How to Start a Farm or Forest Learning Program

The real first steps for building an outdoor, place-based program — from land to rhythm to families.

From the Notebook: Field Notes

So you want to start a farm school.

Or a forest program.

Or a little learning community where kids spend their days outside, build things, grow things, wander around creeks, know where their food comes from and come home muddy.

Excellent.

Before you find the property, build the website, order the adorable enamel mugs or start Googling liability insurance, I want you to do something considerably less exciting.

Sit down.

And figure out what you believe.

Because if you ask me how to build a farm or forest learning program, my answer begins with values.

The middle is values.

And if the program ever ends?

Its because you did not hold to your values. (these ones!)

Start with the dream before you start with the program

This is one of the few places where I will encourage you to be wildly idealistic.

Don't begin with:

What can I realistically offer?

Not yet.

Begin with:

If this worked exactly the way I believe children deserve for it to work, what would it look like?

Go big.

What would children experience there?

How would they spend their days?

How would adults speak to them?

How much freedom would they have?

What responsibilities would they carry?

What would they build?

What would they grow?

Would they cook?

Would they use real tools?

Would they care for animals?

Would they have long stretches of uninterrupted time?

Would academics be taught separately or emerge through projects?

Would children of different ages work together?

What would conflict look like?

What would happen when somebody failed?

What would happen when somebody got hurt?

How would families participate?

What would a child feel when they arrived in the morning?

What would you hope had changed in them after three years?

And maybe most importantly:

What kind of human beings are you hoping this place helps send into the world?

Don't edit yourself for feasibility yet.

This is the dream stage.

Dream the place you wish existed.

You can figure out what fits in the budget later.

Now find the values underneath the dream

Your dream tells you what you want.

Your values tell you why.

That's where the program actually begins.

Maybe you believe children deserve meaningful work.

Maybe you believe childhood requires substantial time outdoors.

Maybe you believe children should be known deeply by the adults educating them.

Maybe you believe risk is an important part of development.

Maybe you believe learning should happen in community.

Maybe you believe children are capable of substantially more responsibility than we usually give them.

Maybe you believe food, land, ecology and human life shouldn't be taught as separate subjects.

Maybe you believe academic learning becomes more powerful when children have a reason to use it.

Maybe you believe belonging comes before performance.

Maybe you believe children should leave school knowing how to contribute to something beyond themselves.

Good.

Write those things down.

Then make them specific enough that they can actually help you make decisions.

Because "We value nature" sounds lovely.

But it doesn't tell you what to do when it's 38 degrees and raining.

"We believe children benefit from sustained, direct relationship with the natural world in all seasons" might.

Now your value has consequences.

That's what you need.

Values that don't cost you anything aren't finished yet

This is where it gets real.

Eventually, one of your values will become inconvenient.

That's when you find out whether it's actually a value or just branding.

You say you believe in small groups and deep relationships.

Wonderful.

What happens when nine families want in and your ideal group size is six?

You say you believe children deserve long, uninterrupted project time.

Great.

What happens when a parent asks whether you can add three more academic rotations because they're nervous about test scores?

You say you believe in mixed-age learning.

What happens when somebody wants you to separate the younger children because their ten-year-old is "advanced"?

You say children need reasonable risk.

What happens after the first scraped knee?

You say your community is relationship-centered.

What happens when someone is difficult to be in relationship with?

This is the middle part.

Accountability to the values.

Values aren't just what you use to design the program.

They're what you use to protect it.

Build for your dream community, not for the masses

Please do not try to make your program appealing to everybody.

Everybody is a terrible target audience.

Instead ask:

Who would absolutely love this?

What kinds of families?

What kinds of kids?

What kinds of adults?

What would they already believe about childhood?

What would they need from you?

What would they not need from you?

Build something so clear and so rooted that the right people recognize themselves in it.

You want someone to read your website and think:

Oh my gosh. These are my people.

You also want somebody else to read it and think:

Absolutely not.

Both reactions are useful.

Clarity attracts.

Clarity also filters.

And filtering is one of the kindest things you can do for a learning community.

Two right kids are better than eight wrong ones

I mean this.

When you're starting something new, an empty seat can become emotionally enormous.

An empty seat looks like lost tuition.

It looks like failure.

It looks like proof that maybe nobody wants what you're building.

And then a family comes along.

They're willing to pay.

They want the spot.

They're nice people.

But something isn't quite aligned.

You can feel it.

Maybe their expectations for academics are fundamentally different from yours.

Maybe they aren't comfortable with the level of independence children will have.

Maybe they want constant individual reporting you don't intend to provide.

