Village School for Kids Archives - Earthaven Ecovillage

Children are the Fruit

Jill Lacasse — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 16:23:27 +0000

When I was in my teenage years, I lived across the street from a playground and baseball park. I would walk almost every day around the park with my two dogs, and admire the beauty of the trees flourishing there — especially one weeping willow tree. She was nestled into her own little alcove among the chaos of the baseballs flying around, and the laughter and shrieks coming from the playground swings. There was a bench next to her to start a conversation with her and to marvel over how her branches fell into cascades of teardrop leaves that enveloped and held whoever was near.

I felt like she was the embodiment of my soul.
Like I was those branches.
And in some ways, she reflected back to me my grief and my gifts that I had yet to discover until I was an adult … when I would have some roots to anchor into in order to be present with all that would unfurl inside of me.

This weeping willow tree reminds me of one of the goals that Earthaven strives towards:

Goal 13: We recognize elders as the trunk and children as the fruit of our village tree, and collectively prioritize what all the parts of our “tree” need to thrive.

All parts of the tree are valuable and vitally needed for our necessary expansion and growth. The children are the fruits of our labor, the accumulation of our wisdom, and the future of shaping our world. They are the next wave of presence and consciousness and awareness that our planet desperately needs for solutions, change, and hope.

And so my hope is that they may know and be seen in their gifts and be celebrated with unconditional love. That they may be held in their expansion and contraction by us — the parents, the elders, the friends, the family, and the mentors. My prayer is that we invest in them and nurture them so that they may burst like ripe fruit with their juicy sweetness into our world.

How are you investing in the next generation?

I invite you to have the ultimate intentional community family experience this summer with us. Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week this July 31 through Aug 6 is a deep dive into the embodied essence of Earthaven and its members through events, work days, and classes to further your understanding of community living.

Simultaneously, bring your kids to Eco-Explorers Adventure Week from Aug 1 through 5, our summer program where they will experience community with other children who love nature. This program is also available as a day camp for those of you that would like to commute.

Be your part of the tree … because we need all to thrive.

Your tree hugging friend,

Jill Lacasse xx

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Village School Overview with Gabriel at Earthaven Ecovillage (Three Part Series)

Gabriel Vieira — Sun, 02 May 2021 13:31:08 +0000

Part 1 Moving to the Forest Garden

Gabriel: I am really excited because the village school is moving to a new location. We’re going to be out here in the forest gardens. Behind me, right here is the forest garden. An area that’s been through a million different iterations, different teams, lots of people taking care of it over the years, and it’s been in and out of being well taken care of, this beautiful idea, this beautiful vision of this permaculture food forest, different levels and layers, different kinds of food growing in different places. It’s always seem to just not really get taken care of the way that it needs in order to be as beautiful as it could be and produce a lot of food.

I was out there one day just looking at it and thought about how if the kids were coming here every day and basing their school program here and finding projects that they’re interested in, things that they’re interested in getting into and growing some food and some of the garden beds and taking care of the fruit trees. Just be here every day, learning about this place and loving this place and taking care of this place. Then not only would the place be getting taken care of. But the kids would be learning about that relationship and learning all the different skills that are involved in that. All the different things they need to get done here, all the different things that they can practice as far as working with the land.

And so that’s the idea. I’m excited to land here with them and see what they get into. Hope it can be really good for them and for the community also.

Part 2 Being Here in a Good Way

All right. Let’s imagine that today is the first day of school, which is coming up on Monday.

Hopefully, things will be a little more put together. We’re going to meet out here in this driveway on the first day of school for a good old fashioned driveway fire. Probably be a fire right around here somewhere. I’m going to talk to the kids and tell them about this place, about what we’re going to be doing, what we’re going to be talking about, what we’re going to be learning.

Also just talk to the place in front of them, talk to the place and the trees and animals that live here. Tell them that we’re coming in and we’re probably going to change things and destroy some things and mess up some things by accident or on purpose. Take some things and ask all of their permission and help and support and guidance to be here in a good way. Hoping that our being here can teach the kids to relate to a place in a way that’s beneficial to the place and that all of that taking and destroying and serve that purpose.

Greeting Each Day

So anyway, let’s check it out. We’ll start here. Then, we’ll travel down the road and across the bridge into the forest garden. Every day, the kids will meet back up there where we had our fire, and they’ll be hanging out, waiting. Then when they hear the conk blow, they’ll come walking, gently, quietly with their backpacks, walking up this road.

