Teachers Are Individuals

Teachers are individuals, and each teacher brings unique talents, ideas, strategies, and perspectives to our learning community. Teachers select and/or design their own projects, content, and curriculum, working with students, parents, and other teachers. We don’t ask for one-size-fits-all, we don’t ask all teachers to be the same or to teach the same things, we don’t want script-readers or talking heads, we don’t teach to tests or regurgitate “knowledge” designed or dictated by outsiders. Our teachers are authentic, autonomous professionals, dedicated to the students they teach, the families they serve and collaborate with, and the community they help cultivate.

Teachers Are Human Beings

Teachers are human beings, and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, as persons and as professionals. Teachers, like students and all other persons, benefit from a healthy work-life balance. Teachers put in a full day’s work and then go home to care for themselves and their families. Teachers receive four weeks of vacation per year (one week per quarter), plus a variety of other holidays and personal days. Teachers are appreciated for the value, expertise, experience, commitment, and love they bring to and share with our students. Teachers participate in teaching and in learning, and to the extent desired, in research, in self-development, in Academy governance, and in business.

Teachers in Community

Everyone is a teacher. Those traditionally called teachers are teachers. Yet every person at the school contributes to the education of others and is therefore also a teacher. Students are teachers, parents are teachers, all employees of the school are teachers; all are educators.

Teachers are autonomous and yet part of community. Teachers teach together - all cohort groups and many electives and activities have two co-teachers. Teachers learn together - teachers make opportunities for self-development and professional development individually or with other teachers, and with students. Teachers follow their dreams, and encourage interested students to study and collaborate with them. Teachers research together (and with students), teachers govern and administer the school together (and with students), teachers play together (and with students), and teachers do business together (and with students).

All employees of the school are equals and receive the same compensation and benefits.

Home Culture

As with students, we honor, respect, and value each teacher’s home culture. To the extent desired by each teacher, home cultures, languages, heritages, and religions are lived, revered, and celebrated at school. We do not shy away from inclusive practices; we encourage them. We do not erect a wall of separation between a teacher’s home life and school life; we do not ask teachers to leave their identities at the door. As teachers are also learners, we understand the intersections of one’s culture, learning, and engagement with the world. We allow these intersections to help teachers teach and learn more deeply and in more fulfilling ways.

Home Language

As with students, we honor, respect, and value each teacher’s home language. Every teacher and every student is a language learner, and is, and becomes even more, multilingual.

Founts of Knowledge

We value the knowledge and abilities each teacher brings to our learning community. A teachers’ primary responsibilities includes both teaching and learning. And teachers do even more. Teachers, with students, produce art and artistic performances. Teachers, with students, are involved in every aspect of running the Academy and in its governance. Teachers, with students, get involved in research and other projects and activities. Teachers, with students, conduct business.

Teachers do not teach to tests, and they do not follow textbook publishers’ and other outsiders’ scripts. We are less concerned with “instructional minutes” and more concerned with the quality of instruction. Teachers learn about their students - each and every individual student - and help them learn according to their needs and desires.

Teachers are also learners, and as they have time to teach in meaningful ways, so they also have time to learn in quality ways. Teachers teach 4 hours out of every 8 hour day. They use the rest of the time for learning, growing, researching, and participating in the life of the Academy and the community.

Cohort teaches teach in the mornings, and use the afternoons for planning and preparation, self-development, research and creative work, governance and operations, community-building, and other self-selected activities, including self-care. Elective teachers teach in the afternoons, and use the mornings for planning and preparation, self-development, research and creative work, governance and operations, community-building, and other self-selected activities, including self-care.

Today’s World

We are a vibrant and caring learning community developed for the astute and dynamic teachers 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. Teachers of today, likewise, will benefit from less authoritarian, top-down, compliance-oriented approaches to education policy and curriculum development, and more autonomous, collaborative, team-based, inquiry-based, and supportive 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, deschooling, and homeschooling.

Children in their earlier years (4-6) engage almost entirely in free-play and exploration. Children, youth, and young adults from age 7 onward 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, 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.

Cohorts, Electives, Activities, and Free Play

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 or more co-teacher/mentors through all grade levels, from the age they start until age 18 when they graduate. Cohort teaches teach in the mornings, and use the afternoons for planning and preparation, self-development, research and creative work, school governance and operations, and other self-selected activities, including self-care.

Students participate in afternoon electives, activities, exploration, and free play. Elective teachers teach in the afternoons, and use the mornings for planning and preparation, self-development, research and creative work, school governance and operations, and other self-selected activities, including self-care.

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

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.

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