Tag Archive for: college

Communicating with Children

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By Will Hornblower

Across the Oak Grove campus, parents and staff have been discussing strategies to improve the way that adults connect and communicate with children. Over the course of three workshops, we brainstormed ways to help students develop resilience, autonomy, and rapport with adults.

We started by posing a question to a gathering of the entire Oak Grove School staff and teachers: How should we talk to students at Oak Grove? This evolved into the obvious counterpoint: How shouldn’t we talk to students at Oak Grove? The teachers generated some excellent strategies. Here are some that might be of benefit in the home:

“The do’s” of adult-child communication:

Faculty and staff generated some “Do’s and Don’t’s” on how we communicate with children on campus.

  • Body language equals words: show children that you are giving them your full attention by engaging in active listening. Here is a link to some active listening advice for those interested in practicing at home.
  • Use “I” messages to communicate your feelings. Communicate your feelings honestly, and encourage children to communicate their feelings using “I messages” as well.
  • When praising a child, praise the process and not the person or result. Instead of saying, “You are so good at math!“, try saying, “I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it.” Here is more information on recent research on the effects of different types of praise in encouraging a growth mindset.

“The do not’s” of adult-child communication:

  • Avoid making assumptions or leaping to conclusions when communicating with children. Often, we are only projecting our own anxiety onto the child. In her wonderful book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, Dr. Laura Markham writes: “When we are worried, we usually feel an urgent need to take action. That alleviates our own anxiety but doesn’t necessarily give the child what he needs. So the first intervention is always becoming aware of and regulating our own emotions.”
  • Avoid comparisons when your child is within earshot, especially comparisons to siblings. Kids are always interested in what adults have to say about them, and this can shape their own feelings of self-worth.

Strategies for Elementary Students

Every time you talk to a child you are adding a brick to define the relationship that is being built between the two of you. And each message says something to the child about what you think of him. He gradually builds up a picture of how you perceive him as a person. Talk can be constructive to the child and to the relationship or it can be destructive. – Thomas Gordon

Our first parent education workshop discussed communication strategies for younger students to help them develop resilience, autonomy, and executive function. Here are some strategies that we came up with:

Routines and rituals that help to encourage connection and communication:

Calming your child during moments of extreme anxiety or agitation:

Strategies to use when your child is struggling with his/her social or academic life:

Here are some helpful resources that we distributed during the workshop:

Strategies for Secondary Students

As parents, our need is to be needed; as teenagers their need is not to need us. This conflict is real; we experience it daily as we help those we love become independent of us.  – Dr. Haim G. Ginott

Our second parent education workshop discussed communication strategies for older students to help them retain healthy attachments and strong connections with their parents and caregivers:

Routines and rituals that help to encourage connection and communication:

  • Electronics-free times such as meals or even encouraging an entire screen-free day.
  • Sharing common interests and hobbies: sometimes conversations flow better when engaged in a common task like cooking, hiking, or surfing.
  • Game nights and playing music together.
  • Going out on a one-on-one “date night.”
  • Being enthusiastic at child’s sports and performance events.

Approaching difficult conversations such as discussions on sex, substance abuse, or peer conflict

  • Using facts and discussing current research as opposed to voicing opinions. A calm demeanor and positive body language also help to avoid activating a child’s defense response.
  • Using movies, tv shows, or current events as teachable moments or to discuss sensitive issues.
  • Talking about issues in abstract terms or using another person’s experience as opposed to asking personal questions.
  • Do not make assumptions about your child’s views on alcohol, sex, or other sensitive topics.
  • Have a plan for when your child asks you about your own teenage experiences.
  • Choose your moment to have a conversation; don’t “ambush” your child with a difficult conversation.

Strategies around electronics use to avoid miscommunication and to promote connection

Here are some helpful resources that we distributed during the workshop:

Here is a link to a schedule of our upcoming parent education workshops.

2019 Senior Graduating Speeches

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Our class of 2019 consists of twelve students. The 11 who applied to four-year colleges and universities have collectively been accepted into 32 schools. This is an average of four acceptances per student and this average is not unusual for Oak Grove seniors. The schools (listed below) include major public universities and colleges, independent and public liberal arts colleges, and specialized art schools. While this is impressive, and we joyfully celebrate this accomplishment with our students, it is also important to know that it is not our objective to have all of our graduates go directly from high school to a four-year college.

Oak Grove High School has a challenging college preparatory scope and sequence curriculum not because we think all students should go directly from high school to a four-year university, but because we want every student to have the choice of going directly to a university if that is what is right for them. More importantly, we want our students to be well educated with a solid and well rounded academic foundation for whatever they choose to do in life.

