SOLA’s Culture: cultivating sacred relationships with self, others, & the world

Media Culture

We are dedicated to nurturing each child’s capacity for creative imagination and independent thinking through communion with self, others, and the natural world. We make every effort to foster each learner’s healthy emotional development and relationship with their learning environment. These efforts can be undermined by encounters with media that separate them from authentic, embodied experience and instead promote a developmentally disruptive or consumer-driven view of the world. Our daily rhythm is informed and presented through stories, mythologies, direct human-to-human and human-to-nature communication and communion. This conveyance is meant to live, integrate and rest within the child's imagination throughout the programming week- and beyond. It is our preference that the stories and experiences of our day remain prominent within the child as they are present with us through the week's learning. Please make an effort to eliminate media exposure as best you can within your family culture. If you would like to read more about the effects of media on children and young adults, please inquire with your child’s teacher for resources, or visit our website, under the ‘resources’ tab. Children are able to learn the appropriate use of electronic media as a resource and tool only when it is introduced after the child has developed a rich experiential, multi-sensory, embodied foundation of self.

If you would like to read more about the effects of media on children and young adults, please inquire with your child’s teacher for resources, or click here to visit our resources page.  We collectively recognize that children are able to learn the appropriate use of electronic media as a resource and tool only when it is introduced after the child has developed a rich experiential, multi-sensory, embodied foundation of self.

Identity & Belonging: Relational Arts at SOLA

SOLA is dedicated to restoring a sense of the Sacred in education, and thus, our organizational culture acknowledges and reflects the import of the spiritual world in human affairs. We are committed to encouraging an essential cultural shift toward a future for human beings where true freedom and interdependence prevail. We intend to participate in this shift by honoring and nourishing a commonly held, deeper recognition of every human individual’s fundamental identity, which is located within something divinely mysterious and universal. At SOLA, we view diversity as a spiritual and ecological necessity that enables the Human Being to develop Free Will, Free Feeling, Free Thinking and the Spiritual capacity to inspire Humanity’s evolution toward Inter-Being.

As educators, parents, peers, mentors, our role is to assist the child or adolescent in the Sacred Process of Becoming...to provide space for the exploration and expression of identity, while always reminding them that their fundamental identity lies beyond gender, culture, ethnicity, or religion. It is therefore important to emphasize the importance differences between one’s fundamental identity and the expression of identity as an individual or group’s creative contribution to culture.

Regarding Belonging as it relates to ethnicity, religion/spirituality, or culture, we celebrate the human curiosity and wonder that naturally arise in a culturally diverse learning community. We encourage and model respectful curiosity and dialogue between members of our community with regards to culture, ethnicity, or spiritual orientation. We feel strongly that mutual understanding is better achieved through inclusion and openness rather than exclusion or imposed hyper-vigilance. We encourage curiosity, conversation and inquiry, even when questions or topics may be difficult or challenging.

The resultant atmosphere of mutual understanding and appreciation serves as a foundation from which to build a truly inclusive community, comprised of unique individuals who feel an authentic sense of belonging and curiosity and interest in others that is enriched and enlivened by cultural differences.

Regarding gender and sexuality, we understand and support older student’s natural curiosities around gender expression and sexual exploration, and see this as integral to adolescent development and the adolescent search for true identity. We understand and acknowledge the reality that some adolescents- temporarily or permanently- feel an inner necessity to live and express themselves as a gender different from their biological sex, and also, that some adolescents feel an inner necessity to partner romantically with the same gender or biological sex.

However, as adult educators and mentors, we would never encourage an adolescent to believe that one’s external expression of gender through dress, pronoun or name changes, demeanor, or irreversible alteration of one’s physiology are the most viable ways to:

-ensure societal freedoms currently or formerly associated with or limited by one’s gender offer an enduring sense of empowerment, safety, or self-confidence
-remedy or erase emotional/psychological issues or trauma
-create an authentic, unconditional sense of happiness and acceptance

The emotional ups and downs associated with some of the above elements are more often than not a natural, normal (although sometimes painful) part of adolescent development, rather than indicators of gender dysmorphia or a misaligned sexual identity. The deeper shifts that create healing, sustain emotional wellbeing and an enduring sense of belonging go beyond changing surface appearances or affiliations, and, most importantly, begin with self-acceptance, authentic empowerment and love.

Love, Respect, Wonder, Reverence: The Sanctity of the Developing Child

The learning environment at SOLA is intended to be a Sanctuary for the developing child and adolescent. Many years of guidance and instruction are needed to develop healthy relationships with self, others, and the world, before entering the realm of ‘sex education’. Our timeline for introducing these topics reflects our reverence for the Sanctity of childhood. Topics related to human sexuality and gender expression are introduced with great care for the diversity of our learning community, and at a developmentally appropriate time. With regards to human sexuality, it is especially important that we present sexual relations as an act of Love, before describing them as merely a physical/material act or egoistic pleasure.

For example:

-class discussion, instruction or guidance related to human sexuality, including gender expression, would not be offered to younger children under age 12.

-when introducing the miracles and marvels of human sexuality to older children (ages 12 and up) we describe the activities in this realm first and foremost as acts of Love between individuals.