This tarp here is the camp for our saplings program that’s our younger children, 6 to 8 years old. We have four of them with Chelsea Spitzer as their teacher. This will be their home base beneath the great grandmother hemlock tree. Really cozy little spot. The beautiful view of the field.

Over here is the growing area of the forest garden. It’s wide-open playground for our imaginations, for growing things, for taking care of the land. A lot of work that needs to get done, a lot of really kid friendly jobs out there.

Already the taking and destroying has begun, bringing the tractor through here to bring sand and materials and build things. Hopefully, we can find a way to take care of this tractor tracks and mud.

So, the older kids will walk past the saplings camp and come up the road here.

Hopefully, every day will be as gorgeous as this day, probably in its own unique way. Some of them in a rainy way.

Over here on the right. This is our hearth or fire circle where we’ll meet every morning, have circle time, lay out some blankets, and sit and check in. Start our day. In some quiet and some sharing.
It’s like a little Cathedral of trees.

Part 3 Our Hearth

So this spot where we’re standing is the exact same place that for many years there was this thing that we called the pirate ship. It was this bizarre assortment there was like half of an old piano right here. There were the prow was kind of in here and there were several different decks and layers. Then was this crazy roof made of all different kinds of metal and other kinds of roofing like layered together and it was attached to all these trees and weird ways. And there were bells and spots you could go under and cabinets and kids used to play in here. Way early on in my time at Earthaven I used to take kids out here doing child care. We would play and hang out and it was all funky, dangerous, and crazy. These buildings are all built around the same time.

Then at some point the pirate ship got taken down and a lot of these trees were dying because they had weird metal and stuff in them. So I took down some trees and we put some sand in here and this will be our hearth.

The Classroom, Round Table, and Math Circle

Let’s go look at the classroom.

This is a part that I’m really excited about. I had this vision, this idea, of… we have 12 students and myself, so we have 13 people and I was just thinking how can 13 people sit at one big table. So, I made these tables for the school and they’re arranged so that you can sit anywhere without interfering with the legs and it’s big enough for 13 people to sit together.

This table is primarily going to be for our math circle. Math circle is a way of teaching mathematics that is really participatory and democratic and it opens up the kids to thinking about complex difficult open-ended problems in a collaborative way, working together.

You can see if you come over here, you can see that this chalkboard is a little low for me. Most teachers would put their chalkboard up here. That’s because this is the kids chalkboard, you know, the whole point is that to get them up out of their seats working things out on the chalkboard, working things out, trying things out, and then having conversation with each other.

Math Circle: How did I make this table?

This is why I wanted to have it as a round table. It’s like king Arthur and the knights of the round table. Like putting everybody in the same ball game together so that they are talking to each other and it’s not just me and them. I’ll be sitting at one of these chairs like everybody else and working it out.

The first problem that we’re going to do in our math circle is going to be all about how did I make this table. What’s the geometry of this table? How would you construct this exact shape? What are its features and yeah how would you build it? All the different math involved in making the tables

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What do the Kids Think About?

Gabriel Vieira — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 17:24:35 +0000

This week at The Village School for 7- to 9-year-olds…
from Gabriel Vieira, Village School Creative Director

What’s Happening at School this Week?

Well, between last week and this one Spring seems to have settled in to stay. Daffodils are blooming, and more days than not its been warm enough that we haven’t needed a fire. This is the time of year that I remember so clearly from my own school days, spent largely sitting at a desk with my chin in my hands, staring dreamily out the window and longing for summer; freedom, cut grass, clouds moving across the sky, and swimming. We’ll be in school for the summer, but we’ll be outside, soaking up that sunshine and getting our hands in the dirt. It’s hard for me to even imagine the difference that would have made to me as a young person, just to be outside and feel the wind on my face.

Final Projects

This week we’ve been working on our final projects, using all the skills we practiced in our last project to make an even more complex and beautiful gift for a randomly chosen villager. The kids are interviewing adults to learn about their chosen person and their unique gifts, passions, and abilities, and designing a gift to make for them that reflects what they’ve learned about who they are and what they love. The stakes feel high, and there has been some anxiety, and also a good deal of excitement and inspiration.