Class of 2019 College acceptances:
Allegheny, Bard College, Bryn Mawr, Cal Lutheran, Cal Poly SLO, CSUCI, CSU Long Beach, CSU Sacramento, CSU Sonoma, Centre College, Eckerd College, Fordham, George Washington, Goucher, Ohio State, Pace University, Purdue, Quest University, Reed, Southwestern, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Los Angeles, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UIUC, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Willamette University.

Introduction by Jodi Grass, Head of School and Russ Bowen, Director of the Secondary Program

Music performance by the 2019 graduating class

Jodi Grass, Head of School Speech

Bria Schraeder

Yiyang “Lewis” Lu

Eleanor Clift

Ziyi “Valentina” Li

Emma Hughart

Alex Richardson

Catherine Cornwell

Zhiqi “Birkhoff” Cheng

Sarame Sahgal

Haemin Ro

Rio Petersen

Sanaya Dahanukar

Brittany Borowitz, Senior Advisor & Conferment of Diplomas

Transitions to Many Things

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From the Head of School

The culmination of the school year is fast approaching which signals transition to many things—the completion of a grade, the advancement from one program to the next, the excitement of an Ojai summer and time with friends and family. For our seniors, this transition is particularly poignant as in this culture, completion of high school marks the symbolic end of childhood.

Our class of 2019 consists of twelve students. The 11 who applied to four-year colleges and universities have collectively been accepted into 32 schools. This is an average of four acceptances per student and this average is not unusual for Oak Grove seniors. The schools (listed below) include major public universities and colleges, independent and public liberal arts colleges, and specialized art schools. While this is impressive, and we joyfully celebrate this accomplishment with our students, it is also important to know that it is not our objective to have all of our graduates go directly from high school to a four-year college.

As shared here before, some of our students choose to pursue a personal passion directly after Oak Grove. Sophia Grunder (2013) has made her lifelong dream of being an artisan chocolatier a reality. Today, alongside her mentor, Jennifer Smith, Sophia owns and operates the exquisite Ex Voto Chocolates in Ventura. Some Oak Grove graduates choose to defer their college acceptances and take a gap year, like Emilie Del Signore (2017), who spent a gap year traveling through the American Southwest and western Europe and a trek across Zavkhan, Mongolia, before beginning her studies at Syracuse University in the fall of 2018. We also have several students who chose to attend one of California’s excellent local Community Colleges to complete their general education requirements while staying closer to home, saving money, and perhaps pursuing other passions. Dane Wilson (2014) who spent several years with the US Sailing Olympic Development Program before heading to San Diego State University.

Oak Grove High School has a challenging college preparatory scope and sequence curriculum not because we think all students should go directly from high school to a four-year university, but because we want every student to have the choice of going directly to a university if that is what is right for them. More importantly, we want our students to be well educated with a solid and well rounded academic foundation for whatever they choose to do in life.

Class of 2019 College acceptances:
Allegheny, Bard College, Bryn Mawr, Cal Lutheran, Cal Poly SLO, CSUCI, CSU Long Beach, CSU Sacramento, CSU Sonoma, Centre College, Eckerd College, Fordham, George Washington, Goucher, Ohio State, Pace University, Purdue, Quest University, Reed, Southwestern, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Los Angeles, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UIUC, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Willamette University.

Living Education: Self-Discovery

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March 31, 2019

by Christina Sbarra

Self-Discovery: Making Space for What Really Counts

The recent college admissions scandal, dubbed Varsity Blues, hit the news just a few days before the release of Turning the Tide II, the second installment of a report on the college admissions process from the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common Project.  As if part of a well-choreographed but tragic dance, a large portion of the report, entitled Ethical Parenting in the College Admissions Process, unabashedly calls out parents for “failing to prepare young people to be caring, ethical community members and citizens.”  According to students surveyed for the report, most parents place far more emphasis on their children getting into good colleges than on them being good people.  “In an effort to give their kids everything, these parents often end up robbing them of what counts.”

The report goes on to provide recommendations for parents guiding their teens through the college admissions process. Their first recommendation, ‘Keep the focus on your teen,’ centers around supporting the teen’s authenticity.   In order to be authentic, teens first need to know themselves.  In fact, identity formation is a primary facet of adolescence.  But when in the frantic years of clamoring to accumulate outstanding grades, AP credits, athletic awards, participation in clubs and leadership credentials, do these teens have time to get to know themselves?

Parents are not the only culprits here.  At risk of stating the obvious, Harvard itself is a major culprit.  In fact, Harvard is ironically leading the pack on both sides of this dilemma: as arguably the most elite university of them all (with a record low 4.5% acceptance rate this year) and also as head of a movement to re-write college admissions criteria.  Kudos to them for at least trying to be part of the solution.

