Shared Beliefs & Practices
Our teachers share a common set of beliefs about children and learning, foundational ideas that inform practice in our infant, toddler and preschool programs.
We believe children learn best through exploration.
Children are endlessly curious and can learn from everything around them. So we design environments and encounters to spark animated engagement, theory-building, and discovery with friends.
We believe every child is a world for us to discover.
Children are beautifully capable, creative and bursting with potential. So we take time to deeply know, respect and value each child for the person they are right now—whose ideas and needs matter just as much as ours.
We believe in the importance of time.
Learning, thinking and playing take time. And it takes time to be truly present with children — in all the patient and slow ways that nurture deep learning. So we grant children open-ended, uninterrupted time to investigate, learn by trial and error, make complex connections, and expand on ideas.
We believe children are born with a desire to connect.
So day in and out, we scaffold children’s social and emotional growth, helping them gain a collaborative disposition and practical skills to develop kind and caring relationships.
We believe in the power of genuine interest.
So our topics of study arise not from a pre-set curriculum, but from children’s compelling curiosity and genuine enthusiasm: rocket fuel for learning.
We believe in the worth of creative expression.
So the arts are central in all we do. We offer children multiple creative means to express their unique thoughts, feelings, imaginings and enthusiasms.
We believe nature is a profound teacher.
Bugs, boulders, clouds, sudden downpours, rain pooling in puddles, the seasons: nature offers endlessly fascinating lessons about diversity, change and interconnectedness. So we spend lots of time outside and practice reverence for all living things.
“What is important to the child is that the teacher sees the child while he or she is working, while the child is putting out the effort to accomplish the task — how heroic the child is doing this work. When we as adults are able to see the children in the process, it’s as if we are opening a window and getting a fresh view of things.”