How we teach everything
Not the same-ol’-same-ol’
We teach differently because we think about education differently.
There are certain forms of information that stick in the human brain:
stories
metaphors
riddles
huge, game-changing ideas
“In schools we represent the world to children as mostly known and rather dull. But the opposite is the case: we are surrounded by mystery, and what we know is fascinating.”
There are more — they’ve been chronicled by Kieran Egan.
These special forms of information are what we call “the lost tools of learning”. They trigger emotion. They make content matter.
They’re most of what fills up the mind of an educated person… but schools have mostly forgotten about these.
Everything we teach is grounded in these.
We explode the “boring”
Have you noticed that a lot of the topics we teach — “water”, “soap”, “hills” — seem sorta boring?
That’s on purpose.
We love it when kids come to class assuming they already understand a topic… because we help them discover the truth is 180º opposite.
Because here’s the secret: we live in a universe that’s really weird. Stuff that looks boring almost never really is.
We help them see that underneath the ordinary lies the extraordinary.
We help kids understand hard things
These tools (combined with our tower-approach to approaching science) lets us teach ridiculously hard things to kids.
particle–wave duality
the true size of the Universe
the rules of the ‘em dash’
art history
the philosophy of René Descartes
…and so much more
We’re for different kinds of kids
We have lots of science-geeky kids — but kids who thought science was boring love our classes, too!
We have lots of gifted/talented, ADHD, and ASD kids — but neurotypical kids love our classes, too!
Because we teach with the lost tools of learning, and investigate the weirdest, most complex ideas in the world… our classes can be for SO MANY KINDS of kids.