The Village - an unschooling learning community
The Village is a group of people composed of youth ages 5-18 and adult advisors. Young people under the age of 16 are registered as home schoolers. We can be loosely defined by the term “unschooling”. We “say no to schooling” because we believe that schools limit freedom, stifle creativity and independent thinking, standardize learning, are choked by bureaucracy, and discourage democratic decision making.
Our group’s formation is a reaction to the current educational system, but its spirit is much more than that. Our intentions are to promote positive change by caring for and nurturing young people so that they can grow into the fullness of their being and spread that out into the world.
We practice
• Drawing out each person’s unique gifts and talents
• Freedom: to choose one’s learning, to move about freely
• Living in community: listening to one another, helping out
• Consensus decision making, in which every voice is respected
• Being responsible to oneself and to the community
• Restorative justice, with goals to repair harm that is done
• Living sustainably on the earth
• Learning from nature
• Supporting ourselves with the work that we do
We currently meet in member and family homes in and around Northfield, MN. We meet as a group Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. There are approximately 20 young people and 4 adults in the immediate community.
For more information call:
Olivia Frey 507-645-4998
