Slate School

Nature-Based Learning for Creative Minds

At Slate School, we are committed to changing the landscape of education to nurture children as creative thinkers and curious learners. We believe that nature-based, curiosity-driven learning should be accessible and affordable to all students, and we therefore ensure that finances are not a barrier to a child’s attendance.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Updated November 2022

Created by

Slate School

Web presence

2018

Established

52 2024

1

Countries

Students lower

Target group

Slate School hopes to inspire and provide curricular resources to schools with a similar mission for empowering learners, and restoring the art and joy of teaching to a new generation of educators.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

There is no K-12 school in the State of Connecticut that offers nature-based or curiosity-driven education, and there are very few similar schools in the United States. Our experiences with families and teachers inspired us to create a nonprofit school that offers nature- and curiosity-based learning, and also ensures that finances are not a barrier to attendance.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

A nonprofit K-12 independent school, Slate School is committed to changing the landscape of education to inspire and nurture children as creative thinkers, curious learners, and good stewards of the Earth. We integrate project-based and arts-integrated learning across all fields of study. We also create and curate curiosity-driven resources for educators worldwide through our Education Idea Lab, and these materials have been utilized by more than 160,000 educators worldwide.

As the only independent school in the country to provide need-blind admissions and meet 100% of demonstrated financial need for all of our students, 89% of our students receive significant financial aid. 50% of our families pay less than $6,000 in tuition, with many paying significantly less, including some paying less than $1,500 per year. Tuition revenue therefore covers only 34% of the school’s total recurring operating budget, with the remainder covered by donations and grants.

How has it been spreading?

At Slate School, the learner's curiosity drives the curriculum. At Slate School, the heart of every day is our work on projects. Beginning in October, each child selects his or her first unique topic of the year. The process, spanning selection to presentation, takes place 4-6 times in a school year. It is through their unique interest in these project topics that our educators grow the students' skills. Our students continuously advance their skills -- ranging from literacy and math to science and social skills -- with great enthusiasm and interest.

We also develop, curate, and publish resources and both in-person and virtual workshops for educators worldwide. Our resources have been accessed by more than 160,000 educators worldwide, and we continue to grow our reach to support others.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Slate School offers many resources, blogs, archived Education Idea Lab recordings, and both in-person and virtual workshops to support others interested in curiosity-driven education. Please contact Jennifer Staple-Clark at info@slateschool.org to be directed to the most applicable resources for your interests and needs.

Implementation steps

Curiosity-Driven Project Topic Selection

There is much celebration and great joy as they speak their choices before their entire cohort, and almost immediately, children begin sharing ideas and sources of information with each other. Project topics among the youngest elementary school students at Slate School have ranged from Leonardo da Vinci and Italy to vegetables and fireflies. From the moment that a topic is chosen, each child is considered the expert on their topic. It is both empowering and also a great responsibility.

Nurture Child Curiosities

Work side by side with the children to craft open ended questions that they cannot only answer, but also open our eyes to new and wider wonderings. These questions are shared with the families, although we are careful to ask them not to share answers, but rather to wallow in the complexity of their child’s unknowing and “maybes.”

Curate Book Resources

Curate book resources for children from either the school or local library. On the day when the books begin to arrive in the classroom, the children are exuberant. They pore over their books with great hunger for learning. We stay in this stage, which we call immersion, for at least a week. They ingest and sort massive amounts of information. The process is almost like that of a lawyer in discovery, where they are reading, filing, and organizing information for later reconstituting.

Reading Complex Texts

As we enter the next phase of the projects, children are often working hard to build skills around reading more complex texts. They have exhausted the resources at their reading level and are now spending most of their time in project beside a more seasoned reader. They read along, following the text and asking questions for clarification. They also engage in conversation about the information they are hearing. They listen and prioritize information to summarize, or quote. They fill notebooks.

Collaboration

Collaboration emerges as students share crossover information with each other and build theories to address questions. Teacher and child operate as co-learners, sharing strategies and building skills to support inquiry. Daily conferences include targeted reading instruction, statistics within a wider mathematical context, historical timelines, current relevance and application of new findings, as well as connections with local experts and peer partners.

Sharing Knowledge

The transition to sharing knowledge begins with the child. Teachers begin to see a change in the conversation at meetings. Children typically begin to zoom out for a wider lens view of their topic. Guidance from teachers turns to the process of draft, revision, and publishing. Using notes and artifacts that the child has collected over the course of the study, researchers sort, classify, and prioritize information using strategies taught through direct and small group instruction.

Project Presentation

When first drafts are complete, students share within their cohort and with mentors. Conversation around revision and editing leads to final drafts and then to the final step of preparation for presentation.

Learning Record

At the conclusion of the project cycle, we ask the students a series of questions to better understand the effects of project work on their progress. These interviews are compared only to the student’s other interviews, and we seek to see where the growth is most evident in each cycle.