families at One Community, kids at One Community, One Community families, One Community children, fulfilled living, we are One Community, transformational living

Families with Children at One Community

One Community values the collaborative and cooperative environment created by working and living as a family. Our viewpoint is that every person, regardless of age, plays a crucial role in shaping the One Community experience. We feel extending the family spirit to include all members of One Community, and ultimately all members of the entire human organism, supports happier people and the creation of a better future for the planet. Thus, our team has specifically designed the One Community education program, holistic recreation model, daily living, and construction plans with families in mind.

This ‘Families with Children’ page was created to explain:

  1. Why we would prefer team members bring 1 child or less, and that children are over the age of 2 or 3
  2. Why we request additional information in our interview process specifically for families with children
  3. How the interview process differs for families with children
  4. Frequently answered questions

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE ONE COMMUNITY INVITATION PAGE

CHILDREN AT ONE COMMUNITY

At One Community, we are creating an environment that we feel best prepares our children to provide individually enriching, creative, innovative, collaborative, for The Highest Good of All leadership in a future we see as globally sustainable and happy. To facilitate this, we will be piloting a new integrated method of teaching, learning, and living that we believe will provide the dramatic, positive, and effective results necessary to become a catalyst for holistically improving education models everywhere. The initial success of the pilot of our innovative education and family program, and the success of One Community as a whole, lies just as much in the individuals participating as it does in the program’s design. With this in mind, we are looking to ensure all aspects of One Community meet the needs of all ages of participants, while simultaneously making sure that all individuals, regardless of age, are a good match for One Community.

WHY ONE CHILD OVER THE AGE OF 2 OR 3

We have established guidelines for families with children because we feel it aligns with our Highest Good of All culture. Childcare and the education program will be synonymous at One Community and we desire a high parent/teacher to child ratio at all times. With the amount of creation and building that One Community will be doing (initial infrastructure, open source goals, etc.) we have allocated time specifically to assure 3 people will be available 10 hours a day to operate the childcare/education program. During both the education program and times of the day when this program will not be available, we feel that families with one child, and children over the age of 2 or 3, are most supportive of the environment we will all be sharing. Our reasoning for this is a combination of respect for the additional needs of very young children and a desire for a two-parent-to-each-child ratio whenever possible.

Looking to the future, we seek parents and parents-to-be that also agree with this approach.

WHY ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN

Our desire is that the experience of developing and building One Community is collaborative between all members of the One Community team. We would like children who demonstrate both the necessary level of maturity and the desire to be a part of this collaborative and creative process to be able to participate in it as much as possible. For this reason, we are specifically investing additional time in the family interview and application process and are seeking both parents and children that are capable and excited about:

  • Open feedback and sharing/discussing emotions and thought processes
  • Engaging the education process itself and learning new things in new ways
  • Creating and maintaining a positive and supportive environment of “always do your best”
  • Evolving and behaving in ways that show sharing and helping others is fun and the right thing to do
  • Co-designing the developmental path and multi-age collaborative interactive learning/teaching style
  • Learning in nontraditional environments, such as outdoors and in hands-on environments helping adults
  • Embracing and practicing the One Community Values
DIFFERENCES IN THE APPLICATION PROCESS FOR FAMILIES

The more comprehensive application process for families is essentially comprised of a diversity of additional questions (links below) for parents, and a separate questionnaire for the child, to allow us to assess to the best of our ability if One Community is a good fit for the entire family. Children are included in the first interview as outlined in the One Community Review and Interview Process Overview Page. The children who fill out the adult (standard) application form receive their own second interviews individually just like adult applicants. In the case of younger children, we have a list of specific questions we like to ask them along with a parent in the second interview. More details can be found on these pages:

ADDITIONAL PARENT QUESTIONS | ADDITIONAL YOUNGER APPLICANT QUESTIONS

FREQUENTLY ANSWERED QUESTIONS

Q: Can single parents of children apply with their child?

Yes.

Q: Can two parents with two children apply?

Our preference for one child will factor into our decision regarding these applications but parents with two children are still welcome to apply.

Q: Who will take care of the children for the time allocated specifically to childcare?

Childcare and the education program are operated by the complete One Community team as part of community contribution and will be organized by consensus.

Q: What if I really want to be a part of world change but I have too many children or don’t agree with something on this page?

We’d still love to work with you! Consider joining us as a Satellite Member (click here for the Invitation Form), consultant or partner (click here for the Consultant’s/Partner’s Page), and/or just follow our progress. We expect other communities will follow with different views on these issues and we will happily be promoting their success also if they are part of the open source and free-sharing network of teacher/demonstration communities, villages, and cities that we are helping to create. Here are the best ways to follow our progress:

Most importantly, the point of One Community is to build living blueprints open source so everyone can then use them for duplication. If you feel like you’d like to see a different version of One Community, we invite you to embrace the the task of working with us and using everything we’ve already created to form another iteration of this idea, with a new set of rules/policies/guidelines, and attract to this idea the people who share your values and thus like your rule sets. In so doing, providing another for The Highest Good of All option with a potentially totally different approach.