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What
People Say about the Farm School
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What Parents Say
"The Farm School has, in a very short time, restored my child's love and excitement for learning and has literally transformed nearly every aspect of her life-and, as a result, restored to a great extent, our family's happiness."
Kelly McMillin Miller, former FS parent
George B. Pratt, Former FS parent and Chair, English Department, Sage Hill School
Bob Moeller, Ph.D., former FS parent
"In the year that my children have been at the Farm School, I have seen wonderful changes. They are more confident and self-assured. They are able to conceive and execute experiments and, more importantly, identify that they are doing so and analyze the outcome."
Mary L. Herzog, Ph.D., former FS parent
Shirley Leung, former FS parent and University Librarian at the Hong Kong Baptist University
FS parent and public school teacher
Susan McClintic, former Director of the Early Childhood Lab School at Orange Coast College and former FS parent
"In an environment where there is increasing pressure on elementary children to "perform" (e.g. on standardized tests), which brings with it increasing hours of rote homework, the Farm School is indeed special in its focus on having the students learn and critically think in a creative and supportive setting."
David Newman, PhD, FS parent
Exerpts from a Graduation Speech, June 2007:
"Being a senior means that I got to do a senior project. My senior project was to learn about disabled athletes and to teach an autistic peer how to golf. I also made a website to acknowledge differently-abled athletes. During the website-making stage I exchanged interview emails with various disabled athletes including Jim Abbot, who is a famous disabled major league pitcher and Monica Bascio, who is a Paralympics skier. I posted these interviews on my website. There are also interviews from John Register, a Paralympic runner and some reflections on my golf lessons with Bob, my student.
"The project taught me about disabled athletes and that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. It was a lot of hard work because I had to do a lot of the project by myself and it took all of my senior year. However, each year I've been at Farm School I've gotten older and smarter and developed more perseverance so I wouldn't quit the project after the first few weeks. Now that I've finished my project and I'm graduating I feel great.
"The hardest thing about being in the Little Kids House was when we were done with our work and we brought it to the teachers, they said we always had to "Milk the Cow." This meant we had to go back and go through it and check our work. Then, when we would bring it back after we had checked it, they would still say, "Milk the Cow." So after having to milk the cows all the time as you would imagine, we would have really sore hands....
"Then I moved to the Big Kid House where the work seemed a lot harder. For instance, when we would ask how to spell a word, the teachers would tell us to look in the dictionary instead of just telling us.
"At Farm School, instead of just reading from a textbook, while we are learning we are doing fun things. Like when we were learning multiplication we played Math Twister. In one [lesson], we were talking about "The Lion King," and we did a mock trial based on the death of Mufasa. My side won so I got up and danced in the courtroom.
"If I hadn't gone to Farm School I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do these things and to become the person I am today."
Dash, who attended Farm School from K-6th grade
Nora, current college student
"How many elementary schools do you know [that] have reunions where everyone is so excited to attend, where everybody remembers everyone so clearly, where people from elementary school still keep in touch and are still close because they were all touched in the same way by the same school? . . . The Farm School is more than a phenomenal educational opportunity, it is a way of life."
Tania
Manuel, recent college graduate
"What is the best, and hardest part of growing up? Taking responsibility for yourself is the best, and the hardest . . .. The Farm School method fosters, inspires, and encourages good habits by placing the timeline for work in the hand of the students. Weekly assignments in all subjects, and the opportunity to sit (or lie) anywhere, at your choosing--these allow students to make their own timelines, budget their own work, and therefore, take their own responsibility . . .. Adult life does not often consist of daily assignments, but rather daily objectives that you set for yourself in the pursuit of larger ends. Farm School prepares its students for this.
"The entire curriculum revolves around the idea of limitless potential; somehow the students feel this, appreciate the confidence, and step forward to accept the challenge.
"I am grateful that I had the opportunity to experience Farm School because of the effect it has had on my life. I am grateful to the teachers, who had the vision, the hope, and the courage necessary to turn me, no, allow me to turn myself into an individual and creative thinker. For this gift, the gift of my life as a free spirit, there can be no fitting repayment. And that's the beauty of it all. The success justifies the intentions…and the costs. The hard work that was put into me, and that I learned to put into myself, has been, and will continue to be, its own reward. That is the entity of Farm School--a place where children like myself can leave as free people. Free people who work hard for work's sake; who have the courage and the will to fight for what they believe; who do great things "because they're there"; they are the result of the Farm School Ethic. Its essence is the pursuit of that goal."
