OUR CURRICULAR PILLARS

The Self can be viewed as an evolving whole with multiple behaviors, skills, and habits of mind, built on over time. Holistic self-development empowers young people to observe, assess, and act in the world with purpose and from a place of integrity and compassion. The Self is developed in a multitude of places at EBS: in the classroom, Advisory, Town Meeting, Clubs, and in the community.
The goals of the Self are:
• to increase one’s knowledge of the self, including the spectrum of one’s strengths and areas for improvement across all pillars through integrated and regular reflection;
• to become emotionally literate: to be able to identify and articulate one’s emotions and to learn to “read” the emotions of others and of social contexts;
• to connect empathy and action: to learn to put one’s self in another’s place, cultivate compassion, and create positive change in the world. Confidence, security and the understanding of the self build compassion.Description text goes here
The PREP is an inquiry- and discovery-based, experiential process engaging the whole student through coaching, practice, and presentation. The PREP takes the National Common Core Standards and creates diagnostics, lessons, assessments, and opportunities of student self-reflection, all of which create a classroom of engagement, a place where young people do not just come to be fed information, but instead to feast and savor what the learning community has to offer and develop their own critical ideas and assertions for others to consider and partake. Our intent is not only to prepare students for high school but also for life through fostering their curiosity and ability to recognize their own academic strengths and challenges. EBS students will grow to stand out as particularly engaged, thoughtful and courageous leaders in their communities.
An EBS graduate should be well prepared to demonstrate proficiency in Language Arts (by being ready to read and write in persuasive, expository, narrative, and descriptive forms) in social studies (by being ready to take world history or civilization); in math (by being ready to take algebra 1, algebra 2, or geometry); in science (by being ready to take biology, with a laboratory component); and in Spanish (by being ready to take second-year Spanish or the first year of a different language). A teacher’s job is to give them the experiences to practice building their mental, social, and physical capacity through drill and challenge, and to provide them with space to take those capacities to solve problems, imagine and create.
The Work encompasses empathy, design, building, creation, critical problem-finding and solving, collaboration, community, service-learning, cultural competency, reflection, and a confidence to grow through mistakes. The Work helps make learning and knowing more tangible by engaging the whole person within a project-based, hands-on curriculum that is rigorous and fun with clear expectations and educational purpose. It embraces all learning styles and approaches to a problem through its multiple methods utilizing all parts of the brain, body, and life experience. The goal of The Work is to build confidence in young people that through practice, patience, and purpose they can become the engaged, thoughtful, courageous, and justice-minded adults of tomorrow. EBS Work aims to achieve these goals through the application of and connections among Prep courses: social science, math, language arts, world language, and science. EBS students become fully engaged with their learning when they are able to apply their passions, skills, and life experiences with their shared world.
Life is manifested in our program through our Work, civic engagement, our advisory program, modeling and mentoring, integration of our courses and our social justice orientation toward teaching and learning.
The philosophy of the LIFE holds that:
• Young people engage more when there is a direct connection to the real world;
• Young people do better with abstraction when they can attach it to the concrete world around them;
• Young people’s ability to play in fantasy worlds allows them to work out their understanding of real life issues;
• Seeing interconnectedness helps young people see how their actions have impact;
• Nurturing living things gives young people a sense of purpose and prepares them to be nurturing members of the human community;
• Young people need to listen and speak assertively;
• Young people need to be able to communicate their emotions;
• Young people need to treat each other well;
• Mistakes are essential to learning;
• Young people need to work hard and play hard;
• Young people need to adapt to new environments, situations, and an ever-changing world;
• Personal and communal livelihood are equally important; young people should understand their own independence and interdependence;
• Collaboration in a diverse society is essential;
• Leaders of the 21st Century have a responsibility to sustainability; and
• There are many ways to be human and to create a meaningful life.

OUR CURRICULAR PILLARS

THE SELF: The pillar of the SELF reflects young people’s unseen, yet critical, self-knowledge, development, inner growth, and all related physical, mental, emotional, and moral developmental processes.

THE PREP: The PREP encompasses traditional academic courses taught in collaboration and connection with the WORK and SELF in preparation for high school and LIFE.

THE WORK: The WORK is the responsibility to utilize self-knowing (SELF), practical skills (WORK), and the love of learning (PREP) to compassionately create and communicate with one’s environment (LIFE).

THE LIFE: The LIFE is seen as the manifestation of all the Pillars at EBS, in particular how students’ self-awareness and community-mindedness build skills to become good people and citizens throughout their lives.