OUR PROGRESSIVE MISSION
Inquisitive Minds, Inclusive Hearts, Purposeful Lives
Blue Oak School is a dynamic community of students, educators, and families. We provide an exceptional learning experience that cultivates the skills, habits, confidence, and sense of belonging needed to shape the future in a diverse and ever-changing world.
Values and Core Principles
Our mission is a reflection of our commitment to the holistic development of our students, and is rooted in our Values and Core Principles of Learning. Our values and core principles are listed below.
Our Values
Community
Community is at the heart of our school. We develop strong, supportive relationships, and promote a sense of belonging among students, educators, and families.
Curiosity
Joy
Kindness
Respect
Responsibility
We believe that each student, family, and educator is accountable for their actions and contributes to our community and beyond. Through this shared commitment, we can positively impact our world.
Our Seven Core Principles
1. Children “learn by doing.”
Blue Oak School students do not just read about science, they hypothesize, experiment, and build their own apparatus. They devise mathematical models and apply them; they read literature and create their own stories. They compose music, and they do original research.
2. Curriculum is child-centered and developmentally appropriate.
Learning takes place in a meaningful context and is tied to children’s needs and interests. In this way, education at Blue Oak fosters each child’s all-important internal motivation to learn.
3. The curriculum builds from a foundation.
Lessons draw on what a student already knows to extend his or her established base of knowledge, recognizing the importance of what Lev Vygotsky deemed “the zone of proximal development.”
4. True understanding, rather than memorization, is stressed.
When understanding is achieved memorization follows. Students who understand carry their knowledge with them out into the world and can transfer it to new situations.
5. The process of learning is emphasized.
When the process of learning is central, there is no need to cheat, no need for parents to do homework, no need to avoid risks. Risk-taking and experiencing an occasional failure are embraced as, as Madeline Levine eloquently states, “the blessings of the skinned knee.”
6. The curriculum is integrated.
Blue Oak School faculty blend disciplines to stimulate understanding from different viewpoints and to show the real-world application of knowledge. Teaching is extended through literature, music, art, science, mathematics and physical education.
7. Inquiry is at the heart of the curriculum.
Important questions are asked and addressed. “We only learn,” John Dewey so rightly put it, “when confronted with a problem.”
Tours & Open House
To set up a tour or register for an open house, please contact our Assistant Head of School and Director of Admissions Meredith Wilson.
What They Call 21st-Century Skills, We Call Tradition
As progressive educators, we are heartened that the recent movement for the teaching of “21st-century skills” is gaining momentum. For more than a century progressive educators have touted the importance of creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration – what is currently being called the “4 Cs.” So too have we long embraced a hands-on approach to learning that integrates the disciplines by challenging students to ask questions, research real-world problems, and design and build their own solutions. From the unit blocks in our kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms to the 2nd grade student led Imaginarium to the tools in our teaching kitchen to the science lab in the Middle School, we consider our whole school a “maker space.”
Our Progressive Education Heritage
Blue Oak School is an active member of the national Progressive Education Network, and our work with children draws on a rich historical and intellectual heritage. Blue Oak School’s approach to education is predicated on the pioneering work of school founders, including Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Caroline Pratt, and Helen Parkhurst, and the work of educational theorists including John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget. More contemporary scholars who influence our practice include Eleanor Duckworth, Ted Sizer, Deborah Meier, Maxine Greene, Lucy Calkins, Richard Louv, Stuart Brown, and Madeline Levine.