Mission & Values

It’s a fact that modern childhood has moved indoors. On average, American children spend between 4 and 7 minutes a day engaged in unstructured outdoor play and as many as 9 hours a day in front of an electronic screen. This national trend has paralleled an alarminggrowth in childhood obesity and prescribed pharmaceuticals for kids. Many youth are tuned out, stressed out and over-scheduled. Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle author Richard Louv calls this “Nature-Deficit Disorder.” And this is not limited to just kids, as it can also be seen in adults, families, and whole communities.

However, youth and adults who regularly spend time outdoors gain priceless befits to mind, body, and spirit, including improved physical health and professional or academic success through enhanced skills in leadership, self-awareness, self-confidence, communication, critical thinking, and creativity.

We create experiences that have the power to connect us to the earth, ourselves and our community that are inspired by Jon Young and his book, Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature. Our programs are intricately designed and customized for the ages and stages of our youth in each unique natural setting. In this way, we have created an invisible school where curiosity, exploration, and play naturally lead to deep wisdom by way of direct, personal experience.

Through active mentoring, our programs lead to personal growth. We work to raise a generation of youth who are in touch with their gifts, follow their passion, and may become strong, resilient and empathetic adults.

We are committed to preserving and protecting the sacred childhood years, and to creating space for children to naturally grow into the fullest expression of their unique gifts. We strive each day to create opportunities for children to feel and understand that the world is good.

As we grow and evolve, Merrohawke’s core teaching staff are training in, and applying, principles and practices of Waldorf education into our early childhood programs in order to make for the most meaningful experiences in nature possible for our children. In 2019, Merrohawke was accepted as an Associate Member of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America.

All of our programs involve time to play in nature because this is where the taproot of deep connection to the earth–land or sea–takes hold. We intentionally create time to allow for kids to get muddy, run wild, build forts, race hand-made driftwood boats, dig to China, search for buried pirate treasure, climb trees, catch frogs in swamps, paint themselves in charcoal, or do penguin slides across mud flats.

While youth believe they are “just playing,” and many marvel at these moments of freedom for unstructured outdoor time, we know that recent studies have proven that childhood experiences such as these–versus more traditional forms of environmental education as found over the past 30 or so years in 4H programs, nature centers, and scouting–directly lead to adults who are active stewards of the earth in practice or profession, or both.

Youth who connect to the land on their own terms through childhood play are scientifically proven to grow to be adults who are active environmental stewards. You can read more about this in David Sobel’s summer 2012 essay in Orion magazine, “Look, Don’t Touch: The problem with Environmental Education.” 

Play is the work of childhood, and the key to education for all of life. Many of our programs, especially in early childhood, create time and space for open play so that children may:*

• Learn how they learn
• Develop confident and clarity of thinking
• Practice problem solving
• Develop a tolerance for frustration
• Refine their senses and develop a foundation for cognitive learning
• Digest life activity and sensory input
• Freely express individuality
• Align with their creative selves

*Courtesy of Susan Weber, Sophia’s Hearth.