Day School Program

We define education as the vehicle through which culture is created. In vitality-centered educational practice, life is at the center of all that we do, which means that Springhouse’s Day School curriculum:

– Is holistic in the ways it encourages individuals to cultivate self-awareness and explore their own wholeness through our mentoring program and skills framework;

– Is place-based in the ways we strengthen our relationships with our community and the Earth through interdisciplinary courses, our Apprenticeship Program, school trips focused on service, and our on-campus farm;

– Tends to human development by honoring each individual’s growth through rites of passages, developmentally-appropriate curricular progressions, and assessment models that determine readiness rather than mastery;

– And aims to pass down the values, skills, traditions, and knowledge needed to live in and build regenerative culture through our Values in Action statement (all commit to practicing connection, individuality, creativity, trust, resiliency, and integrity), regularly singing and dancing together, and engaging intentionally in intergenerational learning.

At the foundation of vitality-centered education are the five design principles: taking care of vulnerability, cultivating personhood, building beloved community, respecting the wisdom of the Earth, and loving and serving others.

VCE is a structure that values wholeness, and in the Day School, we are interested in encouraging adolescents to explore all aspects of themselves, not just a tiny sliver that only includes areas where they shine, that they know well, or that are privileged by the larger culture (i.e. the intellect). All Day School offerings are opportunities for learners to practice skills that are holistic and help them begin to live into our vision of life-giving culture. This skills framework includes eight different areas:

• Self-Awareness: Developing a greater understanding of oneself in order to be of clearer service
• Reasoning: Strengthening one’s capacity for discernment and making sense of what is
• Experimentation: Regularly navigating ambiguity, complexity, and change in order to continue to iterate regenerative cultural designs
• Relationships: Nurturing and strengthening one’s connections to others
• Expression: Sharing one’s insights and inspiration clearly with the world
• Embodiment: Cultivating presence by being in, tending to, and listening to the wisdom of the body
• Initiative: Taking action toward creating a better world, starting with oneself
• Ecology: Committing to the health of the Earth and to exploring one’s relationship to it

Each of these eight skill areas contains more specific subskills that build upon each other in developmentally-appropriate progressions.