All of the adults stewarding children through childhood play a role in this crisis and have the opportunity to be part of “turning the tide.”  In my mind, the best way for both parents and educators to support young people in the essential process of self-discovery and increasing independence is to get out of the way, to back-off, humbly taking our well-thought out agendas and our best intentions with us.  Schools can build in time in the regular schedule for pursuit of personal interests, for social interaction, and for quiet reflection. Parents can seek out and support these schools, eschewing questions about test scores, rankings, and college acceptances in favor of deep consideration of the culture of the school, the quality of the relationships, and the opportunities for self-discovery.  Together parents and teachers can build supportive communities committed to creating the space teens need to come to know themselves.

There are many elementary and high schools that intentionally provide opportunities for self-discovery.   Here are just a few inspiring examples from my own personal research this past year.

Oak Grove School in Ojai, California incorporates both time and space for a variety of contemplative practices into the regular weekly schedule and into the campus. These include meditation, council circles, quiet time communing with nature, and the 7th grade rocking chair circle pictured above.
www.oakgroveschool.org

Skorpeskolen Private School in Helsingor, Denmark offers Personal Time to students in the early grades and Talent Time to students in the upper grades.  These weekly periods provide opportunities to follow a curiosity, to pursue a personal passion, and to develop the capacity for sustained, deep focus on a self-directed project for an extended amount of time.  Open in Google Chrome for a translation of the website.
www.skorpeskolen.dk

The Green School in Bali, Indonesia identifies sustainability as one its primary values.  They believe that the practice of sustainability starts at the individual level.   For that reason, teachers are free to set aside all academic demands whenever an individual child needs extra social-emotional support.
www.greenschool.org/about/

You can access the full report from Harvard here.
Harvard’s class of 2023 acceptance rate reported in The Crimson.

You can view Christina Sbarra’s original post here.

The Whole Movement of Life Is Learning

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From the Head of School

 

Oak Grove School was established by our founder, J. Krishnamurti, in 1975. He communicated his intention through dialogues, talks, and written works, most explicitly in Letters to the Schools, which he wrote from 1978 to 1981. Although Krishnamurti shared a great deal on the topic of education, he intentionally did not leave a blueprint, nor did he give any individual or school the authority to interpret his teachings for others.

The purpose of Oak Grove School, as inspired by the teachings of Krishnamurti, is to provide functional knowledge while simultaneously honoring each student’s innate intelligence with the goal of realizing human potential, not only for the individual’s sake, but for the sake of humanity.

Providing an excellent academic program is vital. One must learn to communicate well and be able to deeply explore maths, recognize great works of poetry and art, have a solid concept of world religions, geography, and science, develop skills in organization, use tools (physical and technological), be comfortable with public speaking, create and read music, and explore a somatic understanding of one’s body through sports, yoga, breathing, and dance. One must be able to develop proficiency in exploring the natural world and travel in cultures different from one’s own.

What, however, is required for the honoring of one’s innate intelligence? This aspect of our purpose is a bit more difficult to implement, as the teachings suggest there is no way or method. We approach this, therefore, with openness and inquiry, opportunities for self-reflection, silence, pure observation, physical and psychological space, stretching our comfort zone, exploring our relationship to nature, ourselves, others and the world. All this could be seen as within the realm of self-understanding as a way to awaken the individual child’s perfect intelligence.

Having a school without an explicit blueprint is an awesome challenge, which asks us to actively question and look at how we provide the opportunity to learn functional knowledge while at the same time exploring the intelligence within ourselves. It is a never-ending process of observation and inquiry.

“Education in our schools is not only the acquisition of knowledge but what is far more important – the awakening of intelligence which will then utilize knowledge. It is never the other way round. The awakening of intelligence is our concern in all these schools and the inevitable question then arises: how is this intelligence to be awakened? What is the system, what is the method, what is the practice? This very question implies that one is still functioning in the field of knowledge. The realization that it is a wrong question is the beginning of the awakening of intelligence. The practice, the method, the system in our daily life make for a matter of routine, a repetitive action and so a mechanical mind. The continuous movement of knowledge, however specialized, puts the mind into a groove, into a narrow way of life. To learn to observe and understand this whole structure of knowledge is to begin to awaken intelligence.”

Letters to the Schools, November 1, 1978

The Purpose of Outdoor Education

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From the Head of School

 

On Friday our Junior High and High School students returned from the annual Secondary School camping trip to El Capitán State Beach. Over several days, they surfed and kayaked in the ocean, participated in fireside talent shows, storytelling, and sing-alongs. As I shared here last year when our Seniors returned from India, Oak Grove trips offer our students opportunities to grow and learn in ways not possible in a classroom.

