graduation Archives - West River Academy

WRA Groups: Meet Los Castaños from El Salvador

Posted on November 29, 2023February 22, 2024 by Monica Oliveros

WRA Groups: Meet Los Castaños from El Salvador

Posted on November 29, 2023

We’d like to introduce you to one of our 102 groups world-wide in West River Academy. Los Castaños is a group in El Salvador that is committed to educating their students in an expansive way. This year celebrates seven years of educating students and teaching the community about alternative education.

The phenomenon of unschooling can be found in various ways: families who travel and their education is based on the cultures they discover on their journeys; some families do unschooling because their children are high performers in sports; others because they disagree with traditional education and many other reasons.

Los Castaños

If we delve even further into how to carry out unschooling, we have families that do it individually and others in a community manner. Today, we want to show you this latest modality of unschooling, which is in a group-organized way, similar to a school structure outside of the traditional system.

Los Castaños was founded by Claudia Turcios, a Salvadorian who has embraced Natural Learning and is committed to providing practical knowledge for the next generation. Her vision was put into action on November 26, 2016, when she organized a small group of families to learn topics such as agriculture, cooking, managing finances, and the list goes on. Seven years later, her dream has expanded and now provides a solution to hundreds of families. This current year, she has more than 80 students and 20 teachers who share the same vision.

What is the experience in Los Castaños like?

This alternative and bilingual school consists of children ages 3-18. Claudia and her team are with them on their educational process each step of the way. This is the second year that 12th graders will be graduating and certified by West River Academy.

Their methodology is a mix of Montessori, supported by emotional intelligence with a firm foundation of ethics. This is not a school where you leave your children at the school door mindlessly. The participation of families is essential for the healthy functioning of this institution.

Among their students, they have the competence and training to receive neuro-divergent students with autism, giftedness, and Down syndrome, which makes educational life inclusive and without distinctions in terms of opportunities and activities. Everyone is equally invited to participate in the different educational events offered by the school.

In addition to life in the classrooms, Los Castaños offers field activities that are previously planned and can be seen in their annual calendars—visits to museums and local or national parks. Even everyday places such as grocery shopping for their meals provide a guided experience to cultivate practical life skills.

“At Los Castaños, we educate for peace.”

Claudia shared with us what a typical day looks like for them. The idea is that the day is flexible and offers an array of subject areas they can learn at their fingertips.

Of its 20 teachers and facilitators, some are permanent for each grade and others rotate to provide different natural learning activities weekly: music, cooking, arts, Kenpo/Karate, studio arts and design, and entrepreneurship. They actively participate in the Recicla 503 program as ambassadors of environmental care. They offer swimming, coding, yoga, mindfulness, and other practical and optional activities.

One of the main priorities to them is to have a comprehensive emotional education program, which promotes “self-knowledge, management of emotions and feelings, management of tension and stress, assertive communication, empathy, interpersonal relationships, conflict management, decision making, critical thinking, and creativity.”

Graduandos Los Castaños West River Academy

Graduation 2023

As we had mentioned, 5 of their students are graduating this year. One of the fundamental requirements at West River Academy is to complete an Educational Biography, a written essay about their educational journey from as far back as they can remember until now.

Claudia tells us that this activity was therapeutic for these young adults since they were able to internalize and reflect on everything they had learned. She said that this will have a positive impact on their future as adults, in more ways than we can know.

We are very excited to celebrate all of our high school graduates on December 15, 2023!

Inspiration for everyone

Now that you know these spaces exist and are a reality, we hope to inspire other families to join, organize, and form a community. Likewise, search within your local area because without knowing it, there may be a school very similar to Los Castaños near you, where your children can obtain alternative, emotional, and ethical education in their community.

All the images in this article are actual photos of Los Castaños. Here are some pictures of its facilities:

Thank you for daring to make a difference and supporting educational freedom!

Happy 7th Anniversary to Los Castaños!

