EDUCATION

...all knowledge is in vain unless it is coupled with work, and all work is in vain unless it is coupled with love...

(Chálil Džibrán - The Prophet)

How we work with children

Life in this place, with the extraordinary children of today, places new demands on us and determines a new direction.
Our work with children draws on: Waldorf pedagogy; the seven liberal arts; new insights into the heart, brain, and our other energy sites; traditional proven methods of inner work and above all from our daily life with nature and the children themselves.
We work with them both on discovering and understanding the world around us, and on directly knowing and grasping ourselves – our body, our emotions, our way of thinking and our gifts.
As an inner compass, we teach them to use their own intuition again, which we develop through various exercises and then verify it in different areas every day. 
Everyday meaningful work and activities connected with life at Dvůr Sofie help us with all of this. These are, in addition to stories, also an important aspect for the cultivation and development of virtues, which then have a significant influence on perception and cognition, but also on the quality of further development and human life.
We perceive the expansion of one's consciousness, the building of a rich emotional and moral base, together with the ability to actively act, as a prerequisite for a healthy, free, courageous and wise person.

Island of Childhood

We made a silent but serious promise to the children that we will shape and protect the island of childhood in this place. A place where a child can stay a child for as long as they need. Where his powers are not prematurely drained or destroyed.This value, a long and happy childhood, can then be the basis for children to be able to realize their abilities and, above all, to not stop using them. Children normally have them, but with the great pressure they are often exposed to today, they usually push them into the background or forget about them completely. This possibility * to be a child as long as possible * is thus the basis for their long-term physical and mental health.

Pedagogy of active life

(německy Handlungspadagogik)

It can be described as education in a real environment, in real relationships and activities, where children collaborate daily with adults on meaningful activities needed for ordinary life, where play turns into work, where the child can deepen his relationship with Nature and the Cosmos, and where the child is a true creator of the world every day.
Getting to know anything happens directly through reality itself, through personal experience. A disciple is not instructed and taught about things by anyone. Rather, the activity itself is his teacher. On it he develops his abilities for direct personal knowledge of the world. In addition to the cognitive component, the child's will also develops strongly. Every day, they have to deal with a lot of practical and social situations that arise from the events of the given day. It is daily confronted with the weather, nature, material, other members of the community and most importantly with itself.

Dvůr Sofie is a place full of life, where, in addition to people, the landscape, plants and animals are cared for. Instead of an institution, it is a community of people with direct interpersonal relationships, of which children are a part.
For more about the pedagogy of an active life, see the To read tab.

Man is a spiritual being

This is the basic building block and premise of our work.
We look at children and theirs with reverence, respect and dignity the way.
In addition to acquiring common knowledge, we work together with children to expand their awareness and develop their skills and abilities: to know and accept their inner selves and, thanks to this, objectively
look down on others; be able to make responsible decisions in accordance with your inner intuition (sixth sense); to maintain your center with maximum external mobility; see yourself as a creator of the world and not as a consumer; to be self-aware and not lose any of your creativity, originality and connection.
In addition to the development already mentioned above, we are looking for ways in which the disciple can rediscover or discover the paths to the true sources of wisdom and knowledge.

When do we learn at Dvůr Sofie

Every working day, 28 students, 11 little ones, one parent (who accompanies the children on the train and cooks lunch) and usually 1-2 other co-workers come to us at Dvůr Sofie.
We start with the children in a circle with a common song at 8 a.m. at the Karlštejn railway station and say goodbye there at 3 p.m.

So when do we learn? We study all day!

On the way from the station and back, when we work in the orchard, on the construction site, in the kitchen or in the warehouse (all this is mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, etc. in practice!), by meeting others, we also learn in free play and then in the attic, where we write, play the flute, count, read, model, paint, English, geometry, Czech, arithmetic, natural history, inner silence, work with intuition, connecting the brain hemispheres... and at the same time we all never forget to sing.

