Educators are well aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and its place in the educational system. But this awareness doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re doing it right. How does your school support the three foundational levels of each human’s needs: physiological, safety and love/belonging? In schools, we can’t do a lot for the physiological needs […]
Dawn Anderson
Micro-School Shortcut: Schools and Businesses, Pivot and Open a Micro-School!
If starting a micro-school has been part of your long- or short-range plans, you’ve likely discovered the work that goes into this endeavor. Starting from nothing is challenging. But there’s a shortcut that you may not be aware of, one that I’ve used and one that many of my colleagues have used as well. The […]
Benefits of Multi-Age Classrooms in a Micro-School
Many educators lament the idea that the age of a student should drive the level of math, language arts, comprehension, and social communication skills a student has. They also are frustrated by the lockstep expectation that all students progress at exactly the same pace. We know these age and pace standards are fallacies. But when […]
A Year of Change: A Pandemic and A Lot of Politics
This year has been quite the ride for everyone, and certainly a whirlwind for parents with school-aged kids. While political woes were expected due to it being an election year, no one expected a global health pandemic with national community divides on top of that. For most people, there has been a great deal of […]
How Reshaping Education Can Build Leaders for the Future
Preparing kids for the future is a topic that never leaves the mind from the moment a child is born. While some families are equipped to offer their children impactful and enriching experiences, society has placed more weight on the experiences provided in the classroom to ensure youth are prepared for what life will bring […]
How Micro-Schools are Ideal for Interdisciplinary Learning
We don’t live life in silos, so why are we teaching our youth that way? In traditional education, we expect students to focus on one specific topic in one 50-minute class period, then completely shift gears to learn a different specific idea in the next class. Never mind that when you’re learning about cells and […]
How traditional schools are failing at readying our kids for life
Global pandemic aside, parents are (and should be) concerned about their children’s education. For far too long, our schools have repeatedly failed many of our kids. There’s too much red tape and not enough digging in and really ensuring that we’re meeting each child’s needs. We’ve learned that oversight is necessary. But this guidance of […]
How to Make a Micro-School a Long-Term Solution
Parents across the country are looking for solutions for their children’s schooling. Some believe their public school district isn’t prepared to support their children in this COVID-19 world or are fearful for their children’s health if going back to school in person is mandated. Other parents have already seen the reality of their children not […]
What Types of Schools Are Out There?
We already know that traditional education models don’t work for every child. That’s just part of the reason homeschooling and charter schools made big waves in the 1990s and early 2000s. But what many parents don’t know is the sheer number of other options available to more closely meet the needs of children of all […]
How Micro-Schools Work Within the Alternative School Framework
The education system today looks very similar to the way it did 50 or 100 years ago. That is to say, as we learn more about the human brain, how children develop and how we process information, we’ve sadly done little to ensure we’re meeting the needs of all children in our care. That’s where […]