What is the Schoolhouse?

The San Francisco Schoolhouse is a new option for families seeking an affordable, progressive education for their elementary school-aged children. We are building a customized, parent-participation program that brings your child to the focus of our curriculum.

While not adhering to one single progressive approach, we are influenced by John Dewey for his philosophical overview of progressive education; Howard Gardner for his ideas of multiple intelligences; Jean Piaget for looking at the development of children’s learning; and Ken Robinson for emphasizing the importance of creativity in a child’s education.

We believe that:

• Children are naturally creative and highly divergent in their thinking to problems and solutions. Most education strips children of these natural talents.
• Children learn at different paces and have different interests, strengths and weaknesses. Learning must be individualized.
• Inspiring children to learn—as opposed to requiring them to absorb information—promotes the natural love of learning that all children are born with, resulting in a deeper commitment to their own education.
• Teachers must mentor, question and encourage. Learning will involve discussion and analysis in small groups and one-on-one discussions, instead of lectures and workbooks.
• A school is not just a place to learn academic skills. Rather, it is a community of families coming together for the purpose of educating and growing a child.
• Academic excellence is the right of every child and it must become affordable to more families.

The Schoolhouse is currently accepting applications for students in first and second grade for fall 2012. If you are interested, please email: info@sfschoolhouse.org.