Before you dive into this next bit of information, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with some terms. We chose these terms very carefully.

Learners instead of Students: A learner is the opposite of a student. A student is taught, while a learner goes out and seeks information. You graduate from being a student; there is no graduation from being a learner.

Guides instead of Teachers: A Guide is the opposite of a teacher. A guide never lectures, instead they point to where information can be found. They never answer questions. Instead, they empower a learner to find that information on their own, to take hold of their own education, and never stop learning.

Studios instead of Classrooms: A Studio is the opposite of a classroom. Studios are sacred spaces that are the responsibility of the learners and are crafted to aid in their mastery of subjects. They are designed to fit around a learner instead of requiring a learner to fit into them.

Our Learning Approach: A 21st-Century Studio Model

Our studios use a 21st-century one-room schoolhouse approach to learning. This puts multiple ages in the same studio, giving our younger learners the opportunity to learn from the older learners' examples and mentoring while simultaneously allowing the older learners to become leaders and role models to their younger counterparts. When you put a bunch of kids in a room together who are all the same age, typically, the collective mentality is tailored to the lowest common denominator. Conversely, if a group of learners of multiple ages are put into a studio together we typically see the collective maturity rise. This is the reasoning at the heart of why we set up studios this way.

Self Governance in our Studios

Within the studios, we allow our learners to self-govern whenever possible. We encourage responsibility and pride in our learner's studio through self-governance. Our Studios are organized, run, and governed by the learners. Learners negotiate and draft a Studio Contract at the beginning of each school year. An elected Peer Council reviews contract changes and recommends consequences in the studio.

Learners, not guides, suggest, test, and build their contract for the studio. Learners, not guides, outline and enforce the consequences of not following those same rules. Learners, not guides, build freedom levels to which they move up or down, gaining or losing privileges and responsibilities corresponding to the rise and fall of their levels.

Additionally, they oversee the responsibility for the studio's maintenance and integrity. Everything from cleaning the bathrooms in the front to organizing the art supplies in the back falls within the learner's purview. Because with the power to govern one’s studio comes the responsibility for its upkeep.

Customized Learning Plans & the Socratic Method

Similar to the Boy Scouts, we work with a fully customizable badge plan for each learner. Each learner will know exactly what is required of them to pass to the next level. With detailed explanations and clear expectations, we will allow our learners to linger or move to each level and studio as they are ready. This requires an extreme amount of trust between the guides and learners and fosters a deep sense of community and cooperation. There is no top-down leadership or authoritarian stance from the adults in the room. Instead, we allow the learners to move at their own pace and seize responsibility as they are able.

Guides never answer questions. Instead, guides use the Socratic Method to help learners find the answers, information, or knowledge they seek. If guides were to provide answers for the learners, they would rob the learners of the opportunity to learn, think critically, or problem-solve, When that happens, they teach the learners to look to adults for the answers. This is the absolute opposite of what we are about.

Guides seek opportunities to foster an entrepreneurial mindset in the learners and allow them to seek occasions where they can change the world. We firmly believe that given the tools, responsibilities, and opportunity, these learners will indeed change the world. We believe that this is the logical end to their Epic Story and that after we give them the tools and tips and they choose to accept the responsibility, our job as guides is to get out of their way.

Whenever possible, our guides follow Maria Montessori's advice when she said, “The greatest sign of success for a teacher...is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” We do this by scaffolding each learner with their own individual learning plan. This allows our guides to customize each learner’s experience and permits the learner to take responsibility for their own education as they are ready to do so.

No Arbitrary Timeframes: Personalized Learning Pace

We never place arbitrary timeframes on learners. This allows each learner to work at their own pace and master each element and subject as they need to. Every learner learns at their own pace and in their own time. If one needs 3 weeks to figure out and master long division, so be it. If another learner moves faster and clears their workbook in a matter of days, then the next learning opportunity will be ready and waiting for them, clearly laid out and accessible with no gaps or slowing down their natural curiosity and love of learning.

