We aim to nurture confident readers and writers who display independence, flexibility, and critical thinking in all their encounters with text and media, as well as in the communicative challenges with which they are faced.
Young people are faced with an increasingly complex world that demands skills in critically evaluating information, communicating in diverse ways, and sensibly distilling large quantities of information.
The Long-View Literacy Block is run through a workshop model in which learners are engaged in authentic reading and writing experiences that increasingly progress in sophistication. Most of the academic time is spent actually reading and writing, within a supportive community of fellow readers and writers. During the independent reading and writing parts of the block, teachers are strategically conferring with learners, individualizing instruction to meet the needs of each child. Reading and writing units of study focus on studies of various genres and expose learners to skills and ways of thinking that are transferable to future reading and writing endeavors.
As readers, learners tackle texts of increasing complexity; they generally self-select texts aligned to the genre study and are supported to both read deeply and widely, with an expectation that they are reading approximately 2 hours a day. Lessons and discussions support reading critically and utilizing a growing repertoire of skills that increase comprehension, access to complex texts, and enjoyment. Though there is a heavy emphasis on individual reading, the social context of the classroom supports partner reading, book clubs, research groups, and whole group analysis of texts.
As writers, learners are immersed in the process of writing, cycling many times a year through idea generation, drafting, revising, and publishing. Units are also structured around genre, often in tandem with reading units, and lessons support growth in understanding of all aspects of writing, from style, to craft, to coherence, to grammar/punctuation, to general readability. In addition, mentor texts anchor analysis of a genre and provide inspiration. A focus on daily independent writing supported by thoughtful conferring is crucial to the workshop format. These brief interactions provide timely, individualized, holistic feedback on what’s happening at a particular moment in a child’s reading or writing life—and do so, critically, in a way that permits the child to engage dialogically with that feedback in real time.
Science sparks passions and provides a platform for looking critically at evidence or looking at problems through a solution-seeking lens.
In Long-View Science Blocks, learners engage in the practices of scientists and engineers to develop a nuanced understanding of the natural world. Through hands-on practices, our learners discover while there is no universal step-by-step method for scientific inquiry; the scientific approach is defined by shared values such as commitment to evidence-based explanations, rigorous reasoning, and sound justification.
Recognizing the connection between science, society, and culture, our scientists work collaboratively within a community. Learners participate in investigations—engineering-based or experimental—focused on phenomena or guiding questions, constructing their understanding based on shared experiences. As they progress, they gain increasing autonomy, formulating their own inquiries and seeking deep understanding across various scientific domains.
These investigations provide authentic contexts for developing science-based literacy skills. Learners gather and evaluate information from scientific texts and journals, communicate and refine their ideas through discussions and modeling, and produce argument boards or lab reports to share their findings.
Long-View learners develop a set of skills for solving complex real-world problems. Their grasp of scientific concepts enables them to make informed decisions on personal and societal issues. We promote critical thinking through rational discourse, skepticism, peer review, and reproducibility, recognizing creativity as a fundamental element in the production of scientific knowledge. In Science Block, our community acknowledges that while science is reliable, it is also subject to change, and we embrace this dynamic nature.
Our mathematicians are immersed in a multi-dimensional experience that engages them to reach toward an ideas-focused understanding of the discipline.
We create learning experiences in which curiosity, open-mindedness, flexibility, wonder, and quality thinking are intimately connected to deep knowledge of the discipline of mathematics.
Our Math Block is more of an experience than a class. It is rich and multi-dimensional. There are multiple goals at any one time and the content isn’t explored in a strict, linear trajectory. We don’t follow the script of many math classrooms in which we introduce something, practice it in class and through homework, then move on to the next thing the next day. That traditional math-class pattern seems to us to be more about filling time and covering content than providing an experience that will transform thinking.
When you walk into a Long-View Math Block, you’ll see kids involved in sophisticated discourse. You’ll see them evolving their understanding of mathematical concepts through carefully mediated discussions. And you’ll see kids working in partnerships at whiteboards constructing algorithms. You’ll hear them make conjectures, reason, provide proof, make critical observations of the work of their peers, and productively argue as they make sense of the math before them.
At the center of Long-View math is our Generative Framework for the construction of arithmetic concepts—it is applicable to all number forms and removes the need for instruction focused merely on discrete procedures, a mainstay of American schools. The Generative Framework means children are not restricted to only learning “grade-level-based school mathematics;” they experience math as a connected discipline and reasoning is unleashed.
