BANYAN TREE CLASSROOM AND BEYOND

The entire acre of gradens and orchard is our classroom. We have chairs in the round beneath the boughs of our magnificent banyan tree for instruction, discussion, rehearsal, writing space.

In our natural setting students’ questions and curiosity are nurtured. We marvel at and study the hummingbird who builds her nest under our rainy-day shelter, the piglets who grow from 22 pounds to 300 pounds in a semester, the catfish with his poison-tipped whiskers who gobbles sow bugs and worms from our vermiculture bin. We discuss human nature as we read great literature and learn the language of science as we study algebra.

FARM SCHOOL ANNEX CLASSROOM

Direct instruction requiring audio-visual equipment usually happens in our Farm School Annex: 600 square feet of classroom space with huge 9x8’ doors open to the trees. Most of our math class instruction occurs in the Farm School Annex as that requires a document camera for modeling problems on our note-taking forms.

WARM UP BY THE FIRE

Our rainy-day shelter and fire pit beneath the banyan tree are popular spots for writing and group work especially on cold days.

PHONE FREE ZONE

Studies show that even phones that stay in a backpack at school are still a source of anxiety and distraction for teenagers. (That research- the part about smartphones still negatively impacting mental health even when they are away in the backpack- surprised me. For more information, see The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness , by Johnathan Haidt, social psychologist.)

Research shows that teens who don't have access to a smart phone at school and no social media until past puberty are happier and less anxious than their peers.

Additionally, studies also show that parents who insist that they need to be able to check on their child all the time via a phone inadvertently make their child feel unsafe and thus contribute to the tsunami of teen anxiety.

Friends are important!

Students have opportunities to make friends as they work on interesting projects together, play math games as a team, rehearse Shakespeare and Sophocles, shoot hoops and the breeze during lunch.

Farm School is a safe place for kids who are neuro-divergent, anxious, gifted, shy, extroverted, passionate, quiet, loud, driven and meandering. Given the nature of outdoor classes, students need to have good self-regulation skills and impulse control in order to be safe outdoors.

Friendships are often knit together in the interstices between structured learning activities. I started Farm School, in part, so my own children would have these opportunities to build deep relationships with other curious learners and so they would practice the vital and complex social skills required in collaborative learning, such as listening to understand (not just waiting to say your piece) as well as brokering satisfying compromises among themselves.

In addition to social-emotional developmental and friendships, recess has brain benefits since physical movement prepares our brains for academic tasks such as analyzing poetry or factoring quadratic equations. During recess at Farm School on Mt. Helix, kids climb trees, soar in the swing, jump on the trampoline, play tetherball and basketball, invent crazy ball games, play giant Yahtzee, and sprint after one another in a zillion different versions of tag. And some sit around a play chess, cards, or chat— but even those students spend part of their break moving to different parts of the property for those pastimes.

MS. LISA’S EXPERIENCE AS A GATE TEACHER

I started out as a GATE teacher in traditional schools in Cupertino in the Bay Area. I was the 6th grade GATE teacher for the highest performing middle school in the state of CA (as measured and ranked by API test scores.) I taught honors history and English in the Bay Area as well as San Dieguito Union High Schol district here in North San Diego County.

In addition to my traditional middle school classroom experience as a GATE teacher, I have had many students at Farm School who are gifted. That’s it’s one of the reasons parents seek out my classes: for the academic rigor and opportunity for gifted kids to excel and still be in a social setting. It is also part of why I started Farm School: to meet the needs of my own gifted children.

Farm School classes are rich, deep, and challenging.

MATH CLASSES

I want students to leave Farm School math classes ready to rock any high school math class they encounter. So our sequence of Year 1 - Math 7, Year 2 - Honors Pre-algebra + Math 8, then Year 3 - Honors Algebra fully prepares students for honors geometry or Integrated Math 2.

In my Honors Pre-Algebra + Math 8 class I also offer an easier and shorter homework option for students who aren’t yet ready for that honors stretch.

Past students who moved on to integrated math courses tested into Math II Honors, and even then most of the first semester was review for them.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

Our language arts classes are deep.

In our middle school classes, we study Shakespeare, Sophocles, and other great writers. As we read deep and interesting books we also learn to write essays with MLA citations.

And yet I meet each child where they are and scaffold to support all learners so even inexperienced writers have an opportunity to fully participate in our classes and grow.

SCIENCE

We dig into the science of living things touching on science standards from 6th to 9th grade as they pertain to the living creatures we are learning about.

HOMEWORK

All seminars have weekly homework to deepen students’ understanding of concepts and prepare them to discuss the literature we’re reading and writing about.

Math seminars also have graded quizzes and tests to assess students’ conceptual mastery and prepare them for high school courses.