Guiding Principles 1 Christenson

1. The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum:

The best way for kids to learn is with each other. Having a hostile classroom, or a class

that doesn’t get along, or simply doesn’t know each other can make learning and teaching

difficult. Getting along with peers is a life long skill that’s the easiest to learn when you’re

surrounded by the same 25 kids your own age every single day.

2. Process and content go hand in hand:

There’s no one-way-fool-proof-method for anything in academics. Every child learns in

different ways, and a different strategy could be the one thing a child needs in order to master a

skill. Few kids learn well sitting in a desk and staring at the teacher, the process in which they

learn could be the end all for their understanding.

3. The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction:

The greatest indicator of mastery is being able to teach someone else. A great deal of

cognitive abilities, such as problem solving, language development, and auditory and visual

processing can be worked on through social interactions. Just by working with and interacting

with peers students can learn skills in most cognitive abilities.

4. To be successful academically and socially, children need a set of social skills; cooperation,

assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self control:

Everyone needs to cooperate, have confidence in their abilities, be responsible for their

actions (like their self control, or lack of), and have empathy for their peers. This set of social

skills can follow someone for the rest of their lives. All adults need these skills to be successful

with relationships and careers. Without cooperation, there’s no productive group work; without

responsibility things wouldn’t get done; without the confidence to say anything, a thought isn’t

expressed; a lack of empathy prevents a student from helping and understanding their peers;

and self control ties in all of the above.

5. Knowing the children we teach-individually, culturally, and developmentally- is as important

as knowing the content we teach:

 Guiding Principles 2 Christenson

From personal experience, knowing a child and where they come from can be the world

of a difference to their learning. A student I’ve had, struggles an incredible amount with reading,

then I found out that he didn’t know any English until he was 5 years old. By knowing that, I can

look at his reading level and be extremely impressed. There’s no way to know HOW to teach

your students if you don’t know who your students are.

6. Knowing the families of the children we teach and working with them as partners is essential

to children’s education:

Families see the students more than we do, and have known them their whole lives.

They have the answers for what works and what doesn’t. They can help stop behaviors by

working on them at home. If parents are informed they can help students practice skills they

may need extra help on, reward them for their success, and help work through their struggles.