Christopher Academy... fosters a love of learning! We post this motto on all our publications,banners and throughout our school. How does fostering a love of learning happen on a daily basis? What does it mean to our teachers? Our parents? And most importantly, our students?
The best way to begin to understand how our mission is carried out is to talk with our own students. I began a series of discussions with the 4th and 5th grade students about our mission and philosophy a couple of weeks ago. I expected this to be an interesting experience and they certainly are living up to my expectations.
Like all of us, they see our motto frequently. The first thing I did was show them our full mission statement which reads:
The mission of Christopher Academy is to provide a developmentally appropriate curriculum in a
stimulating environment that fosters a love of learning.
I was delighted with the first two comments from a couple of 4th graders. One said " I have no idea what that means!" Another asked " Mrs. Shannon can you put that in English that a kid can understand?" I responded “Yes that is just what we are going to do. You kids will tell me if we are carrying out our mission. And I bet you will even give the teachers and me great ideas.”
So the kids and I are off on an exploration of our mission and philosophy. Since I find that I always learn from our students (they are the best teachers!), I thought perhaps you might find our discussions interesting also. Over the next few weeks I will share some of these thoughts and ideas with you through our CA Blog.
