Guiding Principles

Caraway is a project or themed approach which intends at it’s core to inspire authentic, wide ranging inquiry learning which allows children to be vital participants in their own meaning making. The Caraway holistic model has been built in response to the work of many great educational theorists as well as the experience of exemplary classroom teachers. The basic principles underlying this approach state that:

social curriculum is as important as academic curriculum
how children learn is as important as what they learn: process and content go hand-in-hand
the greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction
there is a set of social skills children need in order to be successful academically and socially such as cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self control
knowing the children we work with individually, culturally, and developmentally is as important as knowing the content we teach
knowing the families of the children we work with and welcoming their participation is essential to children’s education
lasting change begins with the modeling done by the adult community

The Caraway program provides a wide variety of learning activities that include multi-age groupings. This fosters:

confident, self directed, reflective learners
the building of deep relationships
a sense of community and stewardship
empathetic, co-operative responsible community members
the opportunity for members to model behaviors and approaches
a willingness to share skills and responsibilities
teacher/student relationships which support authentic learning

Last updated on January 23, 2010