Maybe they fundamentally don't believe in the way you handle conflict, risk, discipline or assessment.

And because you have six empty seats, you tell yourself:

We can make it work.

Be careful.

One deeply mismatched family can consume more energy than five beautifully aligned ones.

You don't need families who agree with you about everything.

That would be weird.

You need families who understand the essential commitments of the program and genuinely want those things for their children.

If that means you begin with two kids?

Begin with two kids.

Two children and adults who deeply believe in what they're building together can create an extraordinary learning community.

You are building roots.

Not filling chairs.

Then look at the land

Now we can talk about the farm.

Or forest.

Or backyard.

Or borrowed acreage.

Or church property.

Or community garden.

Or weird little patch of woods behind somebody's workshop.

You do not necessarily need 150 acres.

You need land that can participate in the learning.

Walk it.

Don't immediately ask:

Where will the classroom go?

Ask:

What does this place already offer?

Where does water move?

What's growing?

What lives here?

Where does the sun hit in winter?

Where does it disappear in summer?

Where are the hazards?

Where can children climb?

Dig?

Build?

Hide?

Gather?

Work?

Rest?

What needs tending?

What problems already exist?

Is there erosion?

A broken fence?

An invasive species?

A neglected garden?

A creek that could be monitored?

Animals that need care?

Trails that need maintaining?

Food that could be grown?

A structure that needs building?

The place itself should generate curriculum.

Otherwise you're just doing conventional school outside.

Learn the land before you improve it

There can be a tremendous urge to prepare everything before the kids arrive.

Resist some of that.

Obviously, make the site safe enough to use.

Know your boundaries.

Know your emergency access.

Identify genuine hazards.

Figure out water, shelter, bathrooms and the basic human realities.

But don't finish everything.

Leave problems.

Leave possibilities.

Leave places where the learning community can say:

What should we do about this?

Maybe the kids design the garden.

Maybe they build the outdoor kitchen.

Maybe they map the property.

Maybe they create the trail system.

Maybe they figure out where tools should live.

Maybe they develop the compost system.

Maybe they solve the muddy entrance.

Maybe they help determine where everyone gathers in the morning.

If you're building a place-based learning program, let the learners help make the place.

Then it becomes theirs.

Build a rhythm before you build a giant curriculum

You probably do not need a 180-day curriculum map.

You need a dependable rhythm.

How do people arrive?

How do you gather?

When does focused project work happen?

When do people eat?

When do children have freedom to explore?

When do skills get explicitly taught?

When do you clean up?

When do you reflect?

How does the day end?

Children can handle enormous variation inside a structure they trust.

Maybe your rhythm is:

Gather.

Plan.

Work.

Eat.

Explore.

Practice.

Reflect.

Go home.

The content changes.

The season changes.

The project changes.

The weather changes.

The rhythm holds everybody.

That's incredibly valuable in outdoor education because the environment itself is constantly changing.

You don't need to control all of that.

You need enough structure to hold it.

Build around the seasons, not despite them

If you're claiming to be place-based, the place gets a vote.

So does February.

Your fall program should not necessarily look like your spring program.

What is the land doing?

What needs doing?

What can only happen right now?

When are things planted?

Harvested?

Born?

Migrating?

Dormant?

Flooding?

Flowering?

Freezing?

What work belongs to this season?

What questions become visible because it's November instead of May?

The calendar can become part of your curriculum.

Let it.

A live program should breathe with the place it inhabits.

Think about risk before somebody gets hurt

Outdoor programs need real conversations about risk.

Not elimination of risk.

Management of risk.

Those are different.

What tools can children use?

At what ages?

With what training?

What happens around water?

Fire?

Animals?

Trees?

Weather?

Roads?

Machinery?

What requires direct supervision?

What can children eventually manage independently?

What happens during severe weather?

Where is the first aid kit?

Who is trained?

How do you communicate with families during an emergency?

What are your actual legal and insurance requirements?

This is the less romantic part of starting the dream.

Do it anyway.

Good systems don't kill freedom.

Good systems create enough safety for freedom to exist.

Tell families exactly what they're joining

Do not make families reverse-engineer your philosophy after enrollment.

Tell them.

Tell them children will get dirty.

Tell them you're going outside when it's cold.

Tell them how you approach risk.

Tell them what "project-based" actually means.

Tell them how academics appear.

Tell them what you expect from parents.

Tell them how you handle conflict.

Tell them what communication they can expect from you.

Tell them what you won't provide.

Tell them how much independence children will have.

Tell them what happens if a child is miserable.

Tell them how you define success.

Tell them the values.

Then tell them again.

And again.

You are not marketing a product to customers.

You are inviting people into a community that requires shared commitments.