Beginning in Kindergarten, immersive trips enhance learning through direct hands-on experiences that are central to the Oak Grove experience. Kindergarten students practice spending the night at “school,” but still as a family and on the school campus, somewhere familiar and safe. Then in early Elementary, the camp-out moves away to Carpinteria, first with parents, then the following year, without parents. The students practice being with teachers and peers away from home, but geographically close. In Upper Elementary, the focus is on going to places further away with more physically challenging activities: group bike rides, longer hikes, and bouldering. Then they are off to our local forest carrying their own packs, swimming in water holes, and out of cell phone range. In Junior High, students travel by plane to other states to sleep in teepees, to river raft, and study glacier science. By High School, the students are ready to take 6-10 day treks through the forest and Southwest without contacting parents.

Each trip offers new opportunities for the student to engage with nature, learn to pack only the essentials to keep the pack light, respect the natural environment, stay on the trail, pack in and pack out what they bring, stretch beyond their comfort zone and practice survival skills. The trips are increasingly challenging physically and require a deepening psychological preparedness.

These trips, however, are not just for our students. These trips are also for parents.

From the moment of birth our children begin growing away from us. Each moment brings new opportunities for children to gain confidence in their ability to be separate, for parents to trust that the child is capable of separating, and for both to trust that this separation is natural and safe. These trips allow the child and parent an ever-increasing practice in separating.

There are things that cannot be learned conceptually—digging a hole in the wilderness to go to the bathroom, overcoming a fear of water or heights, pushing ourselves physically beyond what our mind believes is possible (just one more step), and, perhaps the most difficult of them all, letting a child grow away from us.

 

KFA May Gathering Student Perspective

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From the Head of School

All of the Krishnamurti schools are located on large campuses of great natural beauty, with austere but comfortable classrooms. This is partly because the schools share an emphasis on relationship with and care for the natural world.

Yesterday at the May Gathering, a panel of students presented their experiences attending Oak Grove School, as it relates to its emphasis on a relationship with nature. The students ranged in age from elementary through high school, and included a former student. The panelists were thoughtful and articulate. They spoke eloquently about the importance of keeping Oak Grove’s campus natural and open with just a few rustic buildings. They shared their school experiences exploring the local meadows, ocean, rivers and forest. They spoke about traveling to the Grand Tetons, Zion Park, and India. Their stories were vivid and one could feel the sincerity in their words.

Most profoundly, perhaps, was each student’s ability to articulate our collective responsibility to care for the natural world from which we, as humans, are not separate.

“The death of a tree is beautiful in its ending, unlike man’s. A dead tree in the desert, stripped of its bark, polished by the sun and the wind, all its naked branches open to the heavens, is a wondrous sight. A great redwood, many, many hundreds of years old, is cut down in a few minutes to make fences, seats, and build houses or enrich the soil in the garden. The marvellous giant is gone. Man is pushing deeper and deeper into the forests, destroying them for pasture and houses. The wilds are disappearing. There is a valley, whose surrounding hills are perhaps the oldest on earth, where cheetahs, bears and the deer one once saw have entirely disappeared, for man is everywhere. The beauty of the earth is slowly being destroyed and polluted. Cars and tall buildings are appearing in the most unexpected places. When you lose your relationship with nature and the vast heavens, you lose your relationship with man.”

J. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Bulletin 56, 1989

 

2018 Senior Graduating Speeches

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In many cultures, graduation from High School is seen as the most significant threshold moment marking the transition from childhood to adulthood. On June 6, 2018, we were given the opportunity to bear witness to this significant symbolic event for 10 young adults who completed their Oak Grove education. Please enjoy hearing directly from each graduate in the videos below.

Our class of 2018 consisted of ten students. The nine who applied to four-year colleges and universities have collectively been accepted into 37 schools. This is an average of four acceptances per student and this average is not unusual for Oak Grove seniors. The schools (listed below) include major public universities and colleges, independent and public liberal arts colleges, and specialized art schools. While this is impressive, and we joyfully celebrate this accomplishment with our students, it is also important to know that it is not our objective to have all of our graduates go directly from high school to a four-year college.

Class of 2018 college acceptances: Bennington College, Butler University, California College of the Arts, Cal Lutheran, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Long Beach, Chico State University, Case Western Reserve, Colorado College, Colorado Springs College, DePauw University, Goucher College, Humboldt State, Lewis and Clark, LIM College, Northeastern University, Otis College of Art and Design, Pacific University, Portland State, Pratt Institute, San Diego State University, San Francisco State University, Sierra Nevada College, Sonoma State University, Towson University, University of British Columbia, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, University of Kansas, University of Oklahoma, University of Puget Sound, University of Utah, Willamette University.

Introduction by Jodi Grass, Head of School

Music performance by the 2018 graduating class

Nathan Wu

Ophena De La Rosa

Bryce Brewer

Sydney Stump

Jackson Mitchell

Isabella Xiong

Sycamore Mitchell

McKenna Lynch

Peter Hu

Grace Story

Jennifer Thompson, Senior Advisor

Conferment of Diplomas