We want our kids to be creators —and not consumers—of technology.
Computer Science prepares kids for something we know will be required in nearly every profession they may one day choose: the ability to look at problems or systems in a way that considers how computers could be used to help solve or model the problem.
Long-View views computer science as a crucial literacy; the CS curriculum focuses on computational thinking and learners often engage in conceptual development without using a computer as the primary tool, instead using whiteboards or physical objects to construct understanding. Python is the core language of focus because it is approachable, portable, and expressive. More experienced learners pause on Python at intervals in order to develop knowledge of web development (CSS, HTML, and JavaScript), Jupyter Notebooks, and data science.
As children progress through Long-View’s program, they engage in extended projects that are driven by them from start to finish. Learners brainstorm, propose a topic, organize their project into discrete tasks, and bring the project to completion. They learn to find their own resources and solve any problem. Example projects include:
Individual work on two different aspects of a Python-based platform game, initially developed in collaboration
A website to promote emerging artists
Analyzing and editing code to understand the mathematics of ray tracing
Rather than assigning nightly homework, “driving your own learning” is our cultural focus.
We do not assign homework at Long-View, but instead we create a learning experience that will prompt kids to leave each day with a desire to know more about the ideas they have explored, furthering their own learning through independent study, reading, iterating work from the school day, conceptualizing a project, or simply initiating conversations about their learning with parents, siblings, and friends.
The culture of Long-View—as well as the more balanced daily and weekly schedule—promotes this level of investment in learning and assigning tedious homework assignments would be antithetical to this goal. Ultimately, we want after school hours to allow kids time to prioritize reading ambitiously, immersing themselves in things that interest them (whether those interests were cultivated at school or elsewhere), and—on their own volition—finding ways to get the most out of their daily experience at Long-View and do the highest quality of work they can.
Reading ambitiously means reading at least ten hours a week. While some of these reading hours occur during our day at Long-View, we have found a greater rate of success in reaching this goal when families set aside at least one dedicated hour at home, every day, for their child to spend on reading. A child’s “reading diet” should be diverse and our goal is that by fourth grade, their reading diet is fifty percent fiction and fifty percent nonfiction.
Immersing themselves in things that interest them may mean taking up a new sport, practicing a musical instrument, trying out a cooking class, deciding to take part in Science Fair and dedicating time weekly to working on an investigation or experiment, learning a language, watching a documentary related to an interest sparked during Campfire, or fishing with a friend in a nearby lake. While we value intellectual endeavors, we want our kids to find things they care about or love to do, and also believe elementary and middle school-aged children should have downtime, opportunity for unstructured play, and as much time as possible outside.
As children grow at Long-View, and especially as they approach the middle school years, they become even more aware that learning is their work to do, and that preparation outside of school can deepen their learning experience. Thus, they begin to find ways to do the highest quality work and get the most out of their daily experience at Long-View by choosing to continue to work on a computer science project, coming in early to re-work a science experiment, reading an article for History Club, taking part in Open Math before school, or working at home to finish up a draft for a paper in Literacy Block.
Learning is assessed constantly and in real time.
At Long-View, no traditional letter or number grades are assigned; instead, work products are critiqued and learners are expected to operate at the highest level.
While children are actively engaging in their learning, teachers are documenting thinking and assessing learning—collecting photos, videos, transcriptions of conversations, screenshots of writing in progress, and more. Teachers regularly gather and analyze these “artifacts.” Thus, we collect and assess constantly, and value the opportunity to use the authenticity of daily work and interactions of learners as rich terrain for mining evidence of growth. We are working to capture not only a young mathematician’s solution, but also his or her thinking and process. We are looking for evidence of understanding key concepts, growing sophistication in regards to efficiency in solving problems, and quality of thinking. We are also interested in how the child communicates, whether collaborative interactions were leveraged, and originality of solutions and ideas.
Ultimately, we position a selection of the discipline-based artifacts that we collect into a written narrative called an Artifact Portfolio, which captures both growth within the discipline, but also growth within the 4 C’s: critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. The Artifact Portfolio allows the teachers to provide a more comprehensive profile of each learner while highlighting the complex work and dynamic interactions that are part of a learner’s daily experience at Long-View.