Reply to Seaton vs. ITS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, if your primary goal is for your 4-5 year old to be maximally challenged academically (does that mean reading more and harder texts, doing high level arithmetic or algebra?) in school every day, I don't think you'll be happy with kindergarten at Inspired.

The curriculum is play and inquiry-based, there is no expectation that kids will be reading (though teachers support kids who are reading and there are differentiated literacy groups starting in K), kids spend A LOT of time working together in groups and engaged in problem solving, and yes, that includes kids with varying academic and social skills and kids at varying stages of growth. In my experience, there's not a lot of "kids that are ahead academically helping those that are struggling academically" because the curriculum works differently - for example, all kids in the class pair up and share their answers to a math problem and how they arrived at the answers and then figure out together if both answers are correct, if they used the same methodology, or where one child's problem-solving went awry.

I was an early reader and an academic superstar in school and did a ton of higher order academic enrichment as a child. The education that my kids are getting and the skills that they are building to think critically, understand causes and figure out solutions to all sorts of problems, and work with peers of all abilities is, I am certain, preparing them better to live in the world than my education did. Oh, and my middle elementary school kid is reading at an 8th grade level and loves school and is happily engaged in the work. This morning we had conversations about friction and density and inertia based on topics that they learned about last week.

The description of the school's learning approach on the web site really says it best: https://www.inspiredteachingschool.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=1175429&type=d&pREC_ID=1423799[/quote]

Thank you, this is very helpful. ITS classrooms look so different from Seatons that it was hard for me to know how to compare them, and I felt there was something going in that was hidden to me. This is truly helpful![/quote]

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