Teaching is mutual as all classroom members are active experts on their
own lives and interests. The adult shares out of a desire to contribute, not
to control.
The quality of the connection between teacher and student is primary; therefore,
we focus first on how we teach, not what we teach.
We believe children make meaningful, lifelong connections with topics of
their own choosing; when children feel ownership of their learning, it happens
on a profound, personal level.
Rather than our goal being a particular academic outcome, we attend to meeting
a child’s need for connection: to self, to others, to learning, to life.
“This resembles an indigenous model for education, which encourages teachers to suspend judgment, not to impose their will, and to trust that meaning will emerge out of the students’ experience of solving their own problems, or even doing nothing. A child sitting on a hay bale might be having a meaningful experience.
The goal of teachers should be to find out what the kids want to know, and then to facilitate a process in which they can learn it.”
-Zenobia Barlow
Executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy
