ABOUT EUS

Currently Elfhood Unschool is accepting children of all ages who may benefit from experiences at Heartwood. The Heartwood Centre is our home and 100 acre lakeland property in the Haliburton Highlands.

To determine if your child would benefit from attending Elfhood Unschool, please read the following information and our pedagogy and philosophy, then contact us to set up an interview or to enroll. Go here to see the programmes we are initially offering.

On this page: Introduction, Why Unschool?, The Programme, Opportunities at Heartwood, Apprenticeship Possibilities

Introduction

Elfhood Unschool is currently offering “unschooling” for children. Your child is invited to come to Heartwood to participate, play, unfold, share, be, grow and be nurtured. Our space here includes a lake, creek, hundreds of acres of forest, vegetable and herb gardens, rocks, hills, moss, meadows, a gazebo, and a small house we call the Heartwood Centre. A very friendly and intelligent canine also lives here, and we are creating space for equines and other species as well. This unspoiled outdoor space is the most natural and effective matrix to support the growth and emergence of intelligence in children. We provide inspiration and modeling to catalyze the ability of the child to play with their world and all that they encounter within it. Forts, treehouses and natural structures can be built, ponds can be befriended, creeks can be traversed, trails blazed, salamanders met, moss kissed, dragons created, clouds watched, elves played with, gardens planted, bogs investigated, wildlife identified, and countless more opportunities experienced. With the confluence of imagination – that which is within- and the matrix of the natural world – that which is without – the optimum learning relationship is assured, and the possibilities of engagement are literally infinite.

Play is nothing less than the foundation of a child’s evolutionary genius, and we provide opportunities for it to unfold authentically. Every moment is play for the child, as it should be, for every moment they are learning to engage creatively with “what is”. We do not suppress or curtail this most natural instinct to play, explore and investigate – a drive that is encoded in their genetics because if they play, they are preparing their neural circitry to enable them to both survive and thrive in the world.

At Elfhood Unschool we model a real and authentic relationship with a living, responding Universe via the natural world / earth. In other words, we see the Universe as alive, intelligent, and responsive to our creative intelligence and model this naturally. Children do not learn by being “taught”, but they will absorb huge amounts of information as they observe the adults in their life, whether those adults are stressed about money, frustrated about messy rooms, or loving, patient and responsive to self, universe and others. We provide authentic modeling that encourages participation in a multiversal matrix that is intelligent – a community of intelligences, be they animal, mineral, human, or more higher level intelligences such as that of earth or the inner self. With these intelligences we moment by moment re-create relationship, and as we do so authentically, the children in our presence internalize this deeper understanding.

Why Unschool?

Many people ask us why we are called an unschool. There is a grassroots pedagogic movement occuring on our planet towards new forms of education and co-creation. One of these new forms of education is what is being called “unschooling”. While there are many different schools of thought on what unschooling is, from our perspective it is child-led learning that arises from a child’s natural interests and inclinations. There is no set curriculum, although the possibilities are infinite. There is no forced curriculum, no timelines for what learning is expected, and there is a lack of indoctrination.

Traditional schooling tends to impose a particular curriculum, physical structure, beliefs, and worldviews upon children – worldviews that are dysfunctional and harmful to self and others. Schooling is a restrictive process of setting limitations, creating anxiety around what is “right” and “wrong”, preparing the child to fit into a social structure that is failing, and restricting the understanding of emotional intelligence, heart intelligence, and body intelligence. Mental intelligence becomes the dominant focus and governing intelligence of the human being, when the mind should instead be an instrument of the heart. Schools are product-oriented and control-oriented. In the machine-oriented curriculum the goals are already “measured” and known – the teach must “instruct” the student on what is “right”, the best and most efficient way to do things. The authority of the teacher and the “knowledge” that must be imparted shifts authority away from the only place it can truly come from: the self. The damage this creates is widespread. As well, we are cheating ourselves of children who grow up being able to creatively solve problems and thus be equal to the tasks of healing our planetary crises: resource distribution, disease, power, food production, war, cultural disconnect, and the list goes on. As Einstein said, the problems of our world cannot be solved at the same level of the mind that created them. Thus indoctrinating our children with our obsolete mental models dooms us to repeat the same mistakes.

