Las Cruces Academy

Integration

Classes should be so completely engrossing that students are studying not for the grades, but because they really, genuinely want to know more. Of course a math class can be dry and completely devoid of anything but numbers and symbols, but it doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be). Besides making classes more interesting, subject integration is much more realistic. In the real world, subjects are almost never cleanly separated. When a client asks an architect to design a building, the architect has to do the math to make sure the building fits together and doesn't collapse, but the client won't just settle for a building that stands up. That same client wants the architect to be a bit of an artist to create pleasing aesthetics, a bit of an advertising agent to pitch the final product to them, a bit of a diplomat to explain cordially why certain things must be, and much more. The same concept applies to nearly every profession and activity: the wider the range of talents you can cleanly integrate into what you do, the more amazing the outcome will be.

Teachers

Like architects and their clients, teachers will be much more successful with their students if they can enthusiastically bring everything together at once. It's not an easy task, but that's why we've hired teachers who are dedicated, enthusiastic, and masterful at capturing children's attention. Capturing and keeping the children's attention means that not only will classes have context from other subjects, instruction will be student-interest driven. Students retain much more of what they learn if instead of us pounding it into their heads, they're learning out of their own free will. So while we have requirements for what they must learn, we give our teachers wide latitude to approach subjects in ways that will make our students love the subject, not just bear it. Students will exceed the benchmarks proposed for - and rarely attained in - the public schools, without the spectre of teaching to the test and a rigid curriculum. The administration of the Academy acts as enablers of teachers rather than overseers. Students and teachers prosper in this arrangement.

Textbooks & Other Books

With some exceptions, we've decided not to rely on textbooks, at least in the sense of classroom sets. They can be an excellent reference for teachers or for students to look up particular concepts, but they are much more of a guided tour than a true exploration of a subject, and exploration is a central component of our philosophy of education. Because of that, instead of 30 identical books, we have amassed a library with thousands of books for the children and teachers to consult and assimilate, and we have no plans to stop adding books.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate for truthfulness and relevance what one hears, reads, or sees. It requires testing the truth of the premises and the logic being used (or not used, or misused) in presentations of purported facts, in political argumentation, in commercial advertising, what have you. It allows one to judge the merits of any claim and to have some measure of confidence in accepting or rejecting a claim. Critical thinking also makes one aware of one's limits of knowledge. A relevant adage is that "It's not so much what you don't know that hurts you; it's what you think you know that isn't true."

Critical thinking is a necessity in any education, on par with any subject content. A hallmark of our teachers is their career-long effort in developing such thinking in students. Ordinary curricula emphasize content at the expense of critical thinking, while we prize it. Mutual questioning is welcomed in the classroom, as is introspection.

Homework

We ask students to do homework in subjects such as Chinese and math. Both these require mastery of material to progress. Some home practice is needed at times for other subjects. The most beneficial home activity related to learning is reading. We expect that students read at home as a common activity.

Breaks

We schedule frequent breaks in the school day, with two recess periods and a PE period every day. Breaking up the academic day with periods of activity reinvigorates the students as well as the teachers and has been shown in a variety of studies to improve learning. The usefulness of breaks is particularly high for the youngest students, who need to move frequently. The simple act of moving to a new position leads one to be more attentive, a finding that carries even to the university level.

The breaks and PE take place either outside, in the large paved Downtown Mall in front of the Academy, which is legally a public park, or in the largest room in the Academy building. The Mall is bigger, has exposure to sunshine, and has lots of sidewalk space for chalk drawings. The students often run, play run-from-the-"monster", and inspect the vegetation in the many planters. When they are inside the students do core-strength-building exercises, run, pretend to move like various animals, or do pilates exercises led by one of our parents.

Freedom To Visit

Parents or guardians are welcome to visit the school during class times, with a few reasonable conditions. We ask for advance notice, for one. Any visit will result in some distraction of the class as a whole. We can work to make such distraction limited or even have it offer some benefit to the class. If you visit and can provide some class enrichment, so much the better. You might offer to tell a story, share some experience, or the like. Of course, you are likely to be interested in how a class proceeds normally and we will gladly arrange such a visit for you.

Community

We feel responsible to the community as a whole and we work to impart this same feeling in our students. We expect that our students will turn into well-informed and well-intentioned leaders. Well before they complete their education, they will be connected to the community, as well. The Academy has outreach in its corporate charter. Students have a direct role in this. Older students will develop an interactive museum and will train younger students to be docents for the general public. Teachers and administration play a complementary role, offering public activities. These include chess lessons and tournaments - already in progress before we open our doors - as well as science demonstrations and math workshops. In the future, we hope to offer enrichment programs directly to the public school students if possible.

Grouping Students By Ability

Children, as well as adults, learn best when given a rewarding level of challenge. It is most productive of learning to group students of relatively similar ability in a given subject. Each student is challenged by minds of similar capacity and can offer challenges to the others. The challenges are not simple competitions that rank-orders students. There is a richness that develops, particularly when challenges are reciprocal and students experience variously the rewards of being both poser and solver. Many exercises devolve into group efforts, with each student contributing a different element.

Grouping is done separately in each subject. A given student may be advanced in math and Spanish beyond his age mates in his nominal grade level, while being at par in science and Chinese. In this case, the student would be in an upper level of math and Spanish and at a nominal age grade in science and Chinese. For any one student, being grouped at different levels in different subjects could lead to scheduling problems. We assure the problem does not occur by the simple expedient of teaching the different levels of each subject concurrently.