Alumni Spotlight:
Beth Hankoff

Class of 1986

Beth Hankoff still remembers arriving at Oak Grove School at 13 years old feeling shut down by education. After struggling through public school in Los Angeles and then Ojai, she had stopped wanting to go to school altogether. She felt disconnected, unable to speak up for herself outside the home, and increasingly isolated from those around her growth. All that changed when she arrived at Oak Grove.

“The campus was beautiful, the classes were tiny (no more than 12 students), and the whole place exuded calm,” she recalls. “It would not be an overstatement to say that this place transformed me.”

What she encountered was not simply a different academic environment, but a fundamentally different relationship to learning. Students were invited into discussion rather than passive instruction. Teachers genuinely listened. Curiosity mattered. So did self-awareness, relationship, beauty, and attention. “At Oak Grove, my voice and choices mattered,” Beth says. “We were asked what we thought about things.”

Teachers genuinely listened. Curiosity mattered. So did self-awareness, relationship, beauty, and attention.

The small classes and close relationships with teachers created space for her to participate in ways she never had before. Teachers encouraged her to become part of the community rather than disappear into the background. Over time, the shy student who had once withdrawn from school became deeply engaged in it. “I soon became one of the school’s most enthusiastic supporters and, sometimes, its most vocal critic,” she says.

That freedom to question left a lasting impression. Beth recalls challenging the school herself at times when she felt things were drifting “off mission,” pushing for explanation and dialogue rather than simply accepting authority. Looking back, she sees that as part of the education itself.

The experience shaped not only her confidence, but her understanding of what education could be. Although she had vaguely considered becoming a teacher before Oak Grove, it was here that her passion for education truly began. The school’s emphasis on inquiry, autonomy, and relationship continues to influence how she thinks about learning today.

“Some key aspects I try to speak about and bring to education today are autonomy for children and teachers, incorporating outdoor spaces, bringing beauty to indoor spaces, and perhaps most importantly, encouraging children to think deeply and express their natural curiosity,” she says.

Certain memories remain vivid: classes held outdoors or in cottage-style classrooms, traveling together as a school community, mixed-age learning groups, and being treated with genuine respect by teachers.

“There is no end to education,” wrote Krishnamurti, “The whole of life… is a process of learning.” For Beth, Oak Grove made those words real. More than anything, it gave her something she had been missing: a sense that her thoughts, questions, and presence mattered.

Now, four decades after graduating as part of the Class of 1986, she still sees Oak Grove not simply as the school she attended, but as the place where she found her voice.

Beth Hankoff is a credentialed educator, writer, and advocate for compassionate, self-directed learning who specializes in supporting homeschool and neurodivergent students through her California-based practice, Encourage Education Services.

Find this and other recent articles in our 2025-26 Annual Report: From the Oak Grove.