There is often a lot of talk about individualized learning styles in academia; every learner has a unique learning style and pace. Some may grasp concepts quickly, while others may need more time and reinforcement. Customized pacing allows learners to adapt to these individual differences. This also prevents learning gaps where a concept is not fully understood but a learner must move along with the class as a whole. In turn, this reduces the stress and anxiety of learning that comes when learning is expected to occur at a pace that is not suited to the individual learner. It encourages a lifelong love of learning.

School Tailored to Fit the Learner

At Chisholm Creek Academy we believe that parents and guardians are the primary teachers and we will partner with you in extending their education to reinforce lessons and learning to deepen conversations at the dinner table, strengthen family ties, improve behavior, and provide a community of support. We desire to be as transparent as possible and want the relationship between parents and school to be one of mutual support.

To this end, we provide regular portfolio reviews for parents and their learner(s) to sit down and explore in depth the work being done, goals being set, and behaviors being worked on. Learners provide evidence and reasons in a presentation, showing the extent to which they have progressed and grown over the course of their time with us.

We believe that school should fit your learner, instead of your learner fitting into an one-size-fits-all school. At Chisholm Creek Academy we work with your learner and you to create customized learning plans to encourage, accelerate, and push each and every learner to grow to their full potential, begin their own Epic Story, and unlock their potential to change the world.

We believe that critical thinkers, driven by logic and reason, must be taught responsibility, given respect and leadership, and shown how to own their own education. In doing so, we will foster their natural creativity, and their desire to grow and learn and give them the tools to change the world.

We believe that being tied to a desk all day is boring and unnecessary. So we have multiple spaces for learners to accomplish their work. From specific areas like art spaces and kitchens to generalized spots like quiet rooms or collaboration areas, our learners have the ability and autonomy to choose how and where they work best.

We believe that learners should be inspired and not coerced. We grant autonomy to our learners while simultaneously raising the bar on self-respect and self-discipline to allow learners to buy into this model. At Chisholm Creek Academy we train and teach the tactics and discipline that it takes to be self-motivated. We use gaming to make education fun, integrating the latest technology to take learning out of the textbook and classroom and into the very fabric of who they are. We couple that with a unique community of like-minded learners to inspire and encourage each other while holding themselves to a standard of excellence that inspires each learner to change the world.

We build education based on excellence; there are no grades here. Mastery is achieved through striving for excellence day in and day out. Excellence is defined by: 1. Is it the best you can do? 2. Is it better than last time? In striving for these two elements, learners will show consistent and continuous growth and improvement in all aspects of their education from their behaviors to academics 1% at a time. When 1% is added up over and over, massive growth can be tracked, charted, and shown.

We are super comfortable with failure and want our learners to fail early and often. We want them to experience failure and, more importantly, how to overcome it. We want them to fail now when the stakes are low and they are young and can spring back from adversity quickly. We want to be there for our learners when they fail so that we can encourage and coach them on how to get back up. We want them to learn these lessons with the support of their community and tribe. We want them to know that failing is just a step on the road to success and that it is their attitude that determines whether their failure will be catastrophic or a learning opportunity.

We abhor Victim Mentality. The unfortunate truth is that if you think of yourself as a victim, that's all you will ever be. We know that while life is unfair, attitude is everything and everyone is given a choice to see themselves as a victim, or a victor. We choose victor, no matter the obstacle in our path, the challenge to overcome, or dragon to be slain. We choose to be a victor no matter the size of the challenge or pain experienced in overcoming. Our Epic Stories are much more interesting and powerful because of the tales of overcoming. Furthermore, it is only by willingly engaging with these challenges that we gain the skills and build the character necessary to progress through our Epic Story, not despite the difficulty, but because of the difficulty.

For us, the data is clear: Homework for the sake of homework is useless, so we don't assign any. Ever. Our day is structured so that your learner will have plenty of time to accomplish their work and move at a pace best suited to their needs. The only time they will have homework is when they choose to continue learning out of love for their subject, they manage their time poorly and choose to make up that work time, or they have bitten off a large goal and are using extra time to accomplish it. The point is that they are choosing it; we are not forcing it, assigning it, or otherwise requiring it. In this way all school work is geared towards an end. Learners work to achieve the goals they set for themselves. At Chisholm Creek Academy work is never arbitrary.

Our tuition is $10,000 per learner per year. Please click here for more details

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