-when introducing the wonders of one’s own and others’ physicality, we speak of the physical form of the human being as a Sacred vessel worthy of great care, intended to support the human soul in its journey of learning, growing, and consciousness evolution.

We observe and enjoy the exquisite physical beauty of the Natural World and Cosmos- plants, animals, water, minerals, sky- and regard them as material expressions of a divine design within which the human being is held and nourished. We strive to orient our students’ observations and exploration of our own and others’ physicality and outward appearances around Respect, Reverence and Wonder, and we encourage curiosity and dialogue that can lead to an inwardly- generated Love and appreciation for the observable, essential diversity all around us.

SOLA’s organizational culture acknowledges and reflects the import of the spiritual world in human affairs, and Love as an essential means of calling forth beneficent and harmonious support for our community. As educators dedicated to restoring a sense of the Sacred in education, it is fundamental to us that Love is spoken of as integral to human existence. We strive to orient our students’ awareness and exploration of their own identity and their regard for others around Love, in order to provide authentic, inwardly- generated sense of their fundamental identity through loving kindness - for oneself, others, and the world at large.

Care With Our Words: Articulating Sacred Realities

Using care with our language can create a more heart-full linguistic culture of welcoming openness without inserting potentially unsettling- and perhaps unnecessary- division, judgements, questions or confusion among students. We take great care not to insert values, create misperceptions, or foment misanthropy where there may be none. Meaningful acknowledgement of the exquisite, diverse design of all living things is essential to our collective and individual wellbeing. We hope to recapture and reorient some commonly used statements about the topics of culture, ethnicity, gender and sexuality to reflect SOLA’s commitment to unveiling one’s authentic identity through the nourishment of sacred relationships with the self, others/society, and the natural world.

For example, instead of saying: “gender/sex assigned at birth” or, We might say: “sex at birth” and/or “gender is one among many cultural expressions of a person’s identity”

Regarding names, descriptors or referents, instead of inserting concepts or a value system on another individual or group of individuals through suggestive language, we politely and respectfully ask how best to address, describe, or reference an individual or group of individuals, without assumptions.

For example, instead of asking: “What is your name and preferred pronoun?” We might ask: “How would you like to be referred to by your peers and teachers?”

Every human birth brings with it a brand new, unique essence and gift to the world in the form of an incarnated human being. We thus prefer the word procreation over reproduction, as a means of distinguishing humans from the plant and animal kingdoms, where reproduction begets an almost exact ‘copy’ of its parents or predecessor. We view the human physical form as a sacred vessel that is intended to support the human soul in its journey of learning, growing, and consciousness evolution. In the realm of gender and sexuality, we distinguish a difference between gender, which is an expression of one’s identity, and biological sex, which is (with extremely rare exceptions) a fundamental physical reality. From this context, we view one’s physiology at birth as a Sacred reality with great purpose, meaning and import in one’s individual and collective human journey.

Childhood or adolescent curiosity may naturally inspire some important questions about the misguided or unfair assignation of gender to elements of our culture, such as behaviors, human activities and forms of self- expression.

For example:

boys are strong, girls are weak
girls cook and clean, boys earn money
girls like pink, boys like blue
girls play with dolls, boys play with trucks
girls are emotional and passive, boys are coarse and aggressive

Most of us will recognize that these statements are not true on a fundamental level, but emblematic of limiting (and potentially harmful) beliefs around gender expression that still exist in our own and many societies. If or when perceptions or statements like these arise, we observe and assess whether an intervention is needed. We try to guide the students with levity or gentleness, intervening only if necessary to safeguard group harmony and an individual’s sense of Belonging.

If or when we wish engage educational activities, materials or literature containing language that represents a particular culture, ethnicity, or spiritual orientation, we seek out the input and advice of individuals who have lived these realities, and remain open to shifting in ways that honor individual needs or sensitivities within our community- ideally, without sacrificing or diminishing pedagogical intentions or collective community needs and values. In this way, we are engaging the Free Will, Free Thinking, and Spiritual Agency of the individual/s with whom the power dynamic should reside, before making a final decision to engage the material.

For example, in the case of older students, we might inquire with the class as a whole, with a statement such as this:

“The material we are about to read contains some information or language that calls for sensitivity and respect for some individuals within our learning community. Please quietly review this excerpt from the book/essay, and briefly write your thoughts and feelings about its suitability for our studies. All written reflections are confidential”

We would then take student feedback into careful consideration before deciding to more deeply engage the material or literature, while prioritizing the needs of those referenced in the material.

In closing, we feel it is important for the developing child or adolescent to have trustworthy, knowledgable, unbiased and wise mentors and elders whom they can approach and trust with their vulnerability and questions, when or if they arise. We want to assure you that SOLA is advocating for a more healthful, non-exclusionary culture, for the dissolution of discriminatory, disempowering views, actions and perceptions. The judgements historically imposed on various individual, societal, and cultural values needs to shift...here in our country, and all over our planet.

We hope to contribute to this shift by abiding in the middle ground of Love for humanity and Reverence for all living beings.

With Care,
The SOLA Faculty Circle