“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.” Shunryu Suzuki: From Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
It is my school’s 60th Anniversary this year and at the Opening Ceremony, they began to honor it by inviting one alum from each decade to join the kids in the Water Ceremony. This is a simple ritual of 8 kids from each grade holding a glass, an 8th grade teacher pouring water into the 8th graders glass, who then pours it into the 7th graders and so on down the line. When pouring, each leaves a little bit of water in their glass. This symbolizes the passing down of knowledge from the older kids to the younger. It acknowledges that the older knows many things the younger doesn’t yet— from math facts to music theory and practice to basketball skills and beyond that the youngers kids are on their way to learning. When the water arrives at the 1st grader, she or he pours it into a pitcher held by the 1st grade teacher (leaving a little in the glass), who then speaks of what the young kids have to offer the older ones—their unblemished sense of wonder and curiosity, their “beginner’s mind” that holds endless possibilities that the “expert’s mind” begins to shut out. (see quote above).
The 1st grader then empties the little water left into the 2nd graders glass and so on up the line, when the 8th grader pours his or hers into a pitcher. Now all eight have that empty glass of possibility fter having filled their cup with knowledge. This the ceremony that alums from the 1960’s all the way to the 2020’s took part in. They were then briefly interviewed as to what they felt “filled their cup” from The San Francisco School that proved useful in their lives that followed. This document will be shared with the greater school community and to accompany it, I was asked to talk a bit about the origina of the Water Ceremony.
And that’s when I went into the archives in my closet and pulled out a box with every planning book of my 45 years of teaching to see if I could find the first mention of the Opening Ceremony that included the Water Ceremony. And here’s what I discovered and the little article I wrote:
I believe my interest in connected the Orff approach to teaching to a wider world of all-school ceremonies, rituals and celebrations was there from my very first year of teaching in 1975. But like all things that grow organically according to nature, from seed to blossom to bush to tree is a slow process. It took some 13 years for that vision to find form in the Opening Ceremony. I have had the good sense to keep every planning book from each year of my 45 at The San Francisco School and so when the question of when and how the water ceremony began was posed to me, I dug deep in my closet and pulled them out. In Fall of 1988, there was the first mention of it!
Note that instead of water, the older kids passed down an encyclopedia and the youngest kids passed up a flower! In other parts of the eventual ceremony, note that there was no singing tunnel of teachers, only Terry rang the gong as the head of school, there was no Earth Day Rap and the kids lifted an atlas instead of a globe or Earth Ball.
It was in the next year, 1989, that we changed to water. There was still the Atlas and some weird rubbing of eucalyptus leaves when the kids left to go to their classes.
In 1990, we added the Balinese banners that Karen had sewn, with teachers forming the banner tunnel as kids walked in. Now for the first time, the youngest and oldest rang the gong and apparently, blew the didgeridoo! Now the Earth Day Rap was incorporated and a globe replaced the Atlas. Then the kids exited under another tunnel of palm leaves—who knows where those came from?
In 1991, we changed to the parents holding the banners while the staff was playing some kind of music with cymbals. We added a new welcome song and again, had two kids ring the gongs— without the didgeridoo involved! Now we sang Simple Gifts during the water pouring, sang the song Side by Side at the end and had parents and kids clap for each grade as they exited. No leaf rubbing involved!
And on it went. I believe by 1993, we began the tunnel of singing teachers, some years later, with Sofia now joining in, we added the Bulgarian drum and bagpipe leading the kids to the banner and ended singing Siyahamba. In the last years before we left, I added another song Gonna Build Me a Mountain.
Throughout all those minor changes, the kids poured water for the next 37 years, all the way to the 2026 Opening Ceremony where alumni from each decade of the last 60 years joined in. Every day at the school for all that time, knowledge and wisdom of the elder students and teachers has been passed down and the unblemished wonder and curiosity of the younger students passed up to remind us all to keep our beginner’s mind alive, ripe with possibility and questions. May the waters keep flowing!