Students who do not fit into the traditional education system

Posted on June 27, 2023June 27, 2023 by Monica Oliveros

Students who do not fit into the traditional education system

Posted on June 27, 2023

Some students do not fit into the traditional system and have a characteristic feature that distinguishes them at school: they get bored and do not fit the mold. This mold is designed to carry out perfect harmony within the educational system. At West River Academy (WRA), we are pleased to receive these types of students because of their indomitable spirit.

In our day-to-day, as an educational institution, we receive emails, requests, and inquiries from parents who are concerned about their children. They worry they cannot fulfill themselves as human beings, as they are labeled within the traditional educational system.

These parents feel the pain of their children and their frustration at not being able to help them and ask with great sadness that we help them end this situation expeditiously; They ask us to advance years and certify degrees together so that their children can graduate from the educational system as soon as possible.

At WRA, we understand these family situations and discomforts very closely. This is why we are a solution for these demands; only it is impossible to do it the way said parents want. The good news is we have a much better counteroffer: Convert Life Experiences into Academic Credits.

Take a breath and stop to smell the roses

Knowing oneself, doing it at our own pace, and enjoying life are the fundamental pillars of our school. It is learning and educating yourself with your study plan and doing it in the order and rhythm you want: as each family feels and decides.

We do not recommend advancing years, certifying degrees together, and graduating early, because, being an institution established and legalized in the United States, this option can only be possible for early admission to the University or Technical School. Otherwise, it is not possible to advance degrees. And with our proposal, it is not necessary to promote years either.

We offer you to enter our institution with open content, we do not have a study plan, so your son or daughter will not have to get bored with pre-established content; instead, they can study what they want at the level they enjoy and not settle with the curricular design imposed by the traditional model.

Do your children love math and science? , at Khan Academy, the curriculum of studies up to Calculus II will be at your disposal. It’s even a great idea to encourage them to start with what they want to learn and realize that they could review and study previous content to reach their goal: at their own pace, in the order he wants, and as many times as he likes!

Do your kids love the arts and language? , in Kubrio, they will find endless artistic expressions, clubs, intensive courses, and study groups with this dye. In Kubrio, there is also space for the sciences, only that its members have taken it more towards the artistic, learning science through debates and creative expressions as projects. With people from all over the world!

Do your children love sports? In your town, there are thousands of options at different levels. The body is a machine that is forged, and sports need muscle memory, and this takes time. We have many students who train 12 to 18 hours a week. They are holistically focused on reaching their goals!

Do they love to delve into everything? They have 24 hours a day to choose what they want to learn. With video games, books, movies, and live. Why rush this extraordinary time?

At WRA, we focus more on helping you do what you love rather than on completing a list of knowledge to go from one grade to the next and then forget it. Each person has a gift that is accompanied by one or more interests. And that’s what we’re aiming for.

Mano levantando un birrete de graduación

How to certify without the official curricular design?

One of our benefits as an educational institution is being able to certify a school grade each year, respecting the official subjects, and adding, in the case of high school, some elective subjects.

Parents can request a transcript of grades each year and thus certify each year from preschool. If the educational goal at home is to graduate from high school, they can wait for the last four years of high school and certify only those four years.

The four years the student must accredit to graduate from high school must be equivalent in your country to the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades in the United States. And these four years must be completed in 4 different years.

Said transcription of notes will be the equivalent of what the student experienced. By making an annual summary or report of what you have learned, you will realize that you have covered every aspect of it: math, language, science, biology, etc., only with your curriculum, time, and depth.

Our proposal to students who do not fit into the educational system.

We live one year at a time. We don’t have a remote control that advances us years at will. We live them all and learn accordingly. At West River Academy, we encourage families to live their education through natural learning. It is unnecessary to advance years when you find a proposal so human and adapted to your day-to-day. There is no need to rush to live.