A new generation of children are ready to create massive paradigm shifts that can create global cooperation and enduring peace. But they must be allowed to “unfold” their genius abilities.

Children learn by sensing with all aspects of themselves – but forcing bodies that want to move to sit in desks, minds that want to be creative to learn by rote and memorize facts, and narrowing learning so children begin to disassociate mental processes from their body and emotional selves — this is worse than a disservice, it is actually neurologically damaging, emotionally damaging, and physically we retreat from our bodies, which is one of the causes of the propensity of overweight children and adults in our culture, as well as a prevalence of illness and dis-ease in the body. The result of schooling is often dysfunctional adults who may be intellectually “smart”, but lack true intelligence – which is the ability to synthesize, align, cohere, and unify disparate parts, emotions, ideas and levels of being. In school children learn to “separate,” an analytical process, but then they are not taught how to re-assemble their selves, nor are they allowed to be whole people capable of actualizing their genius, talents and capacities to create a more vibrant world. Traditional schooling is intended to ‘school’ the child into become a “productive” member of a culture that is dysfunctional and damaging – both subtly and not so subtly. At the school level, this indoctrination is not being imposed on children by teachers intentionally - for the most part, teachers, educators and parents are well-meaning and simply are not aware of the way they impose a worldview that is biased and unhealthy.

In fact, there is little about traditional education that we think is valuable – see our article here for more information about the dangers of public and traditional education. (See also our FAQS where we answer “Why Unschool”? in different words.) While we think some of the Waldorf and Montessori schools are more valuable than public education, in our perception even these alternative schools tend to be too rigid for our personal tastes, which is why we have created Elfhood UnSchool.

Unschooling for an older child or adult requires that some things get unlearned, negative patterns get de-programmed, and dysfunctions become normalized, and so forth. We have many ways to assist you or your children to re-pattern yourself so you may be aligned, healthy, harmonious, capable, coherent and balanced human beings. For children who are very young, instead of undoing negative patterns, we want to be meticulously careful that we are enforcing no “programming” to begin with, but instead allowing them to unfold as their own unique beings.

Please note that some “unschoolers” create no structure for their child at all. We respect this radical approach to unschooling – we do not think there is only one way that is the best! – however, at Elfhood we will use the structure of story-telling and other activities – usually nature-based – when appropriate. We also encourage a variety of topics, interests, experiences, especially the experience of being immersed in the natural world. As well, we will often structure games and activities for groups of children, again, which some unschoolers believe is not strictly “unschooling”. We do not rigidly consider ourselves “unschoolers” but feel free to be flexible and open to a variety of approaches. We personally believe a balance between structure and unstructure, activity and non-activity, left-brain and right-brain, is key. See below for a chart listing aspects of left and right brained energy.

Elfhood Unschool will not

• enforce curriculum, programming, indoctrination or conditioning
• use control strategies including rewards or punishments, comparision, competition, or praise (yes, surprisingly enough, praise can become a control strategy and can be particularly damaging, for an article on this subject, go here)
• introduce negative evaluative concepts (such as the concept of failure or being ‘bad’)
• share repressive cultural memes/beliefs (especially about the body)
• share popular videos/tv/media or computer games (we do use computers as a tool when appropriate, for example recording songs we make, etc.)
• negate or deny emotions that arise
• enforce commonly held assumptions about learning
• impose time-lines, due-dates or marks

 Elfhood Unschool will

• allow play to unfold
• provide concrete experiences, activities, and events
• venture into the unknown “now” with the child and play (invite the unexpected)
• provide heart-centred relationships
• take cues from the child and respond deeply and completely
• create a safe place of belonging
• offer a wide range of activities so the child may expand their wisdom, knowledge, and abilities to be in this world (see our program description for a list of activities)
• model acceptance of all emotions, and appropriate behaviour (ie. feeling anger is okay, hitting is not appropriate, here are appropriate ways to express anger)
• model bonded, loving, creative behaviour and imagination
• provide a matrix of support, inspiration, and opportunities for play to occur
• offer age-appropriate story-telling and more importantly, myth-telling
• use discipline as the real meaning of the word: disciple: joyful follower (creating positive boundaries that make sense)
• open to all possibilities, allowing a child’s vast potential to unfold
• model attentiveness and awareness to the moment
• provide a safe place for self-expression of all emotions
• provide guidance, focus, direction and leadership in appropriate ways, without negating the child’s natural authority and sovereignty
• inspire, facilitate and share information, experiences and wonder

The Programme

We are currently offering two after-regular-school programmes – see here for details.

