Quick Links
Teaching for a Flat World
"The greatest economic competition going forward is going to be between you and your own imagination.
Your ability to act on your imagination is going to be so decisive in driving your future and the standard of living in your country...the school, the state, the country that empowers, nurtures, enables imagination among its students and citizens, that’s who’s going to be the winner."
- Thomas L Friedman - Pulitzer Prize winner & New York Times Bestseller,
author of "The World Is Flat"; quoted in "The School Administrator", Feb 2008
Traditional schools focus on how many answers a student knows. At Mulberry School, we don’t just want children to know the answers; we want children to imagine new possibilities and become insightful problem solvers and confident decision makers. Mulberry School teaches children to ask questions...
- How do we know when we know?
- How are things, events, and people connected to each other?
- What is the cause and effect?
- Why does it matter?
- What does it mean?
...and discover their own answers. This process of inquiry creates effective thinkers and research reveals that effective thinkers have identifiable traits, present in successful people from all walks of life.
Teaching the Way Children Learn
Science has demonstrated that the human brain is a pattern detector, working best when processing meaningful material. Learning at Mulberry, therefore, emphasizes learning by doing through active, creative and integrated projects - that include seeing, reading, hearing, making, writing, painting, cooking and tasting, sewing, singing, building, growing, telling - and that are relevant to their lives.
The development of intelligence is ...
"a matter of having wonderful ideas and feeling confident enough to try them out."
- Elizabeth Duckworth, Educator
Children at Mulberry develop confidence and are constantly commended for their extraordinarily strong character. Using positive discipline, we encourage the development of perception and emotional intelligence. The Significant Seven, which includes three empowering perceptions and four essential skills, are modeled and practiced every day at Mulberry:
- I am capable.
- I contribute in meaningful ways.
- I am genuinely needed.
- I use my personal power to make choices that influence
what happens to me and my community. - I can work respectfully with others.
- I understand how my behavior affects others.
- My judgment, skills and wisdom are improving through daily practice.
“It is clear that the learning at Mulberry School comes through the children’s engagement.
The children are so engaged, the learning and discovery comes through in their inner desire not from outside pressure.”
- Jane Nelsen, Ed. D; author of "Positive Discipline" series of books