Kid’s Council

Some of my favorite moments from this week have had nothing to do with this complex project, however. The first was at Kid’s Council on Monday. The day before I had taken minutes for Grown-ups Council, and there had been a juicy conversation about personal feedback, the value and importance of integrating personal feedback as an opportunity for growth and learning and how to balance that with the responsibility to give feedback in a respectful manner. This has been a huge theme with the kids, as they navigate the often bumpy territory of how to say “Hey, what you’re doing is really distracting” or “Ouch, that hurt my feelings” in a way that can be gracefully received, and how to respond gracefully when someone says those things to you. So, we took up the conversation during Kid’s Council.

Enabling Actions

I started by explaining what we had been talking about the day before, how we had been working on the wording of an “Enabling Action” in the Strategic Planning Framework, the document that outlines the goals and visions of the Earthaven experiment. Each enabling action is a kind of instruction, a thing that we can all do that will help to move us towards our goals. I explained to the kids that the one the adults had been word smithing at Council the day before started out as:

“We remain open and attentive to respectful feedback from other community members.”

Agreements

“What do you think?” I asked, “does that seem like a good agreement? Is it missing anything, or is there anything wrong with it?” They generally agreed that it was pretty good, but something was off. The word “respectful” was problematic. What if people disagree about whether the feedback was “respectful” or not? If I don’t think it was “respectful”, can I just ignore it? This happens to be exactly the same line of questioning that happened at Grown-ups Council. In fact, at every step along the way, the kids followed the same line of reasoning as the grown-ups had the day before, and came up with an almost identical result. Willow was the one to put the final agreement into words:

“We try to give feedback in the most respectful way we can, and also try to receive it in the best way we can”

I’d be hard pressed to argue that the grown-up’s solution was any better. We had split the agreement into two, “We strive to deliver feedback in a respectful manner” and “We remain attentive and open to feedback and use it as an opportunity for growth”. Same result, but with more words.

7 to 9 Year Old

I know that the explanation above was a little complicated, so I want to make the point clear. This group of 7 to 9 year olds was able to have, with only a little guidance from me, the exact same conversation, about the complexities of feedback and the importance of giving and receiving it in a good way, as the adults. If they had been the ones sitting in Council the day before, they would have come to the same conclusion for the same excellent reasons, quite possibly faster and with less contention! What would they say about the rest of our Strategic Planning Framework? What might they notice that we have overlooked? I am excited to go through more of these conversations with them, to continue to bring topics to them that have been addressed in Grown-ups Council, and to see what they have to say. Who knows, maybe someday there will be a designated role for children in Earthaven Council, a way to integrate their voices and opinions. Honestly, I think we all have a lot to learn from them.

Contributions

My other favorite moment from the week was simpler, but just as profound. For weeks now, I’ve been struggling with our contributions time at the end of the day. This is the time where each kid has a task that rotates each week; gathering tinder, splitting kindling, folding blankets, sweeping, etc. Its been a rowdy and unfocused time, and I’ve been resistant to it, not wanting to nag, not knowing how to hold the container. Yesterday, I had an inspiration at the last second, and went for it. I explained the discomfort I’d been having with how contributions had been going, and that I felt that I hadn’t been holding a strong enough container. I explained that this was a mini-ritual, an opportunity to practice dignity, composure, and careful tending of our shared space and belongings. I explained that from now on, we would be doing our contributions in silence, and that I would play guitar to hold the space while we worked. The result was profound and beautiful. I played, they worked quietly, and when the work was coming to an end I moved into the song we have been learning together. Without words, the group noticed the change, and began to clap along, keeping time on the off-beat, a tricky and deeply satisfying rhythmic accompaniment to my guitar playing. It ended the day on an unprecedented note of unity and grace.

How can you support the school?

Let me peruse your library

I’m always on the lookout for inspiring and amazing pieces of writing, both for my own inspiration and enjoyment and to share with the kids. If you ever have a recommendation of something to read that touches on the subjects we are exploring, feel free to let me know, and if you’re open to me coming to check out your selection for myself that would be wonderful as well.

Come tell us a story!

In this unit on adulthood, coming into our gifts and finding our unique path of service in the world, it would be wonderful to have some personal stories from villagers about their unique life path so far. If there is a story bubbling in you about where life has called you that you may not have suspected, please get in touch and we’ll make a time for you to share it!

Donate money or leaps

Donations are always welcome, in any amount. Financial support is needed in order to ensure that the program remains affordable to all of our hardworking families here at Earthaven. Donating is easy and satisfying! Consider signing up as a patron with a monthly donation, as this predictable income is especially valuable in supporting the financial health of the school.

