Behind the Curriculum
Integrating hand, heart, head, and place, our land-to-craft curriculum supports the development of self-generated conscious action. We teach practical skills in a farm and forest setting. We see the place as having a local genius. We see the farm as a self-contained individuality. We recognize the reciprocity of health amongst humans, plants, animals, farm, and place as fundamental to mutual development.
Our curriculum develops out of the place. The process of becoming manifests in each art or craft, as a picture both literally and symbolically. As we transform materials from the land into something beautiful and useful – something cultural – we transform ourselves. In an integrated farm and forest setting, these inner transformations take place within a farm individuality and a genus loci that is also undergoing transformation through the work and care of our dedicated farmers and the children they serve. As staff, volunteers and children take part in the becoming of the being of the place, they develop a sense that there is something meaningful and greater than themselves that they are part of.
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