The Foundation for World Education

The Foundation for World Education is the group responsible for financing the trips of teacher visitors from Auroville to the U.S. and they were well aware of the unique service Claire provided to Auroville by taking in these teachers, often in deep culture shock, and making them feel both needed and understood.  Claire’s work lives on in innumerable and unrecorded changes which made their way into Auroville schools, and occasionally out into the wider world.

Below are several notes received from Auroville exchange teachers mourning Claire’s passing.

From Margo MacLeod
I’ve been thinking about Claire quite often over the last week or so. She was one of those great individuals who was not afraid to be all of herself all the time–or so it seemed to me. I love what she did at the little two room schoolhouse and hope I can see that video again one day. She did, as Vermonters do, a little of everything including real estate and I first encountered her when she arrived unannounced for a swim in Gordon and Jeanne’s pool–she had, after all, found them the house and become friends so she didn’t need to stand on any ceremony. A great and generous soul. I’m sorry she never made it to AV as much for their sakes as for hers.

From Sanjeev
I recall with fondness my days at Claire’s school.
The first important lesson I learned from her was to engage people in the community around in the education of children.  Her ability to invite all who had an interest or a skill in something to talk to the children or do things with them was amazing.

The second important lesson was to keep the children free – they could at any given point be doing different things and she could be aware of what each was doing – there was no confusion, no lack of discipline and yet when things needed to be done together she could gather them with ease.

There are many other things one could list out – but the essential is the spirit with which she worked with the children – treating each as a living soul and giving each individually and all of them together what they needed for their growth.

From Shankar
I feel very sorry that Claire had to leave her body without visiting her friends in Auroville. (I remember Jean tried to bring her to AV). She could have understood how her ideas are carried out here on the other side of the world.  Let the Mother give all strength to her family to bear this.

From Thillai
I regret to hear that Claire Oglesby left us.
To be honest, my days with Claire Oglesby were one of the golden moments of my life. For me she was not only a rare and great teacher, but she also had many facets and qualities within her. She was a great administrator, trainer, admirer, explorer, follower, learner and lover of all, and children in particular. Claire is Claire, therefore, it’s difficult to copy her.

During my internship with Clare and her school in Westminster West, two media people came to record her teaching and the school. A reporter from the local newspaper named ‘Brattleboro Reformer” interviewed Claire and me. An article was published in the newspaper titled “Teaching Tactics” on 30th May, 1997. At the time, she was teaching a huge thematic project called ‘India”. And, the project was lasted more than 3 months. I was invited to help her specially for this project. In the interview she praised me a lot and mentioned about Heidi. During the teaching, she accepted and welcomed all my suggestions and she implemented all in the classroom.

In the interview she mentioned, “it’s all part of an in-depth study of a foreign culture, an annual affair. “Kids have to be educated world citizens,” she emphasized. “When you study another culture, your own becomes clearer.’ “It’s important to have kids welcome diversity.’ She added.

Another media person, probably, you all know, a video-recording of the whole theme about Claire and her school. Fortunate that I was also in the film. It is not only recorded in the media, but also in my heart.

Thank you Claire! Have a peaceful journey to the other world.

I pray for your journey to the Divine Mother!
Thillai

Students Never Forgotten

"I took a road trip back to visit VT and walked into her classroom, I could hardly believe it, but she called me by name. That still makes me smile every time I think about it." - Lisa Parks

Many past students of Claire’s have commented on their amazement that she would remember them even after many years had passed since they were in her classroom. I don’t think she forgot a single student she taught. And in remembering, she did more than remember names, she remembered what they enjoyed learning and what challenges they faced while in her school. She loved to have past students stop into the Westminster West School and to hear about their lives as adults. – Alice io

From Liz Bourne, Westminster Schools Librarian

I met Claire first as a colleague. I moved to Westminster almost simultaneously with becoming our town’s first trained school librarian. We lived at the top of Patch Rd, straddling that invisible divide between West and East parishes. Starting out, I barely knew about this distinction, or that there were two schools in town, each with its own library, both now in my care.

Claire was the first of my Westminster colleagues to understand how libraries and librarians, information and its organization, support education…. this from a teacher of 6 – 8 year-olds! Claire was the first classroom teacher to specifically invite me to attend a PTA meeting to talk with parents about helping kids gather and sort information, and then share the cool stuff discovered. This was not because of her love of all things bookish, but because she taught as a curious learner herself.

Around this time, I became a member of Claire’s closer family – the parents. My Molly, like those illustrious alumni heard yesterday [referring to comments by students at the memorial celebration], has traveled, collaborated, advised, learned, and grown into a self-confident, independent adult, with so many thanks to her beginnings in Claire’s intellectual incubator.

I also see Claire as the heart of this community in whose very center I live now, even though I moved here after the Oglesbys retired to Brattleboro. I love living in the village center of Westminster West. But West West is more than a cluster of houses. For decades, Claire embodied this community’s ethos, serving as its cheerleader and outreach coordinator.

All of which brings me back to Claire and diversity. In Vermont, diversity has less to do with skin color or nationality than culture. The 3,000 inhabitants of Westminster look more or less the same, but we personify some of the most significant economic, social and cultural differences among people. Thank you Zack Aldrich, for talking yesterday [at the memorial gathering] about the sailors you now work with, and how your beginnings in Claire’s classroom inform your conversations with them now.

There were and are differences between Claire’s classroom and Mary’s, between Mary’s classroom and the Center School, between the Westminster Schools and whatever comes after. Each represents a wider world of difference. I feel our children grew in understanding and stature as they navigated from one to the next.

In that light, I encourage all to visit the Westminster Schools’ website http://wnesuwc.learningnetworks.com where Claire’s teaching peers honor her legacy. This tribute is now on our home page; it will become a link from the West School page http://wnesuwc.learningnetworks.com/pages/WNESU_WCSClasspages/wswest/Index

Westminster West School, 1970+

Grammar School

The Grammar School years are before my time (or memory I should say, as I was born during the years Mom and Dad worked there), but I did find a few images to post. I do know that working at the Grammar School was key to enabling my parents to move to Vermont.

For more images, visit the Photo Gallery page. – Alice

Christmas at the Grammar School (year?).

Grammar School Picnic (June 1964)