What is Wild Seeds ALC?
Wild Seeds is an agile learning community that gives young people an entirely unique learning experience. Wild Seeds has two part-time programs for young people ages 5-13 interested in unschooling in a community. Our programs support young people in building stronger relationships with themselves, others, and the wider world, meeting them where they are at today. Providing the space, time, tools, and resources, we support young people as they let their curiosities and passions lead the way to deep learning and action around topics and issues that matter to them.
We trust that learning happens best when young people are empowered to explore, experiment, play, question, and interact with the real world, while being supported by their community.
Families in our program are encouraged to participate. We treasure relationship building and opportunities to dialogue about unschooling, deschooling, and our core values. We envision, in our intergenerational partnerships with one another, an ongoing co-creation of our community and our culture.
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PLEASE NOTE: Wild Seeds was previously an entirely outdoors unschooling program. Beginning in Fall 2023, we will relaunch Pilot Year #2 in a building space in South Philadelphia.
Our
Beliefs about learning
We believe everyone in our community is a teacher, a learner, a creator, a visionary, a problem solver, a risk taker with valuable points of view and experiences to share. We are in partnership with the young people in our lives. There are endless possibilities for personal and communal growth and learning when we lean into the idea that all perspectives have the capacity to transform.
We believe young people are already living full lives today. They don’t need to spend their time preparing for some distant, unknown future. There is so much learning and growing to do right now in our present circumstances, within our current relationships, with our current strengths, passions, and interests.
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We use tools and practices from the agile learning model of unschooling, which roots itself in the following:
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Learning: Learning is natural. It’s happening all the time.
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Self- Direction: People learn best by making their own decisions. Children are people.
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Experience: People learn more from their culture and environment than from the content they are taught. The medium is the message.
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Success: Accomplishment is achieved through cycles of intention, creation, reflection, and sharing.
Option 1: Wild Seeds Day Program Rhythm
Wild Seeds ALC Day Program will begin on Monday, September 18, 2023. Wild Seeds ALC will operate Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9am-3pm, with optional aftercare available until 6pm.
The daily rhythm will typically look like:
9-9:30AM Drop Off
9:30-9:45AM Morning Meeting
9:45-10:15AM Small Group Meetings/Intention Setting
10:15-2:15PM Offerings and Self-Directed Pursuits
2:15PM Community Clean Up
2:30-3PM Small Group
3PM Pick Up
3-6PM Aftercare
Option 2: Afternoons at
Wild Seeds Rhythm
Afternoons at Wild Seeds will begin on on Wednesday, September 6, 2023. Afternoons at Wild Seeds will operate Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 3:30pm-6pm.
3:30pm Drop Off
3:45pm Whole Group Intention Setting
4-5:45pm Offerings and Self-Directed Pursuits
5:45pm Whole Group Clean Up and Reflection
6:00pm Pick Up
Descriptions
Lunch/Snack: young people eat, drink, and take care of bodily needs anytime they need to
Morning Meeting: Our whole unschool community gathers to share the offerings of the day/week, hear community announcements, make awarenesses, and share space together. Mondays we meet for Set the Week, and Fridays we meet for Check In/Change Up.
AM Small Group: In our designated age-mixed small group, young people explore various topics and questions connected to our core values. We also set intentions for the kind of people we want to be and the actions we plan to take throughout the day.
PM Small Group: In our age-mixed small groups, we practice reflecting on the day and expressing gratitude. We reflect on our experiences of the day– how we did with our intentions, what felt memorable, what was hard, how we can shift our actions and practices the next day.
Community Clean Up: We work alongside young people to honor our relationship with the land we’re on; working in teams to clean up our materials and pick up trash, leaving the space cleaner than we found it.
Mic Moments: Once a month, we facilitate a community “show and tell," where we share our projects, skills and knowledge in a presentation format. This helps inform each other of what we’re interested in, and about the direction of our individual and collective learning.
Admissions + Tuition
Learn more about our enrollment process and tuition here.
