Coyote Village
a micro school
for middle passage students, ages 12 to 15
explore / connect / grow
A note from Ashley Kamp and Stephen Otis, Founders and Guides:
“Coyote Village has been in the vision stage for decades. After 30 years of work with students in traditional and non traditional education models, we are convinced that what our young people need most in this pericope of education (middle school) is wild, engaging space that encourages creativity, curiosity, care and collaboration to take root. We like to think of these as a nutrient rich soil of learning.
At Coyote Village we cultivate this soil with intentional curriculum, field studies on our “GoBus,” physical and mental challenges and intentional play designed to bring young learners into intimate connection with themselves, each other, culture, curricular concepts and the natural landscape.
Learning is a natural part of growth—a spark that stimulates our minds and bodies. Many traditional education models have over time settled into a hyper focus on cognition and forgotten how important the body is for learning. In this mindset, young people tend to miss the “sense” that learning is fun and a natural part of who they are as humans. This is a large reason why many young people today settle for cultural distractions that fill their time instead of engage their core identities and explore the world around them. In this environment, young learners are often left “distracted” by school instead of engaged by it. This framework often develops a cognitive dissonance to a system that dampens exploration of their core identity and undermines natural curiosities and wonder.
Coyote Village is a place of wonder. Wonder is the key ingredient to learning and is innate in every person. When cultivated, young people blossom into the persons they are designed to be. According to Socrates, wonder is the guide along the path to wisdom. Our most sacred goal for our learners is that they grow to become wise adults. During this stage of life, a foundation of curiosity and wonder is vital for this growth. How exactly do we build this foundation and cultivate growth?
Keep exploring to find out!”
Our Basic Approach to Education and Curriculum
We learn in a community of mixed ages. This builds mentorship. Older students can help the younger ones (instilling care and expectation of applied learning). This also gives each student space to explore and hone (listen to) their innate curiosity. Since we have a small number of students in our class, we tailor our overall curriculum standards to the interests of each student. This gives them ownership and choice in their learning journey and cultivates the vital life long skills of initiative, effort and responsibility.
In Coyote Village, we refer to our teachers as guides. As guides, we come alongside our students and encourage them along their learning journey. We allow our students to struggle productively (very important for the developing adolescent brain) and are there to encourage them when they get stuck. We train our guides constantly in this model. Our guides are above all specialists in the soft skills of learning and in guiding learners. What we look for most in our guides are the same qualities we want our students to develop: curiosity, patience, problem solving, kindness and wisdom. We all have those teachers on our own paths who are barkers of behavior and seem to have grown tired and overcome by the stresses of the world. Our guides do not fall into this category. We start each day with a half hour of connection and quiet meditation. And we make sure that our environment is not in a hurry. The Dao says Nature is not in a hurry, yet everything is accomplished. We follow this ancient wisdom. True education is not about quantity, rather quality. Not how much we can learn, but the art of how to be a lifelong learner.
Hey there! I’d love to tell you about adventure learning and field research on our “Go Bus.”
What is in Our Core Curriculum?
Our curriculum draws heavily on Waldorf Philosophy. Below you will find our basic layout of what we study in each age group:
Establishing Sacred Connection
(Re)Connecting with Self
At Sacred Wild, we believe the true light of the Self is perpetually whole, beautiful and connected with Spirit. A lot of trauma has occurred from rigid teachings that we are born lost, dark and disconnected. Unlearning this mindset and walking in connection with our divine light is one of the great journeys we take, in both mind and body.
We do this reclamation through practices which deepen this connection not just cognitively, but through embodiment practices—such as nature immersions, vision quests, rites of passage training, dream work and soul care intensives.
(Re)Connecting with Nature
No matter where our culture is at present in terms of eldership and rites of passage training, one thing we do know is that Nature always provides us with wise elders. Trees, Fires, flowing Water, Animals, Flowers and many other Beings move throughout our landscape—intertwined with us and ready to offer peace, challenge, inspiration, support and guidance.
Connecting with Mama Nature is to listen, learn and speak with Her, and not just about Her. We believe this to be a crucial distinction.
We offer intensive nature immersions where we scientifically learn about the natural world—birds, trees, fungi, ecological landscape, mammals, reptiles, creepy crawlies, etc. We do this in an environment that includes sacredness and play—with singing, fires, drums, song-prayers and gathering.
(Re)Connecting with Life
As we move deeper into the acceptance of self design and our place in nature, an organic web of life begins to form. This builds our natural instincts (already connected to the land) and reveals a new worldview. We slowly begin to consume differently, rest more rhythmically, interact with others in new harmony and move through the world with greater confidence and wonder.
In short, we become more and more HUMAN. It can be discombobulating within the mindset of a disconnected culture, but it is wildly life giving, adventurous and full of love. We offer support as transformation happens, because we are not alone. All of life is interconnected and sacred.
(Re)Connecting with Work
We are also interested in moving into the field of consultation for businesses and various institutions in order to encourage deeper human-emotion-centric connections in the workplace. We desire to work with those in the business sectors who feel drawn to a shift away from the common baseline motivations of profit and productivity and feel called to a more harmonious flow of goods and desire more life-giving creativity and healthy relationship with your community of people. Our consultation will focus on deep creativity, human centered design and workplace relational health. From this perspective, profit is replaced with abudance and productivity with fruitfulness.
"If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys."
-Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation
"We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the universe will always come back."
-Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
"To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together."
-Barry Lopez
"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order."
-Henry Miller
I'm not going to recommend recklessness but somewhere just short of it - testing yourself and proactively pursuing a rite of passage has become necessary because in western developed countries we've become very comfort-addicted.
-Sean Penn
About Us…
Stephen Otis
Stephen “Sitting Skunk” Otis has been teaching for over 25 years. He enjoys working with contemplative practices from various traditions. As well as nature immersion therapies (forest bathing, sit spots, vision questing and naturalist training).
He is passionate about the art of storytelling and has been guiding experiences for over a decade.
He is certified in AAIT (Acceptance and Integration Training) and pursues healing journeys that re-construct a deep sense of self, the divine and natural connection.
Interests: I love to hike, write, build things, tell stories, play with my kids and imagine. I love sitting next to streams in the Smoky Mountains with my partner, Sara. And sitting around fires with friends—especially if there is a drum circle going on! I cherish being in the midst of laughter. Professionally, I am one of the guides at Knox Forest School and a middle school teacher at Clayton Bradley Academy.
Ashley Addair
Ash Sunbird Dawn Addair is an artist working in kinship with a variety of media including paint, textile, costume, installation, experimental living, performance, curated gatherings, and language. Recited in alternating tones of delight and exasperation, her work wrestles with macro questions at an individual and familial scale. She attends to ordinary gestures, the narratives we map onto existence, and the immaterial spirit of the matter we inhabit. She received her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Bryan Terril
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