STUDENTS

Students Are Individuals

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to education. Every child is unique. Every youth has different likes and dislikes, specialized prior knowledge and skills, and diverse ambitions, goals, and dreams. And every student learns differently. There is no “standard content” or “classic canon” or “preferred body of knowledge” that every student should learn, and there is no “standardized test” that can rightly measure individual student learning and growth.

Students learn by doing. Students learn by exploring. Students learn by creating.

Students are not “empty vessels” waiting to have knowledge dumped inside them by an “expert” or “talking head,” or deposited into their account like a system of banking. Students begin with rich and deep innate funds of knowledge as well as personal experience, and build up from there. Students inform their learning. Children, youth, and young adults can help define and even self-direct many of their lessons and activities. Teachers tailor education to each unique individual, and learn alongside them, with them, and from them.

Students Are Human Beings

It is insufficient and even harmful to see students simply as bodies to be counted, shuffled around, and “educated.” It is not enough even to strive to “prepare citizens for society” or “ready them for college or careers.” Rather, each and every child must be received, viewed, and treated with the respect, dignity, and reverence that should be afforded to all human beings. They must be educated with love, and sent forth in freedom.

Students learn by striving. Students learn by sharing ideas. Students learn by hearing and discussing the ideas of others.

Our question is not, “What does each student need to know and be capable of doing so as to fit into the existing social order?” Our question is more, “What potential does this person have and what can be developed within him or her?” Similarly, as a society, the goal should not be to mold the upcoming generation into its own image. Our goal should be a continuous renewal of our world. And in this renewal, there will live all that our maturing human beings who are living in it cause it to be.

Students in Community

Our students are autonomous and self-directed, yet very much a part of a community. Students spend time with their own age or similar-age participants in their cohort groups, and they spend time in mixed age groupings during electives, activities, performances, research and other projects, school governance and operations, business, recreation, and free play.

Students learn by participating. Students learn by evaluating. Students learn by governing. Students learn by playing.

Learning and Growing Together

Students learn from their teachers, and they also learn from each other. Students teach each other, and they also teach their teachers. Everyone is both a teacher and a learner, learning and growing together, side by side.

Students learn by spearheading projects. Students learn by conducting business. Students learn by going places. Students learn by collaborating as part of a team.

Home Culture

We honor, respect, and value each student’s home culture. Home cultures, languages, heritages, and religions are lived, revered, and celebrated at the Academy. We do not shy away from inclusive practices; we encourage them. We do not erect a wall of separation between a child’s home life and school life; we do not ask students to leave their identities at the door. We understand the intersections of one’s culture, learning, and literacy. We allow these intersections to help students learn more deeply and in more fulfilling ways.

Students learn by sharing. Students learn by teaching. Students learn by getting to know others.

Home Language

We honor, respect, and value each student’s home language. Cohort teachers study and learn the home languages of all their cohort students. Every student and every teacher is a language learner. Every student and every teacher is, and becomes, multilingual.

Students learn by immersing themselves in languages and cultures.

Founts of Knowledge

We value the knowledge, skills, and abilities each student brings to our learning community. Students, with teachers, are involved in every aspect of running the school and in its governance. Students, with teachers, produce art and artistic performances. Students, with teachers, get involved in research and other projects and activities. Students, with teachers, conduct business.

Students learn by building things. Students learn by performing. Students learn by researching. Students learn by traveling and visiting other places. Students learn by managing projects and budgets. Students learn by producing events. Students learn by launching businesses.

Today’s World

We are a vibrant and caring learning community developed for the astute and dynamic youth of our world today - not yesterday's.

We are now moving from the 21st century toward the 22nd century - our education models should no longer be rooted in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. This is especially true with respect to the many problematic notions and ideals embedded in the practices of those periods, including colonialism, imperialism, extreme nationalism, and oppressive and toxic industrialism.

Children, youth, and young adults of today will benefit from less authoritarian and compliance-oriented approaches to education and more critical, questioning, autonomous, self-directed, democratic, and service-oriented approaches, within a community of peers and collaborators.

Research, Scholarship, Theory, and Philosophy

We lean into the scholarship, expertise, wisdom, and experience of multiple educational philosophers, theorists, researchers, and practitioners, as well as our own personal and professional experience, striving to design and implement education from the very best ideas and know-how available to us - so much of which are currently unstudied or ignored in most present-day “teach-to-the-test” schools.

Examples include: Reggio Emelia, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf Education, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Daniel Greenberg/Sudbury Valley School, Sonia Nieto, bell hooks, James Banks, Elizabeth Dutro, John Taylor Gatto, Peter Gray, Laurel Richardson, Maxine Greene, Michelle Fine, Suhanthie Motha, Linda Redmond Taylor, Ernest Morrell, Daniel Yon, Peter McLaren, Brian Schultz, Lucy Greene, Juliet Hess, Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Susan Lytle, and many more.

School and Unschool

We can be called a school but we are not a school by today’s definition: we do not teach the standardized content and curriculum of schools, we do not use classrooms the way schools do, we do not test, assess, grade, and send home report cards, the way schools do. We abide by laws, of course, but we do not follow the state mandates for schools, because we do not school. We unschool. We are a not-for-profit membership organization and learning center that offers educational and learning experiences for children, youth, and young adults who are unschooling, de-schooling, out-schooling, world schooling, and homeschooling.

Children in their earlier years (up to 6) engage almost entirely in free-play and exploration. Children, youth, and young adults from age 6 or 7 onward, to the extent desired, become self-directed, autonomous, collaborative learners, working with and learning from teachers, other students, and parents, within interdisciplinary, problem-posing, project-based, critical research, and team-situated real-world environments, with optional electives, sports, free-play, travel, field trips, and work/study.

Each day at the Academy consists of similar-age (cohort) learning in the morning, and mixed-age electives, activities, exploration, and free-play in the afternoons. All activities, including cohort and elective, are optional for students. Students may also participate in school governance, administration, and operations, including serving on the judiciary committee and other teams.

Students are free to learn what’s best for them, when it’s best for them, in the way that’s best for them. And teachers are free to teach in the way that’s best for them and their students. Students and teachers can suggest, initiate, and coordinate things, and students and teachers can also respond to the suggestions of others.

Cohorts

Students participate in morning cohort student-teacher groups, determined by age. Each student is a member of an age-level cohort which stays together with the same two (minimum) or more co-teacher/mentors through all grade levels, from the age they start until age 18 when they graduate.

Cohort is determined by the age the student will be in that year. For example, all students who turn 7 in a year that begins January 1 and ends December 31 will be in the same cohort. Cohorts are determined by age, not by grade level. (Although there is a correlation to traditional school grade levels, we refer to students by cohort age, not be grade level). A student who is 6 years old on January 1 and will turn 7 on August 10 will be in the age 7 cohort.

(Free-play and most electives, sports, and other activities are mixed-aged, non-cohort groupings.)

Knowledge, Exploration, and Paradox

We have answers and we don't have all the answers; we have knowledge and we don't have all the knowledge. We welcome contradiction, paradox, conflict, and puzzlement. We question, we explore, we investigate, we research, we problem-solve, we create, we build, we work, we play, we collaborate, and we communicate. We cultivate community. We nurture authenticity.