Sacred Acorns

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There are times that I stumble upon an activity at the Hudson Valley Sudbury School that make my jaw drop in awe of the brilliance of children: their creativity, their simplicity, and their ingenuity. Coming upon The Sacred Acorn Civilization was one of those moments. I stood at the edge of our natural play-scape wide-eyed as I surveyed several young barefoot boys busily collecting acorns, carefully balancing bark, and finding perfect natural tools to build a civilization. Set amongst several stumps on a gradual hill, were intricate acorn and stick sculptures – balconies, huts, stone paths, and walls, all perfectly set in miniature style. It was beautiful. And it was clear these boys had been there for hours, not only by the exacting work they had done, but also by the dirt between their toes, the seats of their pants, and the expressions of their faces – calm and focused. The language they were using sounded to be a different dialect, familiar yet foreign.

Finally I was able to catch my breath. “What are you doing?” I asked. The response comes matter-of-factly: “We are currently mucking acorns. That’s taking the inside out. And then we put them in the Muck Store. You can smash them with rocks or hard sticks to get the goop out. We call it “mucking.” We try to smash them between two rocks so it doesn’t destroy the stumps. The lighter the goop the better it is. We use the muck as a building material, to keep things together.” With that they went back to work, gathering, crushing and balancing, young primitive workers using natural materials to create a culture.

 am not sure why I was surprised to come across this bustling civilization as it seems to be something each generation of children create at here at school. The first HVSS civilization popped up in 2005 and took over the majority of the playing field. Several kids had their own “worlds” built from rocks, dirt, sticks, moss, flowers, and acorns. In the center of the field there was a circular general store where items were available for trade or purchase. Hours were dedicated to perfecting homes and working out the delicate balance of trading.

The following year the back hill was home to a new miniature world. Two boys around the age of 10 began this new rendition and the general ideas were the same. They were quite literally the kings of the hill, decreeing trading values and where homes could be built. But after discovering a large shiny rock at the edge of the woods a 6 year old was able to “buy” the entire hillside from them and the power was re-distributed. The kids involved in these first two renditions have either graduated or are on the verge of doing so and the details of these games are but distant memories.

In 2008 a new set of children went back to their roots and collected acorns, mashed them up and made hand cream out of them. They sold the cream to others in the school. They also made cities, houses, and bowls from the acorn shells and little cities out of acorns and sticks. One participant looked back, “we had little jobs, you could crack the nuts with a flat rock or chop them if you could find a sharp stick. We would also use a round rock and stick like a mortar and pestle, adding a little bit of water and mushed up flowers.”

After a significant rainfall in 2011, the back gravel path was turned into a study of irrigation. A young girl made intricate paths in the stone, routing and rerouting the water. She created these streams, damns, and collection pools while barefoot, grounded by the earth, just like our ancestors.

Here we are in 2015, an age of technology and consumerism, and a new round of children have their toes in the dirt, discovering for themselves how we as a society began, by making tools, building with what is naturally available, creating commerce out of acorns, and teaching their elders to reconnect with the beauty of the world around us.

Why is this universal? Why do we, as a society, without being trained, without being taught, always come back to the most basic constructs of life? It becomes clear how innate it is to collaborate in the art of foraging, designing, and building. Their ingenuity when it comes to the creation of tools is both resourceful and creative. And there they sit, in a sustained and focused activity, perfecting the balance of bark and rock to create a balcony. They may have iPods sticking out of the back pocket of their Gap jeans, but these kids are connected to their roots, not indirectly, by lecture or assignment, but directly, by sensory experience and imagination, because they have the time and space to connect to the natural world and let the simplicity of life shine through.

To What Will They Return?

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The best thing about working “in education” is, undoubtedly, the summer. Oh wait, I mean the kids – the best thing is the kids. Wellllll, no – sorry! – it’s the summer, as much as I do love the kids (at least when I’m not responsible for the choices they make, the lessons they learn, the things they say, and the thoughts they think!) For me, having this uninterrupted time to immerse myself in interests and friends old and new, deepen my connection to my home, neighborhood, and region, travel, keep hours regular or irregular, and be with family, is a treasure I guard most jealously; it is a great, fatty, nourishing privilege. For me, just as it is for many children, summer is the Land of Space and Time Enough, which really is the only land fit for human habitation. Each year, I have the space and time to connect with what’s really happening in my inner life; I can let the changes which constantly brew there wash over me. I can, like the flora, exult in a state of robust health and growth. Having significant time in which to direct my own activity makes me feel very, very rich indeed, and in possession of myself, or, to put it slightly differently, free.

Everyone deserves the degree of balance which working in education can afford, but unfortunately few careers offer it (even though there is ample evidence to suggest the world is rich enough to offer it to everyone). However, those in the partner-career to education – namely, children – may also easily integrate this gift into their lives. It is hard to ignore the deluge of data, and the subsequent media coverage, showing the extensive benefits for kids of having mostly “free” summers unfettered by adult-initiated and regulated activity: kids deepen friendships and develop emotional intelligence, work creatively with their imagination, broaden and deepen their knowledge base, learn new skills, stay physically fit, and bolster their executive functions. They are afforded the opportunity to grow at their own pace and focus intuitively on the tasks they ought to. Free from harassment, they are able to absorb and integrate the changes in their internal lives. And, oh yeah, they seem to enjoy it. A lot.

They are afforded the opportunity to grow at their own pace and focus intuitively on the tasks they ought to. Free from harassment, they are able to absorb and integrate the changes in their internal lives.

The heavy-scheduling and “helicopter-parenting” of Americans has provoked this counter-trend of “throw-back” summers. And surely it’s a good thing, but – to what do kids return when summer is over? An outdated model of education firmly based on instruction and authority which does not recognize their sovereignty and intelligence? For most of them, well, yes.

Of course, our students do not return to any such thing. Here, we can think of summer as a time to “go out in the field,” a time for independent study, if you will, and the school year is a time to “come back in,” a time to be immersed in equitable community and collective activity. We secure for our students the continued responsibility and freedom of a “free” summer. The rule remains basically the same: each kid directs their own activity, unmolested by any adult’s agenda. The difference is that here everyone has to be cognizant of directing their activity within a community of 80 or so other free people, and doing that well requires a lot of reflection and care. The resources are also different. In returning here from the summer, our students exchange mobility for those 80 people, along with all the riches of their minds and spirits. Many of our students exchange the impressionism of following whims for the realism of collaborative projects. And they exchange their status as a subject in a home for status as a legislator, judge, and executive in a democratic community (during the school day). One resource which remains constant for our students from summer to school year is constant access to the outdoors; that, also, is not withdrawn here. Personally, that fact alone might be enough to convince me to enroll my children at a school.

So, I’m really grateful that the “free” summer trend is growing, and I appreciate it as an integral part of a “Sudbury” childhood. It is my hope that families will continue to embrace it, and also ask themselves more and more earnestly, “but to what will they return when the summer is over? What would a school which builds on this look like?” Enjoy the rest of your summer. Store up that D. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone real soon.