2022.12.28 Yamanoko in 2022
Text : Tomoko Nagao
Opened in September 2017, Yamanoko celebrated its 5th birthday this fall. So far, 93 children have been enrolled at Yamanoko, including 93 children and their families, more than 30 Yamanoko staff members including members who have now left, and many others who have continued to create this place by using their generous efforts and thinking of better each time, and by supporting us. It is their support that has made Yamanoko what it is today. I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you. As we approach the end of the year 2022, I would like to share with you some of the events that have taken place this year for the ever-changing Yamanoko.
Granma Moses, Sugaring Off, 1955
Foundation of Staff Club Activities
Club activities by Yamanoko staffs were founded at the staff camp in May 2022. The club activities were founded from the voice of members such that “At Yamanoko, where adult try to support the interests, concerns, and challenges of each child, we would like to gather the adults who work here with sensitivity to their own strengths, likes, and challenges, and use them as a starting point to update the childcare and environment through trial and error and dialogue. We would like to work to enrich this place, not by assigning responsibilities to specific people, but by utilizing our own strengths, likes, and awareness of issues, and to cultivate Yamanoko. “The Garden Club, Creature Club, Development Club, Health Club, Asobu(Play Club), Expression Club, Archive Club, Safety Management Club, and Parents Club to cultivate community with partner parents, Training Club to create learning and working environments for adults, Working Environment Club, Digital Organization Club, and Information Club with an antenna for giving back to society the efforts and attempts of Yamanoko.
The staff from both Yamanoko and Yamanoko Home make time to get together between daily duties, and club meetings are held to exchange perspectives. The club meeting is a place of communication where thoughts and wishes are worked hard to formulate, a place of trial and error, and a place of enthusiasm where creation is born.
The cultivation of a field with parents (Garden Club), an exhibition of parenting classes (Parents Club), a chatting night on animals (Creature Club), and a workshop for parents on physical development up to 1 year old (Development Club) were made possible by the engine of each club activity. In addition, we examined how children play in the garden by updating the childcare environment (Play Club), devised and planned highly effective prowler training to improve safety (Safety Management Club), discuss ideas to make children’s records more actively (Archaeology Club), and trying to organize the data stored past five years(Digital Organization Club), reexamining and reorganizing the health-related system (Health Club), creating the studio environment, selecting picture books, and devising storytelling (Expression Club), and so on.
Thus, the system is becoming a capillary-like system that pumps blood, warms the place, and promotes metabolism and renewal of Yamanoko. In 2022, we felt great joy and encouragement in the daily stirrings of the renewal of the place where we live, not through a single hierarchical and systematic system, but through the multifaceted approach of each activity and the intertwining of various relationships.
Sights of parents, caregivers and children
– Thanksgiving Festival, Potato Boiling Party, and Open Garden and Getting together at Mt. Hachimori
One of Yamanoko’s goals for childcare is to “Walk alongside with the parents in the hope that children will grow.” The fact that staff and parents call each other by their first names is one expression of this goal. We hope that we, parents and staff, can work together as partners, thinking together about the children’s growth as adults who are being close to the children, rather than categorizing each other as parents and childcare staff.
– Thanksgiving Festival, Potato Boiling Party, and Open Garden and Getting together at Mt. Hachimori
One of Yamanoko’s goals for childcare is to “Walk alongside with the parents in the hope that children will grow.” The fact that staff and parents call each other by their first names is one expression of this goal. We hope that we, parents and staff, can work together as partners, thinking together about the children’s growth as adults who are being close to the children, rather than categorizing each other as parents and childcare staff.
For this reason, it is desirable for parents and caregivers to have more opportunities to get to know each other, talk, and exchange values, but for two full years starting in the spring of 2020, opportunities for physical face-to-face communication were drastically reduced due to the COVID-19. The scene where parents, childcare staff, and children spend time together in the same space becomes rather rare.