Ross, recent Stanford graduate
"I have a wonderful job at an extraordinary place. I work with people who are dedicated to learning, not because they have to be, but because they choose to be. Every day is filled with intellectual challenge and excitement. We ponder and weigh. We theorize and test. I work at an elementary school. The people I work with range in age from four to fifty-something. And all of them are serious thinkers and researchers.
"When my students ask a question and I tell them to ponder the answer for themselves, they understand what that means. They go away and think, then come back and tell me what they have discovered. We talk and they go away again to think and try and try again. One of the greatest thrills of all is when a child comes back a year or two later and is ready for another discussion. And then, possibly, another round of pondering.
"The kind of continuity necessary for this type of learning discovery is possible at the Farm School because of our small class size and multi-age classrooms. The children truly help one another learn. They are their own teachers and one another's teachers as much as I am their teacher."
Nancy Enoch, FS teacher since 1991
"As a teacher there, I try on new methods, adapt the curriculum for each student, and share my ideas with my colleagues. We confer, we "tweak", we try again, we rethink, we ask questions, we tweak some more. And just when we think we have "it" right, along comes another, sometimes better idea. The whole process starts again. If that isn't the true spirit of research and instruction, I guess I don't know what is.
"As a Farm School teacher, asking questions of myself, "How can I do this better next time? How can I test for their understanding?", is a vital part of my ongoing learning process. I may not have attended the Farm School as an elementary-aged student, but, in every way, I consider myself Farm Schooled."
Lauren Redington, former FS teacher for 9 years
Jonathan Rehmus, former FS teacher of four years
"Some of the hottest topics in educational reform today are site-based management, small class sizes, smaller schools, multi-age classrooms, teacher empowerment, and teacher accountability. The problem is, most schools do not know how to do this. The Farm School does. [It] is a very successful model that has been functioning for 30 years on very little money...
"The mission of the Farm School is to explore the outer edges of the known in education: to start from the basic question of 'what does it mean to know something and how is that knowledge attained?' . . . [The School's long-time former director] and his teachers started from scratch and challenged every assumption and measured all results in terms of how children learned and how their lives were affected. I find it interesting that most of the unnamed practices we developed from this focus now have names [in common educational discourse about science, mathematics, and language teaching and learning] . . .. Over the years, the curriculum changes because people and times change. But what has not changed is that [the Farm School] is still a place where kids love to learn and teachers love to teach."
What Alumni Say
What Teachers Say
"When it came time for my daughter to leave kindergarten, I did some anecdotal research, asking my best students what schools they came from. I began to notice a trend in their answers: the most adventurous, creative, and motivated students had gone to the Farm School. The students grew enormously nostalgic when asked about the place and, when my wife and I visited, we saw for ourselves that here was a school where kids could still be kids--could run and play and get dirty and laugh. That they were also embued with purpose, entrusted with tasks that served a community, and led to find a true joy in learning made our choice clear."
"The Farm School not only gave [my daughter] Nora a solid grounding in science, math, literature, history, and writing; perhaps more importantly, it allowed Nora to be Nora, to define herself in a safe supportive, challenging and sustaining environment, to figure out who she is and what she wanted to do, to be comfortable in her own skin and confident of who she is."
"As a parent whose children have been in public schools, I can attest to the impact of the Farm School philosophy. The Farm School develops children's learning abilities in a developmentally appropriate and holistic manner. The teachers facilitate creative discovery and independent learning, not sitting at a desk and filling out worksheets. The Farm School environment values children's contributions and sees them as capable, responsible and caring. This stance has long-term effects on children.
"My son went to the Farm School for six years . . . and I think often of him as a typical Farm School product. He loved Farm School. There was not a day he would not want to go to school; even when he was sick, he wanted to go to school. ... He's very good with people, and he is very kind with people, especially with young kids. I think of him as an independent and creative thinker. He is also a problem solver. ... And most importantly, I think . . . there's a community of Farm School parents . . . and it's always like you have a bond, a special bond because your children were/are at the Farm School, and you recognize some common attributes in your children. ...In a sense, it produces people who are gentle people and kind people, but they are also going to be good citizens for society."