The program is not a program as we traditionally think of this in educational circles. We provide no formal and set curriculum and timetables, only opportunities, allowing the child to select what they want to do. If they want to do nothing, they are allowed to – doing nothing is otherwise known as ‘being’ and is quite literally fundamental – the very key – to the growth and development of intelligence and genius. All children (and adults!) should have time where they are able to do nothing and just be. When the mind is silent, deep connection to Unity Consciousness is occurring as well as a connection to the invisible processes that make a human the creative imaginus we are. This connection is vital to our vibrant health and joyous living, and it is the very key and lock to creativity and genius.

Play requires no special equipment. We do however offer a number of opportunities at Heartwood that children may find themselves interested in, and we do share and encourage a number of structured activities, games, songs and stories. We will especially use certain outdoor games and activities when there are groups of children here (there may be groups or a 1:1 adult-child ratio). Older children who are interested in any of our own talents are encouraged to come to Elfhood Unschool to hone their skills and talents in a particular discipline and engage in a formal or informal apprenticeship. See here for apprenticeship options.

Mythtelling and Storytelling

One part of the programme that is fundamental is mythtelling and storytelling. Indigenous cultures around the world all tell stories, as the “myth” was the sustaining story that gave a center and meaning to their lives. We have lost this sustaining story in our modern world. We find that working through story is a fundamental way for play and learning to occur naturally. Around and out from a story will enfold an entire universe- poetry, verse, song, game, arts, crafts, activities – a whole world which allows for investigation, imagination and study. Stories and myths are the foundation of elfhood’s programme and can be tiny things or deeply involved, from which larger opportunities arise.

 Opportunities at Heartwood.

Because we cultivate limitless creativity, the equipment we have can often be used for other purposes than its intended. For example a canoe has an obvious use but could also be used in the construction of a temporary earth-fort, to give one example. The following is a list of opportunities that are possible here, and we list such categories as our natural features (i.e. lake), equipment we have (kayak) as well as activities we encourage. This list is partial.

• Kayak. Canoe. Gardens. Forest. Pond. Lake. Dirt. Sand. Outdoor projects. Treeforts. Clay Forts.
• Natural artistic creations. Art. Wood sculpture. Painting. Drawing.
• Musical Instruments including banjo, guitar, djembe, percussion and any we make. Song-making. Singing and Chant. Singing. ETM game-songs.
• Clothes. Dress up. Sewing Machines. Sewing equipment (i.e. thread, material). Crafts. Clay.
• Foodstuffs. Cooking/Preparing. Recipe experiments. Wild edibles.
• Storytelling, Mythtelling, Drama, Word Play, Poetry, Spoken Word.
• Books. Research. Investigation. {in some cases with older children, we will consider using the internet as a research tool if this is contextual and applicable.}
• Tarot Cards/Oracle cards. Toys. Blocks. Sand.

Apprenticeship Possibilities

For older children or teenagers who are keen on learning particular skills or crafts or arts, it is beneficial to work with someone who has investigated the same subject. Here is a partial list of ideas. If your child or you have a particular interest, please ask to see if we can accommodate it. To discuss apprenticeship possibilities, or for more information, please contact us to set up an interview. 

Apprenticeships with Sarabi: education and leadership, storytelling, myth-telling, word-art, writing, creative writing, writing books, poetry, yoga, dance, myth, magic, literature, etymology, fashion, mythic clothing, spiritual development, meditation, pranayama, symbol, metaphor & tarot, correspondences, awakening, conscious eating, raw foods, dharma art, wingmakers, mountain biking, basketball, etc.

Apprenticeships with Damien: sustainable green construction and renovation, bio-dynamic eco-gardening, guitar, dobro, banjo & other musical instruments, wood-working, etc.