The school year is off to an amazing start, thanks in no small part to a new addition to our farm: the six little goats who have bleated and butted their fuzzy way into our hearts. Asked in the first week of school to share their highlights, many students cited time spent with the goats.
On a less capri-centric note, it’s really our Core Values, not our goats, that form the foundation of our community. At Oliverian, those core values are linked in pairs that at first glance seem to be in opposition to one another, but in fact are mutually enriching.
It all begins with acceptance. Every student needs to feel accepted as they are in order to show up authentically and confidently. It’s only then that they can embrace change. Within our caring community, we hold space for change and challenge each other to become the best versions of ourselves.
Individuality and community are the second pairing. We honor each unique person and the perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences they bring. At the same time, community asks us to balance our own needs with those of the group and explore how we can contribute to something larger than ourselves. It is so often within a community they love that students become animated by a sense of purpose.
Our third pairing is joy and discomfort. Regular moments of joy make school fun again, priming our brains for connection and learning and giving students the courage to take intellectual and social risks. At the same time, nothing worthwhile happens in life without discomfort. When we conquer our aversion to doing hard things, we unlock our creativity, intellectual capacity, emotional fortitude, and moral courage.
Which, frankly, brings us back to the goats, whose joyful exuberance is matched only by their gastronomic industriousness when met with a patch of thorny invasive species. Perhaps the foundation of our school’s culture does have something to do with the furry four-leggers we share our campus with…
