Why we’re here
Values
Stewardship.
A meaningful life is grounded in reciprocity. We belong in communities, cultures, and landscapes that nourish us, and which we serve in turn. Care for the earth, our common home, is a core value of The Field School. But stewardship doesn’t just mean environmentalism. It is also humanist. We treasure the heritage that provides us with continuity and forms our identity. We elevate folk traditions that bring us closer to other forms of life.
We aim to instill stewardship in every activity at The Field School, from our all-school rituals, to the way that we teach biology. This emerges from daily exposure to nature and real environments, such as the village square. It comes from careful study of what’s around us. Finally, stewardship reaches outward expression in creative, career-preparatory service projects that invite young people to see themselves as needed, impactful agents in their world.
Enlightenment.
Education is what makes us human. Our consciousness is a brief, almost magical invitation to notice and admire as much as we can. It is the sacred duty of education to transmit the ancestral and civilizational knowledge that empowers young people to live a richly aware life. A strong foundation in math, literacy, history, and science further respects the dignity of each individual by equipping young people with the resources to control their own paths in life. Sometimes learning is hard! Children (and adults) can handle challenge and grow from it. Likewise, sometimes ambiguity and disagreement is uncomfortable. Nonetheless, our community appreciates the value of diverse perspectives.
Dignity.
Life is sacred. Living beings - human and otherwise - are not instruments. They exist for their own reasons, and their value is not raised or reduced by their value to us. In practice, this means that our first priority with learners is to support their development into intelligent, ethical young people. It is not to increase a child’s college competitiveness or to remove all struggle from his or her path. Likewise, with adults in our community, we always start from an attitude of compassion and respect.
Mission
The Field School of Hvar was founded as an engine for building a regenerative ecosystem on the island of Hvar. Field defines “regenerative” as a way of life which continually enriches the primary sources of all goods - our planet and human culture. We hold ourselves accountable to quantifiable assessment in terms of carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and waste, as well as qualitative measurements of personal well-being. There are three layers to this mission.
For Families.
The Field School of Hvar offers a portal to family life as it should be. What does that mean? Just as regenerative agriculture feeds soil to grow healthy, resilient plants, our program aims to nourish parents, so that they can be the bedrock of love and character formation for their children. Field’s educational program amplifies the values that parents plant at home. It also provides parents with time and space to make their mark on the world as fully realized individuals, professionally or otherwise. Finally, Field facilitates a community where parents have friends who help them grow intellectually and spiritually, who celebrate and weather life’s great milestones together. This all takes place in a setting where vibrant nature and culture are always at the doorstep, pressing in through the window and surrounding our learners throughout their daily routines.
For Hvar.
The School aims to invigorate regenerative industries on Hvar. Our students learn how to read and serve the environment through heritage-rich trades and contemporary techniques. As a “village,” we support sustainable food, energy, transportation, and other core systems. Below, we describe in detail current projects and goals.
For the World.
Field is incubating a pedagogy that inverts the focus of education. Rather than asking: “how can we deploy resources to maximize the potential of this child?,” Field asks: “how can this child deliver the greatest value to his or her community?”
Education (and parenting) typically trains its lens on the individual child. The place in which that child is growing up blurs to invisibility. All Montessori classrooms look roughly the same. Likewise all Waldorf classrooms and all conventional schools. All soccer fields and basketball courts. All swimming pools and yoga studios.
With this place-less approach, is it any wonder that young people find themselves adrift? They’ve spent their entire upbringing trying to excel in artificial environments, compelling themselves to complete drills, win prizes, and apply critical thinking to challenges that have no direct impact on anyone but themselves and their own prospects.
As they enter adulthood, teens are expected to construct their identity and purpose from these standardized environments and a few unconsidered exhortations: “be true to yourself,” “be good.” True to what self? Good to whom? Good for what? Children have to supply the answers to all of these questions, some of which may be unanswerable.
Field is instead premised on the concept of reciprocity: that each individual’s identity and purpose takes shape in dialogue with the people who love and challenge them, the plants and animals who nourish and depend on them, and the fierce pride of ancient cultures that live through them as unique individuals alive at an unrepeatable moment in time.
In this emerging pedagogy, each learning community should be as unique. What is urgent in one place may be superfluous in another. The point is to look deeply at one’s own time and place, to treasure one’s own wild and precious life, and to draw strength from the specific patch of soil where we each have been planted.
We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.
“Nostos” by Louise Glück
Our Approach to Education
The magic of childhood - its boundless curiosity and special sweetness - are what The Field School nurtures and celebrates. Caring educators, natural beauty, and rich Mediterranean culture are the foundation of our offering and approach.
Educational programs at The Field School of Hvar present math, language, science, history, and other academic disciplines as critical tools for appreciating joyful and exciting real world experiences.
Our goal is to inspire wonder, which is the beginning of an intellectual life, by activating the multiple benefits that children draw from time spent in nature, collaborative play, and creative pursuits. There are no worksheets, no textbooks, and no screens.
