In the links leading off from this page, we've put information about our beliefs and convictions, how we've structured our school, and why.

Kids learn from the structure of a school. Because there are fundamental ways Kino is structured differently than a conventional school, it is instructive to look at what those differences are, how they relate to the aims of education, and what effect they, in fact, have on students.

We know that:

-- each student is unique and capable of astounding insights and creativity

-- to be effective and worthwhile, education must be more than confines and restrictions

-- things change, often unpredictably

-- standardized tests are fragmentary and misleading, at best

 

Whatever the future holds, we know that our students will need to be able to:

-- master new skills and understandings

-- work collaboratively with diverse groups

-- create and assess changes

-- be self-directed and responsible for their own decisions.

 

“Quite apart from their intellectual potency or their certification role, schools thus mark youngsters ever more deeply with their implicit values—not always those they intended to convey. Youngsters learn their place in the social order and develop a system of responses to their placement that are hard to dislodge. They form ‘an attitude’ toward work, adults, the larger public setting, and what counts and what doesn’t on the basis of schools. Schools still matter even more than TV in telling us who we are and can be.”

Deborah Meier, The Power of their Ideas,