There are so many wonderful schools in Ojai. We are grateful to be one of them and to be acknowledged by the Ojai community we love so deeply. 

We are deeply touched to be recognized as “Best Private School in Ojai” for the tenth year in a row in the 2025 edition of Ojai Valley News’ Annual Ojai Readers’ Poll. Given our educational philosophy, which values learning without comparison or competition, the recognition feels both an honor and a gentle irony.

Through our educational practices, Oak Grove emphasizes the absence of competitiveness, comparison, punishments, rewards, and incentives. The purpose of our emphasis on non-competitiveness is a focus on creating an environment where students can look at their own motivation for what they do.

Self-reflection becomes most vivid when we can remove external motivators. This does not mean we are entirely free from competition – subtle forms often appear through words, gestures, or tones of praise and disappointment. We also engage, at times, in more traditional expressions of competition such as middle and high school athletics, auditions, and Student Council elections. We hold these experiences as opportunities to notice contrast – to reflect on what it feels like to win and not to win, and to observe the movement of comparison within ourselves.

There are many ways to see how competition and comparison shape our identities and distract us from deeper self-understanding. The question we might hold together is: Is it possible to live without competition or comparison of any kind? And when we do celebrate a “win,” can we do so without creating a “loss” in its shadow?