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As 2025 draws to a close—a year that somehow stretched endlessly yet vanished in an instant—I find myself examining how we all were challenged to confront apathy, cruelty, and injustice head-on while maintaining our authenticity, empathy, and respect for others. Through it all, these ten foundational truths have grounded me and enabled me to move forward into 2026 with newfound knowledge about myself and the world.
Happy 2026 The DRC Crew will be back on January 5th, just in time to celebrate our 12th Birthday! Help Us Keep Our PromiseThank you to everyone who has contributed to the Deep Root Center 2025 funding appeal. To those who haven’t yet, but want to help us keep our promise, you still have time. Any contribution that arrives before midnight on Dec. 31 is eligible for a 2025 tax write-off. 
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 From the DRC family to yours, may your Holiday Season be filled with light, kindness, and peace.
Author’s Note: Ten years after writing this post— when DRC was in its infancy—I'm struck by how these themes remain not only relevant but perhaps even more urgent in our daily lives. This week brought some challenges, and revisiting these words proved to be exactly the reminder I needed. With a bit of revision and polish, the message remains true. Building Up vs. Tearing Down December 21, 2015 I don't play computer games—not because I think they lack value, but because I'm extremely sensitive to visual and auditory stimuli. And, to be honest, they frustrate the hell out of me. My lack of coordination and inability to follow instructions are stories for another day. That said, Minecraft has captured the imagination of an entire generation, particularly school-age children. From my exceedingly limited experience (all five minutes of it), the game seems to center on one essential choice: building up or tearing down a world. This binary—build or destroy—offers a useful lens for understanding several heartbreaking stories I've heard recently. In each case, a child was emotionally harmed (and in one instance, physically) because unhappy adults responded to the child's behavior by tearing them down rather than building them up. Here's what I know to be true: The only way to help someone make positive changes is to build them up—to cheer them on, encourage them, and offer guidance, support, and choices. Tearing someone down and belittling them doesn't inspire change. It only increases their pain and, like in Minecraft, destroys their world. I recently encountered a story from South Africa that illustrates this beautifully. When a village member misbehaves, the elders bring them to the center of the village. The community surrounds them—not with condemnation, but with words of praise, celebrating everything beautiful about that person. Their belief? That love and encouragement inspire positive choices, for both the individual and the community. This practice reflects the African philosophy of Ubuntu. In their world, punishment doesn't exist because they understand its detrimental and irrevocable consequences. It's one more example of how Western civilization isn't nearly as "civilized" as many indigenous cultures around the world. I work with children who've experienced punishment, belittlement, judgment, and fear tactics—children penalized simply for being themselves. These negative interactions accumulate in their impressionable minds into one crushing conclusion: I am broken. There is something fundamentally wrong with me. People often ask what my role is at Deep Root Center if I'm not functioning as a traditional teacher. My answer is unsophisticated but essential: I build kids up. I appreciate them. I love them. I celebrate their accomplishments. I listen to their stories and ideas. I offer opportunities for meaningful work based on their interests and aspirations. I support them in becoming their best, truest selves—while maintaining the boundaries that keep them safe and accountable. It’s a constant balancing act between unconditional affirmation and clear accountability, grounded in reality. There are challenging days that make me question everything, and then moments of grace arrive—unbidden and perfect—reminding me that transformation happens slowly, quietly, and always on its own timeline. Together, we dismantle the walls of misconception and untruth, building in their place an internal foundation of self-love and respect—one that honors their authentic selves while extending empathy and understanding to others. My goal is both simple and subtle: to help students see themselves as beautiful human beings with abundant gifts to offer the world, and to help them recognize and celebrate these same gifts in each other. DRC NewsThese weeks between Thanksgiving and the December Holiday Break always feel a bit weird, almost disconnected from reality. Daylight has diminished, winter has effectively begun, and for some of us, a different kind of tiredness brings an overwhelming desire to hibernate for a few weeks. Additionally, some kids bring over-the-top energy that doesn’t always feel useful or welcome. This week was extra disorienting because of the snow day on Thursday. You will also notice a decided lack of photos for the week—oops. The exciting news is that we added three new members on Monday, and they seem to be fitting in nicely. The crew has also started creating their D&D characters. We got the official playbook from the library, and Lilly is facilitating this beginning process. We are looking for a DM to run our game when we get back in January. If you would like to help, please let me know.  