Stories · Kids
Ask the kids. They will tell you.
Six kids, six projects, and a refreshing amount of criticism about the snack menu. All quotes read back to the kid and approved.
I made a lamp. It is not a good lamp. It works, though. My mom put it in the hallway and now the hallway is yellow.
I fixed a laptop that someone threw away. It had hair in the fan. Now it is my laptop and I wrote a thing that makes it beep when my brother comes in my room.
My bridge held 38 kilograms. Then it did not. I know exactly where it broke and I already know how to fix it next year. I am not telling you.
Nothing is not boring. Boring is when you are waiting for something. Nothing is when you are not waiting. It is different and I cannot explain it better.
I cut my uncle's hair. He said it was the best haircut he ever got, which is a lie, but he said it in front of everybody. I am going to be a barber.
The snack is fine but the lentil week is a war crime. I said what I said. I am on the menu committee and I am losing.
What they would change
We asked every kid the same question: if you could change one thing about STENCH, what would it be? The answers were more useful than most of our staff retreats:
- More time in open studio (23 kids said this, the most common answer).
- Fewer lentils (11 kids).
- A second kiln so the Crafts waitlist moves (7 kids, all in Crafts).
- More chairs in the library (6 kids).
- “Let us stay until 7” (5 kids, all of whom have parents who work until 7).
- “Less talking at the start” (4 kids, all of whom are correct).
The kid board seats
Two kids sit on the board as non-voting members. They rotate annually and they are chosen by kids, not staff. In 2025 they were responsible for the open-studio expansion, the library chairs, and a successful motion to stop calling the pickup line a 'dismissal.'
Bring a kid
The best way to understand this place is to watch a kid who does not want to leave.