They deserve enough information to decide whether they genuinely want to be there.

Hire adults for alignment before impressive résumés

Skills matter.

Experience matters.

Background checks matter.

Training matters.

Competence absolutely matters.

But in a small learning community, values alignment matters enormously.

You can teach someone your documentation system.

It is considerably harder to teach an adult who fundamentally believes children should obey immediately that your program values negotiation, agency and relationship.

You can teach someone how you store tools.

It is harder to teach genuine comfort with children taking reasonable risks.

You can provide professional development around Project Based Learning.

It is harder to manufacture curiosity about children.

Look for adults who like kids.

Not theoretically.

Actually.

People who are interested in what children say.

People who can tolerate mess.

People who don't need to be the smartest person in the space.

People who can say:

I don't know. How could we find out?

People who notice.

People who can hold a boundary without humiliating somebody.

People willing to work.

People who understand that outdoor learning is still education even when nobody is holding a pencil.

Then train the heck out of them.

Don't overbuild before you've lived it

This is where my operations brain has to restrain itself a little.

You will need systems.

Enrollment.

Payments.

Emergency contacts.

Attendance.

Family communication.

Documentation.

Staff responsibilities.

Incident procedures.

Supply management.

Calendars.

Budgets.

Policies.

All of it.

But be careful about designing an enormous machine for a program that hasn't lived a Tuesday yet.

Start with enough structure to operate responsibly.

Then pay attention.

What keeps happening?

Where are people confused?

What are you repeatedly explaining?

What falls through the cracks?

Where are you wasting time?

What creates friction for families?

What creates friction for guides?

Build systems around reality instead of forcing reality into systems you imagined six months earlier.

This is one reason small pilots are so useful.

They teach you what the program actually is.

Plan for evolution from the beginning

Your first version should not be your final version.

Please don't make it carry that pressure.

Call it a pilot.

A founding year.

A learning season.

A first cohort.

Whatever language fits.

Then build reflection into the program from day one.

What worked?

What didn't?

What surprised us?

What did the children need more of?

What did families misunderstand?

What exhausted the staff?

What felt alive?

What felt performative?

What did we say we valued but fail to actually practice?

What became possible that we hadn't anticipated?

Then change things.

A living educational program should evolve.

Children change.

Communities change.

Land changes.

Research changes.

Resources change.

You learn.

Evolution isn't evidence that the original idea failed.

It may be evidence that you're actually paying attention.

Start with values. Middle with values. End with values.

This is the part I care about most.

Start with values because they tell you what to build.

Stay accountable to them because they tell you how to operate.

Reflect on them because they tell you whether what you're actually doing still resembles what you said mattered.

And yes:

End with values.

Programs don't have to exist forever.

Maybe the community changes.

Maybe the need changes.

Maybe the founders change.

Maybe the values themselves evolve.

Maybe the people responsible for the program are no longer willing or able to uphold them.

Maybe what once served children beautifully no longer does.

If the only way to keep the program alive is to abandon the thing that made it worth building?

You are allowed to stop.

Or change.

Or become something else.

The institution is not sacred.

The values are the compass.

You do not need permission to begin

This is where I want to leave you.

If you have been carrying around an idea for a tiny forest program, farm learning community, neighborhood project school, outdoor homeschool collaborative or some other educational thing that doesn't quite have a name yet:

Dream it.

Really dream it.

Don't immediately make it smaller because you're worried nobody will come.

Don't build it for everybody.

Build it for the children you can already picture there.

Build it for the families you'd be delighted to see pulling into the driveway.

Build the day you wish children could have.

Write down what you believe.

Figure out which of those beliefs you're willing to protect when protecting them becomes inconvenient.

Find a place.

Find one other adult if you need one.

Find two kids.

Try a Tuesday.

Then another one.

Pay attention.

Reflect.

Change what needs changing.

Protect what doesn't.

You don't need a consultant to have the dream.

You don't need a giant strategic plan to discover whether something beautiful could happen.

You don't need twelve students before two students can have an extraordinary experience.

You need clarity.

Commitment.

A place.

People.

Enough responsible systems to hold them safely.

And the willingness to let what you're building become alive.

Then, when your beautiful little dream suddenly needs enrollment systems, budgets, staffing structures, handbooks, policies, project architecture, operating rhythms and somebody to figure out how all those moving parts become an actual school...

Okay.

Then you can call someone like me.

I love that part.

But the dream?

That part is yours.

Start there.

And start with the values.

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FROM THE NOTEBOOK | FIELD NOTES Observations, questions and practical ideas from Regenerate Education Lab about how children learn, grow, work and belong.