"Because my son is not held to other people’s ideas of what a kindergartner should know, he is free to take longer mastering a skill when necessary, and speed along ahead when he can. At the Farm School, he avoids two of traditional schools’ worst downfalls: he will never be identified as a failure simply because he needs extra time to learn something new, nor—at the other end of the spectrum—will he be bored waiting for his classmates to catch up."
"At the Farm School, being an intellectual is cool. It's not something that is weird or something to be ridiculed. It's something that is respected and held up in high esteem, not just from the teachers and the parents, but the children themselves. Second, being an individual is something that is respected at the Farm School, again not only by the general school community, but by the children."
"The Farm School is an extraordinary place, and I am a part of its family. There is no other school like it, not in the world. There may be fine halls of elementary education in our state, and no doubt in Irvine, but the Farm School provides something they do not. This thing is without a name, because it is impossible to explain or define. I can only tell you that thanks to the Farm School, I have chosen a career path. I am a junior at the Orange County High School of the Arts. Most of my friends are seniors and are scared about what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. When they tell me about their problems, I listen sympathetically, but I am not in that position. I am certain that when I go to college I will know exactly what I want to do. I want to be in the theater. I have wanted to be in the theater since the age of six, the age I started attending the UCI Farm Elementary School. The Farm School allowed me to create a dream and foster a talent that I will use for the rest of my life and that I intend to make my life's work. It also gave me the means to feel safe and comfortable in myself, which I believe has largely given me the means to feel safe and comfortable with the rest of the world."
"Not only was the Farm School the foundation of my educational life, but it continues to influence me in every aspect and every realm of my life . . . the ideals, ambitions, and pursuits that consume me were all derived from the Farm School . . .. I found my education at UC Berkeley to be my Farm School education extended . ... I was able to complete two different degrees at Berkeley in three and one-half years, not because of a wonderful high school, but because of a wonderful elementary school.
"The Farm School is the most central institution in my development.... I have yet to find an experience that affected me as profoundly as my three years in Farm School. Something in the way children learn there strengthens them for the rest of their lives, focusing them on what is real, what we can all accomplish by finding the intellectual, emotional, and creative outlets that we all possess."
"I remember the most important thing anyone has ever learned--how to learn. I don't even remember learning how to learn--I guess it was something that had to be taught--but I know it happened sometime at Farm School. Somewhere, amongst scattered pinto beans and pattern blocks, underneath tangrams and Cause/Effect worksheets, a little boy's eyes were opened a little wider. He had always wondered what was around dark corners, but now he began to guess, or to ask, or to go and see for himself. He began to see the world, not as an interminable and insurmountable puzzle, but one of infinite yet "uncoverable" mysteries. The world became his to discover. Farm School opened this door for him.
"I graduated with a B.S. in Psychology from UCI in 1980. I spent two years at the Farm School, taking the "Creative Learning in Children" class conducted by Michael Butler. I spent that entire first year teaching biology to the Big Kids (8-12 year olds). In 1980, I undertook an independent study with Michael, learning how to teach math the "Farm School way". In total, I think I earned a whopping 24 units in my time there, but truth be told, I would have done it for nothing. In all my classes at UCI, none impressed me so much as spending time with an eight year old, trying to puzzle out his unique, invented method for subtraction. I learned some very valuable things about myself during that time, too. I learned what it felt like to persevere, to put aside my conventional, somewhat conservative thinking and try on different strategies. I decided that there is more to learn from mistakes than from successes. I learned that it's not the destination but the journey that is most important. I have tried to live my life by these "credoes", and raise my children by them. I think I've done a respectable job. And I teach, every day, using those same lessons learned 24 years ago.
"I [now] live in an area, the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, with a high density of good-quality elementary schools. These include the University of Massachusetts lab school, a Waldorf school, a charter school, private prep school feeders, alternative settings, and public schools reflecting the academic investment in the community. Through my work, research, and interviewing, and through colleagues, students, and joint programs, I am familiar with many of these. None offer educational opportunity with the frequency I witnessed as routine at the Farm School. I work everyday to improve my current setting to be of the quality offered by the Farm School . . .. The Farm School is a pioneer in educational method UCI should be exceptionally proud of . . .. [It] is a pioneer and a treasure."
Former Farm School teachers who have founded a Charter School based on Farm School principles say that the School
"has an important role to play in educational reform. [It] is a seedbed of ideas, sheltered from political storms and educational mandates. In this place of quiet, people have developed a model for schooling that works...