Our day with children has three main parts:

Morning work block, 1.5 - 2 hours (work required by ordinary life at Dvůr Sofie)
Morning "cultural" block, 1.5 - 3 hours (discovery of human knowledge and artistic expression)
Free space after lunch (own activity - free play or creation).
Small children sleep or rest in the afternoon. 
(You can learn more about what our day looks like in the How to become a part tab in the Organizational Information section)

What and how do we learn?

... to live, to work, to perceive, to decide, to care for something, to love...

Upon arrival, we plant, cook, harvest, cut down trees, dig, concrete, make steps and paths in the orchard, mix herbal mixtures, make cider, store, go through delivery notes and invoices, keep a warehouse, knit, felt, sew...
After the snack, in the cultural block, we live through human knowledge and artistic expression - speech, counting, music, writing, theater, reading, foreign language, painting, etc. 
In the afternoon, the children immerse themselves in creative games ("concreting" bunkers, building boats, running a cafe...) and frolicking in the fresh air (bobbing in the winter, climbing the willow tree in the summer or rolling around in the meadow) ... some like to tinker, others go to the paddock to visit the horses, another observes the bees...

***
Part of the daily life of Dvůr Sofie is physical work.  Apprentices work with joy, strength and skill. The little ones play next to them and if they feel like it, they can join the disciples. Work is almost always pleasure at the same time, and we often hear pleas to work all day. However, sometimes, although it is rare, a situation arises when the disciples are tasked with doing something
that they don't enjoy or don't feel like doing at that moment - I don't want to pull a branch from the garden, but at the same time I know that we need to fuel something to keep us warm; I don't want to grate carrots, but I know we all need to eat; I don't enjoy
pinching tomatoes, but I know that if we want to eat them, we have to take care of the plants. In these moments, we guide children to be able to perceive why they don't want to. Is it just the convenience of today, or does it have a deeper cause?
We lead them to go back to their experience that when it comes to convenience, it makes sense to overcome that moment when I don't want to, and to do work for myself with love for others. But at the same time, they know that if they feel that they are going
against each other, they should agree with us that they will go do something else. Because what we do in life, we all want to do with love.
By experiencing every day that we will share the fulfilment of our common needs that day (whether it is the need to eat well or stay in a pleasant warmth, etc.), we also acquire a calm certainty that we are part of a group/community. Where each of our friends works for us and we work for everyone else with equal joy. This inner gratitude then gradually extends to the Earth and the Cosmos.

The children do not have a teacher next to them who explains to them something that he has studied and taught for years. They experience the “multidisciplinary nature of the person who is with them every day at work. Next to them, the adult takes care of the orchard, paints rooms, learns about plants and animals, washes toilets, meditates, cooks, builds a roof, teaches them forms, sings, paints, tells fairy tales, prays, communicates with nature's beings, connects electricity, makes medicines, he teaches them to count... all because the building, the garden, the community or he himself demands it. He is a
person who still feels himself to be a disciple, who likes to learn new things and often even with a passion. With this broad ability to create in the world, he does and acts every day. This is how he leads his disciples, who work together with him every day.

Apprentices learn the cultural skills of humanity in so-called epochs. So they always live for a few weeks with mathematics, then speech, form drawing, animal and human science, etc. It is always in close connection with what is happening right now. And not only in nature, which still surrounds the children, but also on the emerging farm and in our community. Here, knowledge is directly connected with daily meaningful work, with what our hands do, what children experience or what they can observe - from human efforts to natural laws and principles. By observing, consciously penetrating and discovering patterns, children are confirmed that they are part of something big and perfectly functioning. They often experience admiration, respect and also deep gratitude. They then desire to use their consciousness to penetrate more and more of what surrounds them and what they need for their lives.
Subsequently, they gain confidence that this gross material world is perceptible and that it is a safe and beautiful place to live.

In this way, children do not lose their desire for knowledge, their relationship to Truth, to Beauty, to Good... and they also desire to create everything they do in these qualities.