Our Observation Curriculum
"We see nothing at first glance."
–Milton Glaser
Before we understand, we have to notice.
Before we think, we have to notice.
Before we feel, we have to notice.
Before we do anything, we have to notice.
It's tragic, then, that we're so bad at noticing!
And all the identities that we care about cultivating grow out of certain types of noticing:
Mathematicians notice patterns.
Novelists, poets, and orators notice words.
Physicists, chemists, and biologists notice the natural world.
Designers, artists, and architects notice the built environment.
Storytellers and psychologists notice what drives people, and
Sociologists, political theorists, and historians notice how these drives tangle together and create all our problems!
What we observe makes us who we are.
But schools don't lead kids to master observation. We take in only a slim fraction of what's right in front of our faces.
What if a new kind of school could cultivate people who notice?
Our schools will ground students in paying attention. We'll —
- demystify drawing realistically, so kids can capture how things fit together.
- imaginatively take students into the smallest details of the biological world.
- repeatedly encounter what chemicals do as kids cook lunch together each day.
- immerse kids in great painting and sculpture.
- help students unpack the patterns in buildings and public spaces.
- instill in kids a craftsman mindset as they build things.
- practice mindfulness meditation to get a sense of what's going on inside us.
Our goal? To immerse children in the raw splendor of the worlds of numbers, atoms, stories, and ideas.
We don't just aim to cultivate thinkers, but people who think, feel, and perceive together.