The school will be located at Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia, midway between Charlottesville and Richmond. Twin Oaks is located on 500 acres of wooded hills. We are on an undeveloped river which we use for canoe excursions. We have a pond for swimming with a sand beach and a dock.

We have a fully operational herb garden, organic garden and dairy farm. Additionally we have a pottery studio, art studio, auto shop and bike repair shop. Over the years we have made four large play areas in the woods, including a 15 person hammock and long rope swings. Each year the kids and adults design and add new additions to these adventure playgrounds.

The activities of the day might be in any building or in the woods. The daily morning gathering place during the academic year will be Degania, the children's building. Classes then often break up into smaller groups and go to different locations.

The summer camp will not meet at Degania but will be primarily at Twin Oaks' wooded Conference site, which is off of route 640 (see maps). The opening circle will be just outside the main pavilion.CENTER>

- Self Awareness

- Other awareness

- Body Awareness

- Awareness of the natural world

- Awareness of social dynamics -

Ability to earn a living

Ability to travel

Ability to communicate well

Ability to create and maintain relationships

Ability to use tools

Ability to find information

Ability to create beauty

Ability to experience joy

- Seeing joy as important and essential to a well lived life

- Recognizing the abundant possibilities for joy

- Being able to clear out the blocks to experiencing joy

- Being able to create joyful experiences

- Being able to experience joy from random circumstances

Our process for attaining the goals of our three pillars is Socratic in form, but we have devised a standard set of questions which we find helps focus each person's internal inquiry processes:

Who am I?
How am I unique?
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
How can I best be of service to others?
What in my world is wonderful?
What do I appreciate in others?
What in my world bothers me and why?
What of what I don't like can I change and what of what I don't like must I accept?

What annoyances run over and over in my head?
How can I release those annoyances?
How can I come to understand the actions of people who I most dislike?
How can I build bridges to people I most dislike?

Our processes are, first, to put process before product, that is, our focus is how we are doing things, not the goal toward which we are striving. We are experiential. We follow the passions of the students (and teachers).

For example, we spend more time on "field trips" than we do sitting at tables (we don't have desks). We stop what we are "doing" to talk about how we are treating each other. We don't have a body of knowledge we are passing on to the students, rather we are teaching the students how to learn and discover those things which interest them

Our decisions are made by consensus. The little kids aren't involved in financial decisions, but as early as 8, students do get involved in the financial decisions about the school. Our curriculum is to develop skilled, capable people, so time spent in working through issues in meetings is very much "on task" and not at all seen as time wasted. (Still, we try to keep our meetings short.)

The school will spend a fair amount of time travelling. Travel in and of itself is educational and develops our three pillars (Awareness, Ability and Joy). Additionally, we are then able to visit places which are meaningful to what we are learning.

We will have a morning meeting where we will discuss business details of the school and also interpersonal dynamics among the members of the school. An important part of these dynamics will be focusing on appreciation of each other and, specifically our individual differences and how they help (or hinder) the group.