Learning at Lupine
Lupine Community School values emergent, place-based, experiential pedagogy and project-based learning.
Academic subjects are not taught in isolation, but rather in the interconnected way that they exist in the real world.
Teachers create highly intentional, guided project experiences where students work on both individual and collaborative learning opportunities. The integrated projects include the North Carolina state standards for math, reading, science, social studies, art, music, and physical education.
Fine motor development, gross motor development, whole body movement, social emotional learning, and mindfulness are also components that are integrated into the
students’ school day.
We focus on the child's interests, much like the Reggio Emilia pedagogy. We observe and then document our findings in order to create invitations, also called provocations, for the children to explore. Our explorations are rooted in the seasonal changes that we observe on the farm, which allows us to continually engage in scientific inquiry. We also explore art through process. We focus on the materials and cultivating a creative spirit rather than the product. We focus heavily on play as well as establishing and maintaining relationships within our school family. Our teachers work to cultivate compassion in the school community as well as in our interactions with the world around us.
Our 7+ acre bona fide farm is a critical component of our curriculum. When children at Lupine interact with the plants and animals on the farm, they have the opportunity to build relationships with the natural world. The philosophy at Lupine is a hybrid of humane, placed-based, and emergent pedagogies, and is rooted in the fundamentals of Reggio Emilia. The Reggio approach promotes “a student-centered and constructivist self-guided curriculum that uses self-directed, experiential learning in relationship-driven environments.”
Lupine Community School sets itself apart from other schools by utilizing the Reggio Emilia approach, offering this powerful teaching methodology to not only its youngest learners, but to older students as well. Humane education is a model of “compassionate curriculum” that draws connections between human rights, animal protection, and environmental sustainability. Students learn to identify unsustainable systems and develop a solutionary mindset for problem solving. Children are taught in a democratic fashion, incorporating voting and developing rules and procedures as a group. Our teaching and learning method values parents, communities, and the surrounding environment as critical components in a child’s education.
