Environment -

Third Teacher

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.

- Confucius

We’ve styled our outdoor play spaces, classrooms, workshops, and studio spaces to support the mission of the school.  We treat the environment as playing a teaching role, to invite learning and provoke thinking, along with the actual teachers and children’s parents. 

We treasure things with a living quality similar to the imperfect beauty, roughness and spontaneity of hand-made pottery. We promote awareness of psychological depth, as in things that exhibit many levels of detail. We value the soft qualities of the environment such as light, color, texture, smell, sound, and microclimate. We encourage children to experience the environment directly, by projecting light on surfaces, hanging fabric and partitions, feeding living plants, tending the gardens, experimenting with sand and water, among other things. 

The indoor classrooms are filled with many kinds of materials, including special equipment for supporting scientific investigation, work on dramatic performances, as well as wall spaces to exhibit results of creative work.  On the outside, a series of pergolas are arranged to provide shaded outdoor classrooms for painting, ceramics, science, math, story writing, and drama play.  

As children spend time in the lush outdoor environment they are introduced to mindful seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, and movement.  Notice the ripples on the surface of the bubbling stone fountain; watch the water flow make its way down the side of the stone column and disappear into a ring of river rocks; taste and smell the herbs, flowers, veggies, and fruits; spot the bees, butterflies, and birds; and, imagine fairies living close by to watch over the garden.  See cloud movements from the star dome; observe the qualities of ambient light; notice an array of different sounds inside the cave, and listen to the voices of the surrounding urban area, sounds that are musical as well as natural. On some occasions, examine the effects produced by wind and rain.