STUDENT LIFE
Global Competence
Globally competent citizens are vital to the success of future generations. SIA students will be challenged to investigate the world, weigh multiple perspectives, clearly communicate their ideas and take meaningful action in order to develop the understanding necessary to truly become leaders who can transform their communities in the future.
Music
Habits of Mind
Educational outcomes in traditional settings focus on how many answers a student knows. When we teach for the Habits of Mind, we are interested also in how students behave when they don't know the answer. The Habits of Mind are performed in response to questions and problems, the answers to which are not immediately known. We are interested in how students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce it.
Service Learning
We hold a deep belief that in order for our students, or anyone, to become a leader they need to truly understand how to serve others first. We will be studying a variety of challenging topics throughout a student's time at our school. A typical reaction from students is, "I am only one person, what can I really do?" What we want to help students understand is that service to your community creates ripples like those on a pond when a rock is dropped into it. We may only see the one action of the rock being dropped, but we rarely focus on the effect the ripples have on the rest of the pond. Acts of service done for the right reason, with the right attitude have a lasting impact on those who are impacted by it and potentially generations to come. Students and teachers will identify service projects that are related to topics being studied in class or that fulfill a need in our local or broader community.
School Garden
This spring one of our founding 6th grade teachers Mary Himley is working to get our school garden set up and ready for when school starts in August!
School gardening has gained momentum in recent years and has lead to a number of them appearing across the country. The benefits are numerous, but the Western Growers Foundation through their Collective School Garden Network has laid out their Four Pillars of School gardens to outline the advantage of engaging students in this effort.
1). Environmental Stewardship - A school garden is a powerful environmental education tool. Through gardening, students become responsible caretakers. They have an opportunity to engage in agricultural practices on a small scale, learning about the responsibilities and impacts of land cultivation. They explore the web of interactions among the living and non-living players that sustain life.
2). Community and Social Development - Community and social development lessons do not receive the same attention as academic achievement, but they are as crucial to the survival of our country as reading and writing. Children must learn how to take responsibility for their environment and develop a strong sense of community to ensure the continuation of our society.
3). A Healthy Lifestyle - Beyond academics, the garden provides broader life lessons including contributing to students' knowledge of how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
4). Academic Achievement - Academic achievement is the primary focus of educators throughout the country. Emphasis is placed on ensuring students perform at satisfactory levels guided by local, state and national academic standards. All lessons and activities must complement mandatory standards to merit the use of valuable classroom time.