Gifts Sometimes the perfect gift isn’t wrapped in paper or bows, doesn’t cost the earth, and won't take up much physical space, but can have an enormous impact. Contributing to Deep Root Center in honor of an important person in your life has far-reaching consequences for you, the receiver, and the children that Deep Root Center supports. Quite simply, your gift helps us keep our promise of offering our pay-what-you-can policy to the North Country. We are changing lives, and you can help. Thank you!  Perfection is my enduring aspiration. Unfortunately, my neurospiciness has other priorities—creativity, spontaneity, impulsiveness, flexibility, and the persistent belief that nothing is ever truly finished. The result? I spend hours checking, rechecking, and then checking a dozen more times for obvious errors, misspellings, grammar mishaps, and any slip-ups that might make me look less competent than I am. As I mentioned earlier this fall, one of my biggest fears is appearing foolish or incompetent. Case in point: I revised our funding appeal compulsively. I had multiple people review it. I checked the proof before sending it to the printer. And still, the moment I opened the package, there it was—an error staring back at me. I'd accidentally added a white version of the DRC logo in Canva, which disappeared against the white background in the digital proof but showed up plain as day in print. Despite all my efforts, the mistake slipped through. It's just one more in a daily catalog of "oops" moments that persist no matter how hard I try. Here's the paradox: I obsess over these details because I've learned I usually miss them—especially the most obvious and important ones. Yet I can walk into a room and immediately sense that someone was there before me, simply because something was moved an inch to the left. My brain notices everything and nothing, all at once. This quest for perfection extends beyond projects—writing, cooking, crafts—to my appearance, housekeeping, and even my behavior around others. A telling example: before a leg ultrasound this past week to rule out blood clots (negative, thankfully), I felt compelled to shave so the technician wouldn't encounter my very furry wintertime legs. I didn't end up doing it—the cold bathroom and mental exhaustion won that battle—but the urge itself was revealing. Why was I so ready to modify my body for a medical professional who's seen thousands of legs? The absurdity hit me: I'd internalized this need to preemptively manage other people's comfort, real or imagined. I recognize this people-pleasing urge for what it is—61 years strong, rarely useful, rarely healthy. But awareness doesn't stop it. What does? Inconvenience. A cold bathroom. The extra ten minutes. And that's what bothers me most: I spend my days mentoring young people, encouraging them to be unapologetically themselves, to embrace the quirks and differences that make them authentic. Yet I can't seem to extend that same grace to myself. As I've been writing this, something just clicked into place. The anxiety, the fear of appearing incompetent—it all traces back to decades of masking, of trying to pass as "normal," of constantly monitoring myself to hide the ways my brain works differently. This weekly blog continues to be cathartic. It lets me take whatever bubbles up during the week and work through it on the page. In the process, I'm learning to accept the whole package: the weird, quirky, unconventional, still-learning-and-growing human I actually am. And maybe, within all of that messy authenticity, I'll find what I'm really after—not perfection, but grace, acceptance, and gratitude. Not despite the imperfections, but because of them. Thank you for coming along on this adventure. If the lessons I'm stumbling through as I write resonate with your own journey, or give you permission to embrace your own messy authenticity, then that makes the fumbling worthwhile. DRC NewsWeekly Wrap-up The DRC Canton Crew had a full week. Some teens rediscovered the building toys in the Seedlings room and spent a good deal of time building towers. In Kitchen Sink Science, we are experimenting with several variables to determine which slice of bread grows mold the fastest. Lilly brought in a game to play. The kitchen was busy all week, making our lunches every day and baking banana-blueberry muffins on Friday. Digby supervised the action from his favorite spots. And, there is finally enough snow to go sledding! We had four teens visit on Friday. Two of them will be joining us on Monday.  The DRC Pop-Ups Peeps had a blast with a new game on Thursday afternoon at the Massena Public Library. Janine reports that they laughed so hard they were crying.  Good News It is official! Deep Root Center owns this old place - in all its glory! The discharge of mortgage came through on Thursday morning.
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Deep Root Center
48 Riverside Drive, Canton, NY 13617
315*323*1435/[email protected]
Deep Root Center
48 Riverside Drive, Canton, NY 13617
315*323*1435/[email protected]