“We learn to do by doing”
—John Dewey
Progressive Education at Touchstone: A Child’s Best Preparation for the Real World!
At Touchstone, we respect and value the whole child. The social, emotional, creative, physical, and moral dimensions of development are all emphasized and balanced in age-appropriate ways. We believe a fundamental purpose of education is to help children develop critical thinking skills: the ability to ask appropriate questions and to seek complex, if tentative, answers to those questions. Our children learn to understand and appreciate their own unique approaches to learning. Learning how to learn and assuming ownership for their education, they develop positive, creative strategies for the challenges they and their communities face.
Seeking real home and school cooperation, Touchstone encourages parent involvement in our open decision-making processes, and provides opportunities for both multi-age and multi-generational learning. Our mission-directed teachers teach from their deep knowledge and understanding of each child. We believe that meaningful education is based on direct, hands-on experience; children learn best by doing. We see constructive teaching and learning activities, in which students discover and create meaning, as taking place within a real context, and most eagerly engaged in by the children when the purposes are clearly revealed and understood. Discovering that reading and writing can be pleasurable joys unto themselves, our students also develop genuine self-confidence, which enables them to become strong self-advocates in our often uncertain and ambiguous world. In addition, Touchstone emphasizes group or team effort, a valuable collaborative approach common in the real world. Ultimately, it is our hope to help nurture life long learners, who see, understand, and assume their responsibilities to shape democratically the world and to protect and sustain actively the earth and universe they are prepared to inhabit.
The following Statement of Principles, adopted by The Network of Progressive Educators, underline our hopes, dreams, and beliefs:
- Students learn best through direct experience, primary sources, personal relationships and cooperative exploration.
- The blending of students’ interests and teachers’ knowledge is the starting point for all work.
- Schools pay equal attention to all facets of student development.
- Assessment is accomplished through multiple perspectives.
- The school and the home are active partners in meeting the needs of students.
- Parents, students and staff cooperate in school decision-making.
- Schools build on the home cultures of students and their families.
- Schools encourage young people to fulfill their responsibilities as world citizens by teaching critical inquiry and the complexities of global issues.
- Schools help students develop their social conscience and help them learn to recognize and confront issues of race, class and gender.