Donate items

For our upcoming summer session, The Village School is in need of the following items. If you have any to donate they would be greatly appreciated. Please get in touch with me and I can come pick them up!

Canvas tarps
Farming and gardening tools of all kinds: Pruners, hoes, rakes, shovels, pruning saws, wheelbarrows, etc…
Milk crates

Share this blog

Sharing this blog helps more people to learn about what we’re doing and want to get involved.

What are we reading at school this week?

Loretta Little Looks Back by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Told in the voices of three generations of the fictional Little family, this recreation of African American oral history tells a story of resistance and cultural transmission in the face of sharecropping, Jim Crow, and the white conservative backlash during and after the Civil Rights Movement. Based on members of the authors own family, the Littles tell their story in a voice and style all their own, and convey not only the history, but also the lived experience and the creativity and generative “soul-force” that grew and blossomed through the generations in their family, both out of and despite that experience.

What’s the teacher reading this week?

The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry

Where would I be without Wendell Berry? And how did it take me so long to find his work? In this long essay, Mr. Berry eloquently traces the connections between the degeneration of agriculture and human culture, with his characteristic blend of moral clarity and dense, multi-layered prose. As always, he argues compellingly for the importance of staying put, of living out a meaningful relationship with a particular piece of land. I dearly wish that Mr. Berry could come here, to sit on our porches and look out at our fields, and witness our fledgling, sometimes bumbling, but very often sincere and so far at least somewhat successful attempt to take this plea seriously, and put it into practice.

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Behind the Scenes – Care Bubbles

Earthaven Admin Team — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 19:39:04 +0000

What’s the children’s equivalent to social distancing? Gabriel Vieira, one of our community’s early childhood educators, has devised an answer: care bubbles!

Here’s what Gabriel had to say about his “care bubble” lesson: “Social distancing is grown-up speak, technical, dry, even a bit ominous. Care bubbles, on the other hand, are personal, even comforting and fun.”

Gabriel prompted a dozen of our community’s seven to twelve-year-olds to imagine all the care and love you have for the people around you: your friends, your parents, other grownups in the village, the elders…. Feel that care inside your heart, feel it expand and grow out from your heart, until it makes a big bubble that goes all the way out – twice the length of your outstretched arms. That’s your care bubble.

The kids got on board quickly. Wouldn’t you?

They practiced using their care bubbles, keeping their bubbles clear, gently reminding one another when the novel behavior slipped their awareness.

Naturally, questions and curiosities emerge. One child asks, “What are care bubbles made of?” Another responds, “Definitely something durable, so you can bounce off of trees and stuff without getting hurt.” A third child responds logically with, “What keeps you from banging against the inside wall of the care bubble?”

Then the banter really gets going….Maybe it’s filled with water. Or air. It could be fuzzy. Or soft, like jello. And on, until each child has thought-engineered their dream care bubble. And that wasn’t even the best part.

After lunch, on a wildflower walk, the children employ their care bubbles to bounce off one another, trees, rocks, and stream banks, all the while engaging something far more contagious than the coronavirus — their laughter.

May the care and creativity of a beloved teacher and the lighthearted response of our children be reminders of what can be leveraged and engaged during this unprecedented time.

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Forest children seedlings

Earthaven Admin Team — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:58:51 +0000

by Tanya Carwyn

The Seedlings Program is the early childhood part of the Forest Children Parents’ Cooperative. It is inspired by Waldorf education, a way of teaching and being with children devised by turn-of-the-last-century scientist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner (who is also the father of bio-dynamic agriculture among other things).

During the first stage of childhood, from birth until around the age of six or seven, children are learning and experiencing the world primarily through physical activity. The Seedlings Program, for children ages three and a half to six, provides plenty of opportunity for learning and meaningful engagement through exploration, creative play, and purposeful work.

Day to day

Each day in the Seedlings Program follows a gentle rhythm that the children look forward to and that provides them with a sense of security. The day begins with creative free play; an opportunity for children to exercise healthy fantasy. This is also the time for crafts, art, and cooking projects. This time is followed by circle time, during which the children sing and recite verses. Finger plays and rhymes inspire a love of language and develop children’s fine and gross motor skills. Midmorning brings the time for our snack and the children help set the table with beeswax candles and cloth napkins.

