We Are Not a Public School

We are not a public school.

Our accreditation requires an annual test, but we don't teach to it.

We are not a public school. As long as you are reading, writing, moving forward, learning, growing, exploring, questioning, reasoning, thinking...you are fulfilling the mission of the school.

We are not here to tick off boxes and circle letters. Getting it wrong is another chance to think deeply and see it differently. There is value in "getting it right," and there is beauty in a "correct" answer, but there is joy in finding another way that is just as correct and true.

Yes, we know how to multiply and divide.

Yes, we watch the news and talk about the world.

Yes, we know how to organize an essay and analyze a piece of literature.

We volunteer and think about other people.

We are ethical. We honor our word. We own up to our mistakes. We are far from perfect. We work hard.

We lay in the grass and watch the clouds. We climb a tree and collect eggs. We sit on the porch and swing. We cook for each other once a week, nourishing body and soul at the same time.

We don't walk in rows. We don't have bells. We take as long as we need to take on a subject, even if that is all day.

We go out into the world and shop and see plays and get dirty in the creek we are monitoring for adopt-a-stream.

We make a wrong turn sometimes, and then we look at what happened and try to make it better.

We are not a public school.  We aren't even a private school (even though, technically, we are). We try really hard to honor the individual. Sometimes we do better than others when it comes to "curriculum," but we aren't afraid to corrrect our mistakes.

This is definitely a response to several people, but it is also a clarification for HoneyFern. We don't have to be what we are not because we are beautiful as we are.