Puget Sound Community School

middle school

11 and 12 Year-Olds Next Year - Fall 2008

What would it look like to develop a cutting edge educational experience for a group of 11 and 12 year-olds that combines the humanistic values PSCS has practiced for over thirteen years with the kind of principle-based skill-building being championed by some of the most forward-thinking people of our time? That audacious question has been at the fronts of the minds of PSCS founder & director Andy Smallman and staff consultant Anoo Padte. They have posed it to people like Howard Gardner, Daniel Pink, Kevin Carroll, Stephen Covey and others, as well as referred to their books and online materials. The result of Andy’s and Anoo’s work is the formation of a brand new middle school program that PSCS is offering beginning next year.

We intend to enroll no more than 12 children who will work together with a core teacher and an assistant over the course of two school years. The program will center on what Anoo and Andy are calling the program’s five core disciplines: Self-Awareness, Community, Passion, Responsibility, and Synthesis. Activities organized under these discipline headings will help students develop a deep understanding of themselves, the local and global community, the natural world, and the diversity of cultural habitats to which our lives are increasingly exposed. Additionally, the program will help students develop the ability to think critically, analytically and scientifically in an age of ever-increasing information, and to do this by using technology and media in a meaningful manner.

Outside of having a deep understanding of the five disciplines, at the end of two years these middle school students, much like their PSCS high school counterparts, will each have created a project that furthers a personal passion in a way that is meaningful to them and the world around them, as well as have presented a statement of who they are and how they are evolving. They will then be prepared to hit the ground running when they enter high school at PSCS, an experience we already know helps young people grow and develop into creative and thoughtful global citizens.

We think such a program in a school environment like that provided at PSCS is the first of its kind and are actively recruiting families with middle school age children interested in providing their children with this pioneering 21st century educational experience. Meetings are taking place so contact us right away if you are interested in learning more.