Educational Model
The Atlantis Educational Model focuses on progress, resiliency, and emotional intelligence. To accomplish these three paths, we have three systems in place.
1. Time Tracking
We set up educational content in fun and engaging ways that match with our values and objectives for progress. In the time tracking system, we do not track results, but monitor time as it leads to success. As our learners spend time in these different missions, challenges, and games, they earn points.
2. Responsibility Levels
We use the points to open up opportunities for our learners to earn responsibilities and independence. This program helps our learners to connect effort with outcome and build a belief that progress is connected with sticking with tasks and putting in the time.
3. Online learning in a physical environment
The time and points open online educational opportunities. These are not the only opportunities opened by the points, but is the third area we track, because we can use established systems, like Khan Academy and SAS Curriculum Pathways to track if the time and responsibility level is corresponding with educational progress.
Socialize Skills, Life Skills, Career training, and Core Curriculum:
Overview:
We believe that results come from practice and the purposeful dedication of time toward tasks leads to progress. The Atlantis Education Model is based around time tracking and the idea that practice makes progress and minimizing failure as an option leads to resiliency. This means we dedicate purposeful time toward a career or task and remove the idea of a grade and settling for a comparison point of being good enough. The world is constantly changing and to keep up with that change, we instill the idea of constant progress and a love of learning that facilitates healthy risk taking and successful living. The world values progress over perfection and so do we. We believe that different levels of time lead to different proficiency levels. We try to take the best parts of many different systems to bring the best of those worlds to make a better system. We combine the Montessori System with STEAM, Hands on Job Training, System and Family Structure Therapy, with the Boy Scouts development system, Business Project Management, along with time and stability for a consistent progress environment.
For our incoming 5-year-old and 6-year-olds we take their interests to build content for them to develop a strong base of literary skills. We then use the interests to help them see their personal growth and encourage engagement. We then use their progress to open opportunities and build on their interests to help them see future careers over time.
Example:
Sally loves animals, is shy, and likes coloring.
The teachers and staff learn these elements about Sally by meeting her parents first. Then they meet with Sally with her parents and an Educational Assistant who shares Sally's interests who talks to Sally and her parents about those interests and the Atlantis School System. They talk about coloring and being able to have space to play at her pace, and that we go on field trips to animals in the local community to build interest.
Sally is then paired with some other learners who are similar in personality and some other learners who are comfortable initiating play. We let Sally know how to communicate when she wants to play and when she wants time by herself.
We spend some time allowing Sally to adapt and make new friends while assessing her academically for language development and reading. We slowly build reading and writing around her day to match with the tasks she likes and work with Sally to develop a reward system based on her interest. As Sally makes progress and earns points, she is able to earn responsibilities and more time doing the things she enjoys and then go on trips to see animals with her friends.
When a learner starts at Atlantis, our teachers and staff start by learning about the student including their personality, interests, and areas of incentive. We then connect those traits with an educational path that the learner can build on and customize. We do this by interviewing the parents and having them work with the learner to share how they would like school to be. The best way for us to build a cooperative environment for learning is by including the students in the structure of a school as a stakeholder.
Sally Example Continued:
Sally has been in the Atlantis Education System for 2 years and has earned multiple Badges for Responsibilities and adventures with her friends. She is proud that she is a Level 3 Medic and an Animal Adventurer giving her the ability to go out animal survey adventures weekly. She has a team of friends who do different things on these adventures and she writes a journal of these adventures and shares them with her parents. She loves Science and English and despite only liking Math, she is at a 3rd and 4th grade level in all core subjects. Sally can cook basic meals, do dishes, and help others, which all earns her points. She gives feedback on the things that Atlantis could do better and is helping the school grow. She has never known homework, stressed over a test, and is involved in many projects with her friends and enjoys working at her own pace, which is really fast. She has a great relationship with her teacher, because she can count on her to be there if she needs the teacher and her days are remarkably the same. The stability means that Sally is not that shy anymore, but is an introvert that needs to recharge by reading a book or taking a nap sometime in the day to get some alone time. Sally is very healthy, very happy, and she will continue on this path until she leaves for college or life depending on her goals. At which time she will be fully able to take care of herself, have connections to resources to help her thrive, be financially savvy, socially adept, have 4 years of directed work experience in her chosen field of veterinary science thanks to Atlantis's community partners, she could have a bachelor's in biology, and she loves to learn, so will do so for the rest of her life.