After our snack time the children take turns washing the dishes and sweeping the floor. Our work is accompanied by “working songs.” Next we go outside to explore and learn about nature. Sometimes we simply play at the new play ground, other times we go on “wild hunts” through the forest. We often go out to collect things, such as herbs for tea, leaves for crafts, wild greens for salads or hickory nuts for drying. This spring we started a small school vegetable garden and are looking forward to making a scarlet runner bean tipi for playing in (and eating!).

Soon it is time for our lunch and after that the morning draws to a close with me telling a story or fairy tale. This is a time for listening and quiet reflection. Stories are told from memory, and special attention is paid to the words chosen and pronunciation, in an effort to engage the children’s imaginations fully and allow them to develop their language skills. Every day of the week includes artistic activity such as water color painting, beeswax modeling, drawing with beeswax crayons or other crafts, and dance and movement. Here process is emphasized over product.

Throughout the morning, the children and I engage in purposeful work such as carding wool, shucking corn, doing dishes, creating useful or beautiful objects, and cleaning up. Practical work provides children with meaningful actions to imitate, and it is through imitation that a child learns.

Our toys are created from natural, simple materials, such as wood, colorful silks, shells and smooth stones so as to be open ended (they can be more than one thing) and beautiful.

Through out the year we focused on a different theme each month. We learned about farms by visiting Gateway farm and Yellowroot Farm as well as other farms in the area. We learned all about sheep and wool with our “Sheep to Shawl” theme. We visited the sheep and farmers at Gateway Farm. The children helped wash raw wool, then carded it (a coveted activity!) and helped spin it. While some of the older kids are learning to work with a drop spindle (fantastic for small motor skills that are needed for learning to write), I do most of the spinning. We are working with our wool in other ways as well, such as wet felting and weaving. Other themes we have explored include the Autumn Harvest, Winter Holidays, and finally Spring.

The children have now graduated to the Saplings Program for 5-10 year olds. Thank you all for your support and welcoming the Seedlings into your day-to-day lives.

Tanya Carwyn has been an exploring member at Earthaven for nearly a year and was the program coordinator of the Seedlings program.

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Forest Children Program Publishes Their First Book

Earthaven Admin Team — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:29:55 +0000

by Tracy & Kiesa

The Forest Children Program (FCP) has been celebrating a big accomplishment. The students published a book entitled Princess Gilanee, about how Princess Gilanee and her horse, Pal, united the elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire to bring peace to their community.

The book was one of the focal points of last year’s curriculum for this integrative homeschool resource and enrichment program, now in its fifth year at Earthaven. The program includes Earthaven members’ children and children from local families as well. It currently involves less than a dozen children, ages 6 through 12, and meets three days a week, weaving together individual homeschooling and a supplemental experiential program that provides each child with personal attention and focus.

When Kiesa Kay became coordinator of the FCP in 2006, she came with a project. Her author friend, Robin Carrington, dying from melanoma. asked her friend Kiesa to finish a book Robin had begun but would not be able to finish. She feared her children and grandchildren wouldn’t be able to hear her stories about Princess Gilanee.

Kiesa brought the two chapters Robin had completed to the Forest Children, and they immediately offered to help. After reviewing the mind map for the book, their creative work began. Dylan, Cory, Noah, Nimuae, Soleil, Malachi, and Yeshua worked together through the school year to bring the book to life.

Princess Gilanee tells the story of how one girl and her horse succeeded in uniting feuding tribes by helping them realize they were all one tribe and must work together. Along the journey, Gilanee makes important discoveries about herself, as well.

The children visualized the homes, clothes, and conversations of the various Earth, Water, Air and Fire element people. They acted out scenes that hadn’t been written yet, working with the ideas they’d added to Robin’s original vision. The completed version says a lot about being one with nature and living joyfully. The coordinator typed up their stories, blending them with Robin’s work, and arranged for the book to be published through Sheridan Books and Bremner Press. The story of Princess Gilanee and the element people appeals to adults and children, with its timeless message of one tribe, love, and resilience.

Princess Gilanee is available for a $10 donation to the Forest Children Program.

Donations account for about 40% of the FCP’s income (tuition accounts for the rest). Your contribution helps keep the Forest Children Program open and thriving. Your donation can also help support the funding of a playground by designating the purpose of your gift on your check.

The Forest Children Program Vision

We envision a world of people living sustainably, thinking independently, making decisions cooperatively, nurturing healthy children, families and communities, and allowing the flow of divine spirit through everything.

We take advantage of our natural setting in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina to encourage each child to develop a deeper understanding of the cycles of nature and sustainable stewardship of the earth.

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