Habibi's Celebrates 25 years...
About Habibi's Hutch
We have been an institution in Austin since August 17, 1980. We are not what
many would call a "traditional" early childhood educational setting. In order
for you to more fully understand our community and what it means to be part of
the Hutch Family we have prepared this handbook. Within its pages you will find
everything from practical information about what to do when you can't find your
child's left shoe to more philosophical information about how we position ourselves
as educators and how we conceptualize our school and our curriculum.
We
believe the work of artists parallels our lives at Habibi's on many levels. The
reason we think of Habibi's in these terms is that we see our school as a work
of art, something inherently flexible and open-ended. We consider the school
itself as an artistic endeavor in progress, something that must be fully lived
and appreciated as a combination of precise intention and raw emotion. We also
speak in terms of art and artistic expression as a metaphor which illustrates
explicitly the kind of thinking and the ways of making sense of the world that
life at Habibi's offers its children. When children graduate from the Hutch they
may know any number of facts or utilize any number of academic skills, but what
they will most certainly leave here "knowing" is how to think critically and
deeply about themselves and the world in which they live. With our children we
reflect on the beauty and the wonder of our world and the life within it in the
way that an abstract expressionist or an impressionist might - not in terms of
Facts and Absolutes, but in terms of personal impressions and full expressions
of the range of emotion and creativity afforded each of us. Through unfettered
conversation and social being we explore ourselves and our friends like an artist
explores color and texture.
These years in a house of love, learning and celebration will help sustain
our children through the indifference, inertia and dispassion that could pass
their way in other, more traditional, educational settings.
Nothing better prepares children for the future than truly respecting their
present states of mind and body. It is up to us to give your children a place
where they are creating, exploring and living something that is truly their own.
The joy they will take with them from their days here will last them a lifetime.