In addition, you can hear a very thoughtful podcast about this topic from Peggy Webb, Founder and Director of West River Academy:

Ask Peggy Podcast · Children Who Don’t Fit The Mold

We hope this article has brought the peace of mind and certainty you sought when contacting us. If you still have questions, schedule a free 15-minute consultation or read more on our blog.

Enroll with us if you don’t need anything else to start your educational freedom.

A Graduate’s Journal

Posted on May 2, 2018March 16, 2023 by Rachel Nishikawa

A Graduate’s Journal

Posted on May 2, 2018

In our Graduation Program we not only want to hear about the curriculum you might be doing, but we want to know who you are, what influences your thought process and the person you are aspiring to be. Because in a society that has forgotten to value wisdom, curiosity and introspection, young adults who are nurtured in this way during the most developmental period of their life are an incredible asset to our world as whole.

Prospective graduate, Michael Heaton, delivers a reflective report of his personal growth and shares his thoughts as he navigates a trivial time in his life.

If I’m honest, I could call February my realization month. I read many books from prophets to philanthropists, philosophers to fables; everything. Many of them had different messages and sometimes they were conflicting. But the things I have learned have helped me to see where I truly am, where I will go if I continue doing what I am doing, and where I truly want to end up.

In the beginning of February I had a huge personal expense come up. The good news is that I finally paid it all off. But that whole month I felt totally broke. Which is not a bad thing to feel at my age because I don’t have a family or spouse depending on me. It just makes me realize how much growing I still have left before I am really ready for the real adult world. In a nut shell I’d say the beginning was humbling.

That works out perfectly for this type of education because it proves the old story of Socrates. Most people know about the young man who goes to Socrates and says something to the fact that he wants to learn from Socrates and be wise like him. Socrates then walks down to the beach and shoves his head in the water. The young man fights to come up to breathe. And finally when he almost drowns Socrates lets him up. Of course the young man is furious. Socrates responds calmly saying that once he wants truth and knowledge as bad as he wanted air, then he would teach him. That very desire that Socrates points out, is what I had in February. I got tired of settling for the life I had. My income seemed capped. My friendships, limited and self absorbed. My spiritual life, mundane and routine. My physical health, mediocre at best.

After I realized where I was at, I wrote some things that I wanted to change. I put up a white board where I can track my progress in different areas in my life to see what I needed to work on. Although I’m not perfect at updating it, it is in my room and I constantly look at it as I do my schooling. I’ve learned that if you want something to improve, you need to track it. The moment you do that, it becomes a priority. That has really helped me appreciate the gift of a day. There will never be a day like today ever again. And each day we are given, we trade for the things we think are important. Whether we are just killing time, or investing it, we can never get that day back. So we must use it wisely.

Previous to February, I often found myself bored, unfulfilled, and not where I wanted to be. If that continued, I’d follow the saying, “Some people die at 25, and aren’t buried until 75”. I don’t want that by any means. When I was bored and unfulfilled I also found that it effected my relationships. Not because people were all a sudden being jerks. But because I was focusing on myself so much more because I had nothing else to do. And lets be honest, none of us like a friend who is self centered.

Once I realized that my laziness was effecting who I was becoming, I decided to change. I started passing out flyers to expand my landscaping business in South Phoenix. I’m reading deeper into the words of God. I’ve tried to be less task oriented and play with those around me when they ask for my attention. When I think of old friends, I send them a text to let them know that I appreciate their role in my life. If I have down time, I invest it into my future. Just those simple things have revolutionized my life; not to mention my self confidence.

Now I know a lot of this could not be classified under math, science, or history. But I still believe that it is education. I believe that education is supposed to make life easier. Without knowing the things that I’ve just shared, life would be much harder. And if I could narrow down everything I’ve learn last month, I’d say this, success is never an achievement or trophy that we can attain and lock away for the rest of our lives. That is what you call a goal. Most people, including myself, think that success can eventually be achieved once we do this, or accomplish that, or face a certain obstacle. But the truth is success is only realized in the pursuit of your goals. The moment we stop stretching for what we want, and becoming a better person each day, we are no longer successful.

