Building Confidence at Long-View
Is your child exuding confidence as a learner in a way that he or she had not experienced in previous educational experiences? At Long-View, the academics are different, but so are the ways we facilitate learning. Independence and confidence are always on the horizon, and how we teach constantly stretches young children to become more independent and more confident.
At Long-View, the rigorous learning experiences that we facilitate are not simply predicated on pushing through more difficult subject matter or keeping a more rigorous pace or even collecting more minutes spent on subject areas. We are not simply moving through a series of topics or skills in hopes that our students will sit passively, consuming as much discrete information as is humanly possible within a period of nine months. We know that such an approach can never incite or connect with the natural curiosity of young learners. It does not encourage questioning; rather it prevents students from posing questions.
Our approach is quite the contrary. The Long-View experience is more a matter of the way in which time is spent with learners based on the knowledge of the way in which learning occurs. It is our aim to immerse young learners in very deliberately constructed, cognitively challenging work that in traditional classroom settings are performed almost solely by teachers, as we understand that real and deep learning results from struggle – actively attempting to connect and/or build on prior knowledge, seeking relevance of information in order to properly assimilate the knowledge, and determining the validity of the knowledge through the trial of debate and other refining processes. With the greater cognitive demand being shifted to the learner, the child owns his/her learning. Learning or understanding is his achievement. Therein lies the building of real confidence.
Long-View learners are given the opportunity to make critical observations, participate in thoughtful discussions, formulate sound conjectures, and engage in constructive debate of their claims. All of these activities allow Long-View students to challenge their initial assumptions while prompting their growth as learners. The ability to analyze information, raise thoughtful questions, research, communicate one’s learning as well as one’s needs as a learner, and the ability to collaborate in a way that significantly elevates the learning community are all skills that Long-View students hone as part of their educational experience. Through constant cognitive coaching, Long-View kids come to understand that learning is an active, intellectually-stimulating event, a process requiring flexibility and perseverance.