OUR VISION
One day, TK-12 education will help sow the seeds of a regenerative, equitable society in harmony with our changing planet.
Watershed Schoolhouse began with a question…
How can we reimagine education for whole communities and a healthy planet?
What if the primary aim of TK—12 education were not simply college or career preparedness, but preparation for a healthy, meaningful life on earth? What if the education of our youth were integral to our collective response to the myriad crises we face—not for tomorrow, but for today?
Imagine education driven by inquiry, rooted in service, and grounded in nature.
Imagine project-based learning led by imagination, built on first-hand experience, and guided by relationship with all life.
Imagine a curriculum built entirely from these principles, a school founded entirely on the basis of this curriculum, and a world stewarded by people with this as their baseline.
Watershed Schoolhouse offers integrative, nature-based education for whole communities and a healthy planet. Through a model school, educator trainings & consulting, and curriculum development it seeks to expand upon the traditional aims of mainstream, western education. This includes rigorous academics, nature connection, justice & equity, and a cultivated inner life.
What we do.
Justice and equity in education
This holds true for education too.
The rest of the quote says: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
This truth is perhaps increasingly obvious to more and more people as we face the harsh reality of climate change on our shared, tiny blue planet. As has too often been the case, those already challenged with the many legacies of oppression and exploitation are being hit first and hardest.
Everything we do now—as always—to each other, to our fellow planetary relatives, and to our planet—affects us all. Our vision is not climate justice and social justice as two different issues; they are one and the same. Our vision is not education for the sake of education, but education for the sake of whole communities and a healthy planet—reweaving ourselves into healthy relationship with life itself, of which we are a part.
When it comes to our small piece of the garment—focused on education for young ones—this means that these issues are not only part of the curriculum (what we study), but also part of what and who we aim to serve.
As we seek to be part of the healing in our times and plant fruitful seeds for the future generations, we surely still have much to learn (and unlearn). And, this is the joy of education—to draw forth in one another our deepest gifts—that we may contribute to the health of our planet and all of us who are part of it.
We look forward to walking this path with you.
Watershed Schoolhouse is based in the current and ancestral homelands of the Mechoopda. This recognition of native land is merely a beginning place for the profound and ongoing work that is needed to find healing and justice in the wake of colonization. For more about our work as it relates to these and other issues, please see our Justice & Equity page.