land acknowledgment
“We respectfully acknowledge that we are on the traditional, ancestral lands of the Osage Nation. The process of knowing and acknowledging the land we stand on is a way of honoring and expressing gratitude for the ancestral Osage people who were on this land before us.”
This land has also been inhabited by the Kaskaskia, Kickapoo,Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, and Quapaw people over centuries of history. At Raintree, the forest is a cherished friend. We will continue to learn about and honor the ancestors who lived here before us, and care for the forest for those who will come after us.
Learn more about the history of this land:
forest school
Many note that “school playground” no longer fits the bill — the swings that you can only use one way and the slides you’ve been instructed to not climb up. “School playgrounds,” after all, were designed to mimic nature’s playground, but they do so rather poorly.
Why use monkey bars when real branches are everywhere you look? Why use stairs when boulders will get you there? Why have a staticky slide when there is a slide made of mud on every other hill? Why have a plastic playground molded to look like nature when Missouri is full of woodland?
Raintree School is a campus amidst a forest, a vast forest with meadows, prairies, creeks, and boulders. We use our forest everyday: to learn, to imagine, to explore, to take risks. Forest school builds agency in children. It allows them to take ownership of their learning and encourages them to learn to trust themselves and their ideas. With every leap, swing, and splash, the freedom of the forest builds self-awareness, independence, and confidence as children evaluate the risks they are taking and discover the natural world around them. At Raintree, the forest is an extension of our classrooms; it is an extension of our homes.