Real World Example: Springhouse Community School
This post is part of a series. The earlier posts are linked at the bottom of this post.
Let’s next connect the Inventor compass point and it’s mindshifts to a real learning community.
Meet Springhouse Community School...
…a learning environment with a story that encompasses invention, iteration, humanity, foresight and collaboration.
Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd, VA, Springhouse is one of the most human-centered learning environments I know….a place where all are seen, heard and valued.
Back in 2015, founder Jenny Finn was feeling unrest about what schooling was intentionally and unintentionally passing on to our youth….destructive mindsets not useful to individuals or our culture at large….mindsets like standardization.
She believed schooling needed to move away from toxicity and toward regeneration…. focusing on restoring human vitality..
So she became curious…
How might education be a pathway to creating a more vital culture?
…and Springhouse Community School was her answer.
Since its inception, Springhouse has evolved…navigating through numerous iterations to get to where it is today.
Iteration…it’s an important characteristic of the creative work we do within the inventor compass point.
Jenny recently shared with me that after a long 7 years of community conversations and co-design, the identity of the school finally became clear.
7 years of iteration…!
And over those years, the school and its community have embraced an identity…an identity focused on building regenerative culture… a culture where all are connected to vitality within themselves, between each other and within the community.
This identity is guided by five universal vitality-centered design principles, all centered on life and human relationships...
take care of vulnerability
cultivate personhood
build beloved community
respect the wisdom of the Earth
love and serve others
With humanity as the common thread running through these principles, Springhouse is committed to thriving individuals, a thriving community and a thriving planet.
This is deep, transformative work…work that begins with the human.
So, what do these practices look like in action….?
Taking care of vulnerability looks like mentorship between youth and adults. Youth share their learning around projects but also around relationships… relationship to self, legacy, personal vision, mission and purpose…even art, music and dance. The adult mentor's role in this partnership is to build connections with the youth, listen and jointly take care of the vulnerable parts of the human condition in need of development.
Cultivating personhood begins with reconnecting with the body, heart and mind and deepening self-awareness. At Springhouse, you see, one of their core beliefs is that all change begins within…within self.. So learning at Springhouse is grounded in a process of self-study and relationship to mind, body and heart.
Building beloved community…Jenny believes this is the most rigorous of the five principles. Its big question?... “How do we work together with a whole bunch of diverse people and in a way that’s unified around a shared purpose?” And one of the unique ways Springhouse builds beloved community? Through communal dance practices. You see, they see dance as fostering vulnerability, authenticity and even intimacy…..beloved community.
We all have a need to be connected. And through dance, you see, bonds are formed through practice that strengthens relationships between those in the community.
Respecting the wisdom of the earth. Springhouse is an open-walled community putting the source of all life at the center and learning from the oldest teacher - the earth. Jenny recently shared with me..”we can't value what we don't know...and what we don't know we don't take care of.” So whenever possible, learning takes place in outdoor classroom spaces where learning happens in communion with the earth.
And the final principle…Loving and serving others…
We all love food…
… one of the ways they love and serve others is through communal meals…there are few stronger ways to deepen relationships than through food.
Local community members will come in and help the youth cook a meal from a specific culture. Then members of the local town, or really anyone interested in attending, are invited into the space.
And another way you can see this principle in action: Springhouse is intentional about sharing what they do with the world. They are telling their story about building a human centered school where all are seen, heard and valued!
So about these 5 universal principles, Jenny shares…
We do all of this to fill up, like a pitcher of water...and that then just spills out into a world that needs it.
Springhouse is a living example of what is possible when we design models of education around the human...around life. Emergent life where all individuals have what they need to function independently while being aware of others’ individuality and the well-being of the whole…the community.
And how are they thinking about the future?
By creating the conditions for vitality, everyone has the opportunity to grow the competencies needed to courageously respond to the world's emerging needs. As members of the Springhouse community, they fill up with life and love...and move toward the places in the world that need more life and love. And those places are always changing.
Springhouse puts all the components of healthy human relationships at the headwaters of every sentence.
You see, the work of invention needs to be grounded in why we are here….the development and thriving of all fellow humans...fellow community members.
Starting with the human.
In the next post, we’ll take a look at a tool to help you become better inventors in your learning environment…specifically about building connection.
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