a goal that is similar to everyone else. The importance of speaking directly forms our own truth and that of whomever we are speaking to. To run smoothly we need constant respect in a way that doesn’t inflict too much upon another's actions. We need a kind of reckless mastery that lets us act in a way that is uninhabited but also thoughtful enough that in our chaos and recklessness we aren’t harming anything.

We need to act in such a way that lets us create something beautiful out of the mess without breaking things unnecessarily along the way. All of the community sweeping devices shall hereby remain intact and shall not be broken in any way, shape or form. Also, community owned devices shall be kept intact and not broken into little peaces. We shall be respectful of the older passengers or persons in the school, most specifically Tal, Eric and Rose.

NBS needs to be able to communicate, not only as a school, but individually. We must be able to separate from our safe places so we all will be able to connect to all. We stipulate that we will all connect with one another without hesitancy or fear. We will leave our safe places and join/connect with each other. But we will not avoid our safe places; we will just reach out to others.

We need to care about what we are doing. From small things like cleaning to big things like our stories. To be able to give up something we have personally and help the entire school. Trust each other, enough to have confidence to say anything troubling us; to love each memory and experience in our lives, but not trying to live only in that memory all the time; to be able to write well and to be able to put our feelings down on paper; to be able to find something inside that goes deeper then everyday life.

We need to not hurt each other, not pick fights with each other over small things. We have to see the bigger picture. See what our actions do to each other. We need to take what we learn every day with us and ponder on it for a while. We will not battle of push aside each other's ideas, requests, and thoughts.

At NBS there will be equally distributed responsibilities in technical terms, and faith in self discipline for the abstract ones. We will, in the name of the higher law, hereunto find the time and space to solve social and operational conflicts among the members. We, the aforesaid owners and contributors in eternal equilibrium will swear to this document, this song of ourselves. We shall hereby put the hunger of our souls above that of our minds. Everyone shall listen and respect and experience the awareness that these people have knowledge that we need.

However there shall be no forced agreement. Hear unto we shall be in the unending ever evolving and dedicated quest for knowledge. We need to find, search for, and always attempt to expand our understanding of past present and future. We need to accept all ideas, all people, each give everything to our work, so that we can be true before each other. We need to accept everything to keep things in balance.

There are three rules that Mary Oliver spoke of: that one needs to learn to love, to know love in one's heart, and when the time comes, to let it go. We need to meet on the field Rumi spoke of, we need to breathe poetry as air, and learn not to fear what the sleeper dreams. We need to use these covenants not just in one place but all places, so we may all know each other as we know ourselves.