A Shift in Attitude - Reflections of a Blue Sky Parent

-
Happy learners at Blue Sky School.
Our attitudes begin to develop in childhood and constantly evolve and change over the years through day-to-day interactions and experiences. All the things that you have been through, all the people you have met and interacted with can have an impact on your attitude. One’s school environment can greatly influence one’s attitude.

   Unfortunately for our daughter, her conventional school experience was not the best. As a bright and eager learner who aspired to work on more creative projects, her needs were not being met. She was so bored. So stuck. It was sad to see such passion being sucked out of her and she began to develop a very negative attitude towards school.

    The infrastructure of the conventional school model just doesn't allow for this type of creative outlet. It's a time management and numbers thing. No fault of all the great teachers out there.  With the increased demands on the classroom teacher, higher student to teacher ratio, how can today’s teachers possibly have time for all the extras like; enrichment opportunities, even more clubs in addition to the ones they already do, time for a one on one pep talk or just an opportunity to really get to know each student in their class?

    We needed a change. We needed to help reshape our daughter’s perception of school and turn her negative attitude into a positive one!

    Blue Sky School (BSS) has the kind of  environment that you want your children to have access to. BSS provides daily inspiration and encouragement to move beyond your child’s temporary failures in their journey towards becoming a better version of themselves.  Learners are inspired every day and begin to recognize that what they are  trying to accomplish can in fact be achieved.

Julia's learning journey has been featured on Belouga, a digital platform to "learn about the world, with the world." Learners around the world are participating in her Deep Dive series to learn about her experiences in the Blue Sky methodology.
   Our daughter has become more optimistic, increasingly social and  most of all, she is happy. The nurturing environment and philosophy of BSS makes her feel like she matters. That what she aspires to accomplish  through her education is of value and is meaningful to her.  She is no longer bored. She wishes the school day was longer and  that weekends and summers were shorter… Her attitude towards school has completely SHIFTED in 1 year of attending BSS.

Julia and her peers consulted with game designers in California about a new game they have been testing for them.
BSS is more than a school. It feels like an extended family where coaches, learners and parents are all equally involved in helping to inspire and shape these brilliant young minds into change makers of the future.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought and Emotions are like Snowballs by Bella

-
Image
Thoughts and emotions are like snowballs; if you don’t stop them from rolling down a hill, they get bigger. If you’re upset, but you don’t find the cause or solution, and leave it lingering instead, then it will keep getting bigger and bigger until it smacks you in the face, hard. However, if you stop the snowball, you can stop the negative emotion or thought. But snowballs aren’t all bad. Sometimes they can be good, like when you’re with a really good friend, and you tell an inside joke and you both start laughing. You’re bouncing off of each other’s energy and happiness, and you can’t stop laughing. That’s also the snowball effect.   It might be hard at first, but one way to control your thoughts and emotions is by trying to become more self-aware of them. To really try to identify why you’re feeling a certain way, and really be in the mindset of ‘Okay, so I’m feeling this way, why am I feeling like this?’ Once you’ve answered that, you can move on to asking yourself ‘What can
Read more

What’s that Blob in my Skull? by Jaden

-
Image
What is your brain? How does it learn? Last year I was really interested in different types of brains and how they learn so I came up with a theory for 6 different types of brains and I made a quiz to see how different people’s brains learn (this is the quiz .) Then, this year we started learning more about how the brain works and what happens when you learn. My knowledge has come a long way in understanding the brain and I have learned about neurons, neuroplasticity, the limbic system, the prefrontal cortex, and the brain stem. The brain is split into four different “lobes”: the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobe. Each lobe is associated with something different. The frontal lobe is associated with executive functions (self-control, planning, and reasoning.) The occipital lobe controls vision. The human brain contains around 100 billion neurons (brain cells.) A neurons job is to pick up stimuli (something that can trigger a reaction such
Read more

My Learning Brain by Charlotte

-
Image
My Learning Brain   Over the past few weeks I had the opportunity to explore how I learn through this exploration which was Cognition. An exploration is a “subject” that we spend  couple months focusing on. Reflecting on how I learn, I there are  certain circumstances under which I learn best. I learn best independently with no distractions or sounds. I also learn best when I am organized, energized, actively engaged or taking notes.  Finally, I learn best in small groups.  There are a lot of ways that I learn best, but these are the ones I feel are most important. One of the things that we experimented with throughout this exploration was not listening to music during independent work time. In the previous exploration I listened to music when I was practicing French on Duolingo and doing math on IXL. Music helps me focus because it blocks off all the other sounds. I remember when I was writing a blog and there was instrumental music in the background, that helped me, but in
Read more