A full statement of our teaching and learning philosophies can be found here in pdf form.
Ar The Freedom School, we approach education with the belief that:
- Children construct their own understanding, but benefit from instruction
- Children benefit from opportunities to see connections across disciplines
- Children benefit from both structure and spontaneity
- Children need both to be challenged and to practice skills already mastered
- Children benefit from collaboration with peers
- Children need to develop a positive sense of their own self-identity and respect for other people whose perspectives and experiences may be different from their own.
- Children have enormous capacities to learn and almost boundless curiosity about the world, though they have recognized, age-related limits on their cognitive and linguistic capacities.
- Children benefit both from engaging in self-initiated, spontaneous play and from teacher-planned structured activities, projects, and experiences.
- Children benefit from both fine and gross-motor experiences.
- Children benefit from exposure to rich literature narratives and hands-on environmental experiences.
- Children benefit from having their physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization needs addressed and from them serving and meeting the needs of others.