Educational Philosophy

Our students are actively engaged in learning through talk, writing, art, movement, concept mapping, etc. Driven by wonder, joy, and play, they closely observe and experiment with ideas, materials, and texts both individually and alongside an encouraging and inclusive learning community. Students build age-appropriate independence, self-advocacy, social-emotional skills, and metacognition through choice, application of knowledge, and intentional space for reflection. Experiential learning enables students to share their strengths and shine as they establish long-term connections with a wide array of people, tools, and environments.

Our faculty are equipped to construct classroom experiences that educate students through a range of instructional models (e.g., direct instruction, hands on experiences, discussion). Their flexible, student-centered instruction is driven by clear learning objectives and includes exposure to a range of texts, experiences, and perspectives to facilitate curiosity, conversation, and collaboration. Faculty build close mentoring relationships with students while also maintaining high expectations in efforts to support student independence and self-advocacy. They assess in a variety of ways through ongoing, age-appropriate, and relevant tasks, and they offer feedback that is timely and forward-looking. 

Our curriculum is driven by complementary commitments to rigor and joy; knowledge-building and skill-acquisition; challenge and access; content understanding and academic humility. We aim to build the knowledge students need for lifelong success while also growing the stamina, resilience, and internal passion for lifelong learning.  We provide exposure to multiple vantage points as well as access to tools to help youth civilly dialogue across differences, critically evaluate information that they encounter, and actively engage as citizens.  Making connections with the outside world enables our students to deepen their engagement with our curriculum and enrich their understanding of their communities.  

Our classrooms are flexibly designed to support student-centered exploratory learning alongside more traditional knowledge-building models. Classrooms vary based on the age group and the disciplinary orientation of the instruction, but may include flexible seating, large lab spaces, museum-like exhibits, comfortable furniture, space for centers and small group instruction, writable wall surfaces, movable desks and chairs, carpets for circle time and whole-group instruction, dual screens for displaying content, efficient displays of toys and materials, large tables for dialogue, and outside spaces for learning, playing, and exploring.