The Vegetable field project started with children setting a sign asking, “Please let us use the field!” We were able to borrow a nearby garden from the owner Mr. Ken Igarashi, and have Mr. Kyuichi Sato of Yura Farm to offer horse manure(compost). The parents+staff+children worked together to mix the horse manure (compost), added soil from Yamagata Design, made rows with everyone, planted seedlings, harvested the vegetables, and held a Thanksgiving party with everyone. The soil that was once like a swamp is now cultivated into a fertile field by everyone’s efforts, and the great harvest were enjoyed by everyone (with miso, prepared by last year). Sharing this process with the families of both Yamanoko Home and Yamanoko, I felt that not only the fields but also the community itself was being cultivated, as current and former children, parents, and staffs were involved in various ways with the support of the local supporters.
The Vegetable Field Project
Thanksgiving Festival
Potato Boiling Party (Imoni-kai Party)
At the Imoni-kai party, taro that the children had dug up in the fields of Shonai Fudo Farm, which supplies vegetables to Yamanoko, was stewed in the cooking team’s special broth and finally served over a bonfire. What a happy sight it was to see many parents and children sipping the delicious soup in the Yamanoko garden from dusk until the sun went down, amidst the smoke from the bonfire and the steam from the taro stew.
In the words of cooking expert Yoshiharu Doi, “Don’t cook by force. Even water can be damaged if the fire is too strong. If you cook with anger, the taste will be damaged.” The delicious vegetables, miso, and taro stew at the Thanksgiving event had episodes in the process leading up to it, and the thoughts and presence of the many people in the community who were involved in it, and I felt that it was not forceful or too strong, but gentle and careful, taking the form of a wish.
Open garden is an opportunity to have Yamanoko children and adults to come to Yamanoko twice a month (on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month) which came into real through online communication among the members of the Tsunagari-tai, a group of parent volunteers. We have received comments such as, “We now have more options for places to go on weekends instead of going to the park,” or “We knew it was raining and no one was around, so we went to play to get food for the animals and insects we keep at home when it stopped raining for a while.”
I am very happy that the families can use this place at their convenience even when the childcare is closed, and that Yamanoko can jump into a part of children’s weekend. I believe there are as many ways for each families how they interact with Yamanoko. And that this is also an opportunity to expand the possibilities of Yamanoko.
Finally, Yamanoko has been sending out graduates for the past three years and currently has 21 graduates, and we feel that this is precisely the phase in which we will be focusing on the connection with school-age children. At the Forest Play in Hachimoriyama, planned by the parents, both current Yamanoko children aged 0-5 and elementary school students, including graduates and families of staff, came to play, which became an opportunity for a wider range of different ages to mix together. This opportunity seemed to provide a chance to increase their perspectives on children through seeing children of different ages from own child, seing how children of school age play, and through exchanging concerns*, images, and ways of interacting with children after graduation.
(*At the post-cleaning chat with parents, some said, “I am happy to see my children allowed to do what they like every day. On the other hand, I worry about what will happen when they go to elementary school.” In order for children to have the ability to acquire their own mental freedom without violating someone else’s freedom, even under the various restrictions of society, I hope that they can acquire the ability to choose what they like to do, explore it fully, and create and deepen their play in their early years.)
(*At the post-cleaning chat with parents, some said, “I am happy to see my children allowed to do what they like every day. On the other hand, I worry about what will happen when they go to elementary school.” In order for children to have the ability to acquire their own mental freedom without violating someone else’s freedom, even under the various restrictions of society, I hope that they can acquire the ability to choose what they like to do, explore it fully, and create and deepen their play in their early years.)
Whenever I witness scenes like the ones described above, in which staff, parents, and children spend time together as a party in the life of the child, I am reminded of the work of the painter Gramma Moses. A space where one can feel the sky, the earth, the wind, and the seasons, where there are the activities of daily life and handicrafts, and where children and adults are engaged in their own lives and play.
A passage in the book “La decroissance” states, “Real wealth comes first and foremost from the organization of well-functioning social relationships.It can be having friends, doing things that interest you, breathing clean air, and eating safe
In 2022, thanks to all the people involved, I am truly grateful for being able to create a life with you in such a scene, and for keeping the life of this 5-year-old Yamanoko.
Grandma Moses《Picnic on the grass》1951
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