Today’s Education Shapes Tomorrow’s Future NPO GREENWOOD “I want to go camping all year! Then we can make our own food, carve our own dinnerware, and maybe even build our own house!” Words like these from children living in the city are what led us to establish the Daidarabotchi life lessons classroom. Four children and three adults came together with the intent to “live by their own efforts.” Every night, we got together and shared our hopes and fears with the group. I Want to Go Camping All Year! We talked about what kind of house we wanted to build and how we would build it. However, building a house is not the same as building a life. Every day, the children made their meals, did their own cleaning and laundry, and went to school. We used our combined knowledge and skills in order to make our dream a reality, trying and failing over and over again. NPO Greenwood, as well as the core values that we uphold, started from this life that we built together. The original main building, built out of thinned wood and wood from telephone poles and railroad ties Photographed at the 1997 Daidarabotchi Fare-welcome Party 1 │ Introduction Introduction │ 2 In order to build a community where everyone can live in peace, we raise children to become well-rounded human beings. We Aim for An Anjane (Worry-Free) Raising Independent People (Hitoneru) Community Nobody is going to go out and prepare a worry-free We think that a community where everyone can live safely community for us all. Rather, it must be made by respecting is one in which all members respect one another, cultivate each other and striking a balance between freedom joy, and delight in the wonders of being alive. and responsibility. We here at Greenwood are not trying The elementary and middle school students who to change the way society works; instead, we think it’s participate in the Daidarabotchi program are the center of a important to focus on nurturing the people who will make community that provides mutual acceptance and support, up our society. We need capable people who can actively transcending things like hometown, gender, and age. They participate in any system or environment and come up live with a diverse staff ranging from recent college grads to with creative solutions wherever they go, but we don’t need the community’s founding members. desks to raise them. It’s more important to learn from the One person’s weakness is another’s strength. We all go experience of meeting people, challenging oneself, failing through times of trouble, so we can understand each other’s and then learning from one’s mistakes, getting help, giving joy and hardships. This is precisely what we mean by “a help, and feeling both the joy and frustration that come along community where everyone can live in peace.” with it all. We nurture our students by teaching them how to Precisely because we share our responsibilities and help “live” through their connections with others. each other out, our group can work together to tackle any problems we face. Conflict and trouble naturally occur in all *Hitoneru means “to raise someone well” in the dialect of the Shimoina region. societies, and ours is no different. However, a community where everyone can live in peace can only be formed when all of its members have the awareness of how issues affect them, as well as the intention to help create a better place. *Anjane means “Don’t worry!” in the dialect of the Shimoina region. The current main building, rebuilt in 2004 Photographed at the 2014 Daidarabotchi Fare-welcome Party 3 │ VISION and MISSION VISION and MISSION │ 4 NPO Greenwood’s Well-Rooted Education Education Well-Rooted in Life Lessons Trees that grow nothing but foliage and fruit will end up breaking under their weight. They need strong roots and a trunk to support them. We believe that people are the same. Skills, academic ability, and the knowledge that you learn in school are all just “foliage.” If you don’t have a heart to guide you in the right direction, you make mistakes, or end up collapsing because you can’t handle the weight. We Aim for An Anjane (Worry-Free) Your roots grow when you gain necessary life experiences, and from this growth you gain a set of values that enable you to keep growing and living on your own. Greenwood’s “well-rooted” education is based on offering hands-on experiences in accordance with students’ age level so that the students’ roots grow stronger as they experience everyday life. Keeping the Soil Rich Elementary and High School and Preschoolers Adults and Families The Region (And Their Parents) Middle School Students College Students ● Mamebotchi Forest Kindergarten ● Shinshu Kids’ Sanzoku Camp ● Shinshu Kids’ Sanzoku Camp ● Safety Education ● Dispatching Lecturers and Facilitators ● The Life Lessons Classroom Volunteering ● Recommended Publications ● Field Trips and Educational Seminars Daidarabotchi ● Young Adult Educational Programs ● Social Responsibility Cooperatives (Collaborations with Universities) with External Organizations ● Teacher / Leader Development Projects A Well-Rooted Education – Conceptual Map weather = society buds need the sun, roots need the rain The Three Tenets of a Well-Rooted Education action stamina flowers = realized dreams scholarship empathy “Sensitive “Enjoying “Independent communication skills buds = dreams Spirit” Spirit” Spirit” cooperation planning independence leaves = experiences The power to learn intuitively from people and We teach our students how to be proactive In today’s society, it is becoming more and self-improvement from nature – that is what we call “emotional and enjoy whatever they are doing. Students in more common that children learn how to play self-control intelligence.” This kind of intelligence teaches all of our programs are entrusted with difficult and amuse themselves through video games branches = skills children how to show kindness and affection chores that may take them a lot of time, such and the Internet. Thus, these children end up towards both things and other people. as preparing meals and heating bathwater. unable to make the choices that would allow Greenwood takes great care in offering a When doing these chores, we ask ourselves them to succeed academically or professionally trunk = personal values program that connects nature to everyday life. “how can we make this more fun?” By making without extensive support from those around Students gather firewood from the mountains, our struggles into fun experiences, we learn them. In order to become the protagonists of our cultivate the rice fields, and make their own that overcoming hardship is the source of true own lives, we must have the initiative to shape pottery that they use as dinnerware. Through pleasure. our own future. roots = one’s true spirit this way of life, they gain a sense of gratitude Sometimes we fail, but failure is part of the All of Greenwood’s programs take great towards nature for supporting them and fulfilling process of success. It is precisely because of our care to develop our students’ ability to make their basic needs. failures that our successes give us the utmost independent decisions. When children realize Such a way of life cannot be accomplished joy. We build up our resistance to failure through that they are in charge of their own lives, they “Sensitive “Enjoying “Independent the ground = daily life (environment) alone – our students all live and work together, trial and error and learn the joy of triumph. develop the power to participate actively and Spirit” Spirit” Spirit” which affords them the opportunity to learn how Failure can become the driving force that take responsibility for everything that they do. to both disagree with each other and help one compels us to overcome any barriers that we The freedom they enjoy when they take on these another out. This in turn teaches them how to may encounter in the future. responsibilities is what allows them to keep be considerate, how to understand the differing challenging themselves. Rich Soil values of others, and how to cooperate with (Yasuokamura’s natural and spiritual environment, people, and parents) others and with society. ● Consideration for Nature and for Others ● A Village that Cares about Raising Good People 5 │ Well-Rooted Education Well-Rooted Education │ 6 Preschoolers Elementary and High School and Preschoolers Elementary and High School and Adults and Families The Region Adults and Families The Region (And Their Parents) Middle School Students College Students (And Their Parents) Middle School Students College Students Spend an entire year with friends as your colleagues A place where you can make your dreams a reality The Daidarabotchi Life Lessons Classroom The Daidarabotchi life lessons classroom is the place where eighteen children from around the country came together with the shared dream of It all began in 1986, from the words making their own way of life, which they did for a year while also attending a “I want to go camping all year!” local elementary and middle school. Meals, laundry, cleaning, wood-chopping, In the rich, natural environment of our mountain village, and bath-heating, as well as any other tasks related to our daily life are all, of course, carried out daily by the children. The children are the ones who make friends of different ages, genders, and backgrounds the schedule for the year, talk through and resolve daily problems, grow our can work together in a community full of people rice and vegetables, and make the tableware. It’s up to them to decide what who warmly watch over them. kind of year they will have. Daidarabotchi is a place where you can make the dreams you want to accomplish a reality.