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Our Educational Philosophy:J&K's Theory of Learning:Fundamentally, we believe learning must be considered in the context of human development. In our work, we have found that where motivation goes, so goes the mind; so we try to work with a student's natural curiosities when addressing their motivations. In pursing the natural curiosities of students, we have found that every student learns in a unique manner, constructing their own meanings in any variety of contexts, and that these meanings are a synthesis of both their own preconceptions and what they've been taught. For example, language is universally observed in people, but each person's specific language depends on the social environments in which that person acquired language. In educational contexts, the perspectives of students are often quite different from the perspectives of teachers, and we feel it is the teacher's task to attempt to build bridges between these perspectives, rather than try to override a student's perceptions.We find that the human mind is constantly identifying innumerable learning opportunities. While some students are highly self-directed and succeed through various "discovery" methods of learning, many students require a guide through the maze of learning experiences they encounter. For example, A student may say, "I need help with math," and really mean he is hoping you will do his homework or at the least tell him how to do his homework, regardless of whether he makes meaning out of the material on which the homework is based. This dynamic can present vexing challenges to teaching. If the teacher gives in and helps the student without attention to meaning-making, the student really isn't learning. However, if the teacher insists on attending to foundational pieces that generate meaning, the student may feel so frustrated by his own thwarted wish that he is unable to listen to his teacher. These dynamics do not provide easy solutions, but they can be worked through. This gets to the heart of our developmental approach. Given the complexity of trying to understand the dynamics of learning, our mentors spend considerable time reflecting and writing about the lessons, communicating with families and teachers, and meeting with each other, all on behalf of coming up with solutions that address both students' wishes and the need for academic progress. Our learning paradigm suggests we focus less on how to "get" students to learn what's taught in school and more on a dialogue that helps them construct their own meanings out of their academic experiences, so that they can develop reflective capacities as growing individuals and begin to take a more proactive role in what and how they learn. We're especially concerned about studies that indicate students forget a majority of what they've learned in the classroom within 30 days. We believe that when students learn material on grounds that they help to define and understand, they can integrate it in personally meaningful ways that keep the information more readily available in their minds. |