Every child has a world of intelligence and talent. They just need the right outlet to plug into, the right environment for them to discover their specific passion through which they shine brightly, and learn best!
The idea of teaching each child to his or her needs and strengths is central to our ancient Jewish pedagogical philosophy based on the line from Proverbs “Educate each child according to their way.”
Each child’s individuality is at the top of our priorities when building the curriculum for The Growing Garden Academy. We embedded this time-honored education philosophy with today’s most progressive, educational techniques, consulting with some best minds and experts in pedagogy building what we believe is a unique individualized and progressive curriculum to ensure every child will thrive.
Central to the curriculum is the focus on project-based learning. Under this system, students get to explore real-world problems and challenges through collaborative learning surrounding a themed subject; helping students take real-world problems and develop solutions. This new way of learning takes the monotony out of single, daily lessons and instead embraces connected lessons that function as a unit—connecting all of the themes in a learning story.
This also allows for an interdisciplinary curriculum where every subject they learn is connected through a central theme and larger project that cuts across subjects such as arts, language, humanities, Judaica, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). For example: A project centered around Noah’s Ark includes; the daily math, language, sciences and humanities lessons will be related to this theme. The students learn about weather related to the flood, and the math of the animals on the Ark, even the construction behind building the physical Ark!
Our project-based curriculum is built on the Theory of Intelligences of Dr. Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist and professor of education and cognition at Harvard University. According to Gardner’s Theory of Intelligences, intelligence is not restricted to just logical and linguistic intelligence but can expressed in other ways as well. Gardner believes that our classroom should not be restricted to teaching children just one modality of learning; rather, he challenges schools to teach using different learning styled, so that children stimulate and develop their many intelligences.
We’ve taken up that challenge at the Growing Garden Academy where we’ve developed our curriculum as a holistic and project-centered way of encouraging our children to explore and discover using their many intelligences ensuring that “Each child will learn according to their way”.