So thanks again for this program of credibility, and accountability. It’s helped me a lot already. Talk to you next month.

A Graduates’ Path to Self-discovery

Posted on March 16, 2018March 16, 2023 by Rachel Nishikawa

A Graduates’ Path to Self-discovery

Posted on March 16, 2018

The West River Academy Graduation Program students are a true testament to the philosophy that there is beauty in diversity. The young adults that we cross paths with have learned that it is okay to hit walls, question your identity, and feel imperfect. Because what you learn from that is how to bounce back, be authentic and embrace your uniqueness.

Marta Chan is an exceptional young woman in our Graduation Program Class of 2018. In one of her monthly report assignments, she reflects on a trip to Finland, growing up in Estonia and her journey to self-discovery.

“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it’s ordinary and mundane and routine… And it’s breathtakingly beautiful!” L.R. Knost has managed to put into words the description of how this month was for me.

I learned once again, that sometimes things just don’t work out as you planned. I thought I had already learned this lesson, but this month proved me wrong. Nothing seemed to go the way I wanted. I was really upset and irritated. But then, I started noticing all these unexpected little, wonderful things that happened in my life. I realized how I sometimes rush to get everything done and forget the reason why I’m doing these things in the first place. Writing my thoughts and feelings down into my journal, really helped me find some serenity and peace of mind.

One thing that was constantly on my mind this month, was my dad’s Chinese origin and his ancestry. It’s challenging for me to do family history from his side, because I do not speak neither Cantonese nor Mandarin Chinese. I’m learning the latter, but it’s rather difficult. It’s not so much the language that’s hard to learn but the notion and culture of the Chinese people. As I have learned more about their culture and traditions, I have recognized pieces of it in myself. I know my parents gave and still give their best in raising me and my siblings and I am really grateful for them, because they have allowed and encouraged me to become the best me. But at times I feel like I am disconnected from the Chinese “part” of me. When I was younger, I always tried to convince others (and myself) that I am a “true- Estonian”. And I remember being so upset when someone would point out that I’m “half- Chinese”, because it made me feel as if I’m incomplete and hence insufficient. But with time I came to realize, that’s not true! Rather than trying to define myself, I learned to know myself. Who I am? Who and What I love? What are my fears, my talents, my passions? What do I do to accomplish my dreams? These are the things that matter. These are the things that make me complete. Not perfect, far from that. But whole.

I learned that if we come to accept ourselves the way we are, it helps us move forward and better ourselves. The beauty in being a human is that we have both the ability and power to improve ourselves. Our backgrounds and situations do not play important roles in this. Our attitude does. My dear grandpa told me once: “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t drive the car anywhere until you change it. And if you change it, you can go anywhere your heart desires”. I agree with him.

February Twenty-fourth officially marked the one-hundreth birthday of the Republic of Estonia. This gave me again a reason to dive into my family history and celebrate the people who built this country. Their sacrifices and diligence in hardships don’t cease to both amaze and impress me.

Screen Shot 2018 03 16 at 2.21.51 PM 48x36@2x One of the highlights of this month was our family trip to Finland. We went there by a ferry. It was really cool to see the frozen Baltic Sea. All of the water was pretty much asymmetrical blocks of ice. Finland is really pretty! They have many lakes (about 168 000) and endless uninhabited boreal forests! But our first priority was to visit Helsinki Finland Temple. I believe it to be (along with the rest of the 159 operating temples our Church has) a sacred place and the house of God. It was wonderful to visit it and it really made me appreciate everything that has been created, even more than I did before. The time there also gave me a chance to rewind everything that has been going on in my life lately and steer myself back to where I want to be. In conclusion, this month I mostly analysed and studied myself. As ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”