Mother Earth School started as an all-outdoor kindergarten class of Shining Star Waldorf School in fall 2007 held at Tryon Life Community Farm, an urban permaculture farm and sustainability education center in Portland, OR. In 2008, the Faery Garden Preschool was added and in 2009, both classes became Mother Earth School – a project of Tryon Life Community Farm and an evolving educational paradigm combining aspects of Waldorf education with permaculture practices and traditional living skills. The farm is surrounded by a 700 acre second growth forest (Tryon Creek State Park) and so the school has been a fusion of the European model of ‘forest kindergarten’ as well as homestead schooling.
Our total school year enrollment has not yet exceeded 25. We keep our class sizes small enough to focus on specialized activities as well as to play freely in the forest while remaining visible to the class teachers. Each year our summer camps serve over 50 children ages 4-12, including rite of passage programs for pre-teenagers. Beginning this fall, we will be offering a 1st/2nd grade class at an urban farm in SE Portland. Jean’s Farm is also surrounded by woodland and will house our new yurt classroom where an artistic, academic morning lesson inspires the outdoor immersion portion of the day. The children at Mother Earth School are joyfully rising to the occasion of learning basic life skills that are currently undervalued by modern society. Their will-forces are activated in a way that our industrialized culture no longer encourages. Modern conveniences are designed to meet our needs for us, resulting in generations of people that are lacking the direct experience of a main component of what it means to be human. Capability, confidence and ingenuity all require an inner striving which is naturally enhanced through the healthy challenges presented through outdoor education. More ...