During the week of February 28 to March 4, we enjoyed another week on the farm.
At the beginning of the week Mirka and Matouš Vlčkovi, the owners of the farm, came to us for their regular monthly meeting with the students. We had many questions for them about their plans for the spring and other things where their work and our work on the farm connect. The meeting was organised in a formal way of a team meeting and we students took our own minutes.
We learned that plans are underway to renovate the toilets and showers inside the house. There will be two girls‘ showers and toilets downstairs and two boys‘ showers and toilets upstairs. We will also be adding a classroom with a glass wall instead of a garage. We’ll have a new workshop room and a new storage room.
In the barn, the owners will build us a wooden floor, and an outdoor kitchen. There will also be tables and chairs so that we can cook outside, and so that we can learn outside. Also, when parents come, we will have a place where they can sit and have some snacks and where we can host them. We are really looking forward to that.
Mirka Vlčková is exploring the possibility of getting a grant for a project to revitalise the Makyta stream, the water reservoir, and maybe to build a root waste water treatment plant. These things are in the exploration stage of possibilities, and we hope they work out, because we would all very much like to see the farm run in an environmentally friendly way. We are now thinking about who among us would like to participate in this project with Mirka. We have the opportunity to learn a lot from it.
We also talked about the events that will take place on the farm until the summer. There will be a visit by directors of the international Montessori schools, they will be at the Montessori Institute for training in April, and we can show them around the farm. Also, the mayors of the 11 surrounding villages are coming to see us, and we will have a meeting of the Local Action Group Hřebeny. We want to connect the farm to surrounding events and local life, and this will be a wonderful opportunity to meet local active citizens from non-profits, the fire department, etc. Other community events are being planned by Sona Havlíčková and information about them will be coming soon.
We discussed a number of other things: where to put the compost, what to do with the hay we don’t need now, what ecological detergents to buy for the farm, whether we are going to do a bee project, and much more.

Throughout the week on the farm we were accompanied by Zuzka, our main program coordinator, who shared with us days and nights, workshops, activities, cooking and cleaning. She was our main liaison. We alternated between working outside and attending seminars. We steadily assembled our new furniture and beds for the rooms. Michal helped us build birdhouses, Majda came to us for Spanish and Anička for physics, and we discovered the laws of nature in the field. We also used it again to explore biological knowledge in practice with Jitka. We finished establishing the garden beds and prepared them for the first sowing.
Together with Franta we had a maths seminar, and we worked on independent work in English and other areas of our curriculum in „Open work time“. With Vitezslav we had a wonderful musical evening with the sound of piano, guitar and especially singing.
Also on Wednesday, our director Hanka came to visit us with Richard, an American educator and Montessori and farm enthusiast, with whom some of us had a great English conversation and invited him to dinner. It was nice to host someone at our „home“ on the farm. And it was nice to see someone so excited about our home.
During the social-humanities block, with Pavla we had a long discussion about the current situation in the world in relation to the war in Ukraine. We are very sensitive to our values and democratic pillars of society, and the current situation affects us all. We had a week to ourselves on the farm, but we did not break away from reality. We needed to discuss everything properly, to find answers and to express our feelings and opinions. After all, Montessori is a way of education for peace. Our common effort is to learn to live together in our community, thus strengthening our attitudes, habits and values well into adulthood and life. To be able to sort information, seek it out and think critically about it. To not just accept what we hear, but to be able to think, process and talk about things. To be able to help and seek solutions. That is what we need to focus on. So the goal of teaching is not just to learn years and patterns from books. The goal is to grow into a person, thinking, working, helping, anchored in society and knowing their own value, with respect for themselves and others.
During the week we had again many experiences, activities, community games in the evenings and moments of intimate sharing with each other.

And when some of us greeted Hanka with the words – thank you for being here, we don’t even want to go home – we meant it and we were sincere. Some of us are still trying to figure out how to combine the farm with the rings in Prague, what has more meaning, weight, and sense for us. How to step out of our comfort at home and plunge into independence beyond the demands of our parents. We consider what we want and how to move forward in our growing up. It’s all part of our journey, it’s an evolution and not an easy one at that. It’s good to have adults around to help us through it. To find ourselves and the right path for us.
On behalf of the adolescent programe team and students, Hanka Chramostová