A look inside a week at Linder
Elementary
The backbone of The Linder Academy is our Orton-Gillingham reading and writing instruction. OG will take place daily for an hour at the start of each day, as research shows morning interventions provide more gains than those given later in the day.
After daily OG, students at Linder will embark on their weekly investigations. Each week we will dive deeply into a topic by presenting students with a problem to solve. For that week, all instruction across subjects and skills will deal with the topics connected to the problem. This will allow students to think deeply about a topic, while using academic skill mastery to further their inquiry in a topic. As a parent, picture a project at work, and how that week all of your work (writing, speaking, spelling, vocabulary, reasoning, logical argument, math calculations) operates with the goal of that project’s completion. In the same way, education at Linder is interactive and contextual. We learn through approaching difficult topics and hard problems deeply. We pose challenges to our students (How can we improve traffic patterns at the nearby intersection? Can we design a better football helmet?) and allow them to ponder, and guess, and test, and fail, and try again in the pursuit of knowledge. Research shows that it is the process of attaining knowledge that teaches us much more than the presentation of knowledge to be memorized. Be prepared for discussions over dinner of complex problems and requests for ideas kids can bring into the classroom!
As part of our weekly topic, we will have a weekly guest. This is a specialist that gives a presentation on what problem they have chosen to solve with his or her career. This helps children to gain exposure to career paths and to see the world through the lens of problem-solving and improvement. Each weekly guest will have presented a topic (architecture, scientist, financial advisor, etc.) that we then connect to our written argument class. During this block each week, student’s will present their plan to solve this same real world problem. We will help students understand how to use writing to organize argument and present evidence. Then on Friday of each week, students will present their solutions during the public speaking block. No matter your career, experience presenting ideas to peers and conversing comfortably in front of others is a key to success.
If school is meant to prepare students to navigate the complex world, it cannot just be about facts and subject matter. The world is incredibly complex, and real-world problems have no easy solutions and require ethics and morality to navigate. At The Linder Academy, our students take a weekly philosophy class that aligns with the weekly theme. By asking big questions, we encourage discussions that teach students how to understand ethical decision making, consider alternative viewpoints, engage in informed dialogue, and appreciate complexity. While our weekly investigations might have a real answer to uncover or a clear product to produce, our small group philosophy discussions have no right answer - and that’s the point.
We also offer an explicit grammar block each week. Instead of hoping children uncover the rules of the English language, we take the time to help them understand the complexities of English grammar. Once mastered, an understanding of grammar will not only serve as a foundation of their writing, but will also help with any foreign language studies in the future.
Our historical, science, and math connection blocks take time to teach the grade level content that relates to the weekly problem and requires an experienced teacher to help a child understand. Logic & Probability is an extensive of math, but allows us to focus on real world mathematical reasoning and applications. Lastly, our weekly World Literature block focuses on connecting the problem of the week, and the discussion from Philosophy class, with international viewpoints. We use this to show how others throughout time and across the world have understood these same problems.
Outside of our weekly topics, we will have free pursuit time. For an hour each day, students can pursue a topic of their own interest, individually or as a group. Want to learn how to code, understand music theory, or practice photography? Want to engineer and create an item with our 3D printer? Free pursuit time will allow students the freedom to investigate, engage in creativity, and—at times—just do “nothing.” We know that the best ideas come from self-initiation and self-reflection, and our free pursuit time is about students having agency in their education. When children feel they have control over their education, they engage, they lead, and they learn.
To become a strong student, it is not just about investigation, but also about moving new skillsets and material into long-term automatic memory so that you can relieve the cognitive demands of thought. This is how a child can think about difficult calculations in fourth grade involving area: because they have stored the core multiplication facts in long term memory. This is also the core of structured literacy: we make the phonetics automatic so that reading can become fluent. To facilitate this, we will have Cognitive Capacity blocks. This is time each day that students will work—sometimes as a group and sometime solo—on mastering the facts that allow fluency of thought. This can range from math facts to tricky spelling rules. By having this be dedicated time, we can be the unique school that designs for big ideas, strong reasoning and core skill mastery.
Our students get one elective quarterly. They get to pick from a variety of options, including:
Remediation
Orton-Gillingham classes
1:1 support time
Study Hall / Executive Functioning Development
Enrichment, such as:
Art
Parkour
Theatre & Improv
School Activities Committee
GO! (Girls Only! Helping girls build confidence and friendships.)
Robotics
Creative Writing
Coding
Sports (most recently Flag Football)
Chess & Strategy Games
Gardening
Animal Science
Chemistry through Cooking
Mad Science
Introduction to Foreign Language
Other core component of our program are community awareness and intellectual investigations. We have community leaders come for talks that discuss the problems they have focused their careers on - from social justice to local entrepreneurs. Our goal is to show that learning involves seeing how you can improve the world around you and always seeking new experiences.
We also embrace being an Urban School, and will be planning field trips to local museums or to work on community problems (like traveling to a research station on the Potomac to discuss water issues in the region). Such small classes allows for greater mobility and access to smaller environments than are traditionally available for class trips.
Middle School
We don’t think in formal grades, and have transitional classes (for example, a child in the above classes but also still receiving OG daily), but the above shows a full progression to our intermediate curriculum.
The first change from elementary to middle is shift in focus from early literacy to the foundations of Algebra. After early reading, the largest thing that determines a child’a academic path is success or failure in Algebra I. It is when we see both women and minorities shift to non-intensified tracks. A major reason is the treatment of middle school math as just an extension of elementary calculations. Our math focuses on pre-Algebra and Algebra, and not just the calculations. We push the conceptual uses and abstract reasoning inherent in understanding—and loving—math. Further, we formalize the study of early Probability and Statistics. While this sounds intimidating, it is key to reasoning in all subjects (and life!). We help students grasp the foundation of being mathematically and scientifically literate, and how fun it can be to solve a challenging probability problem!
Our weekly investigations would continue with the weekly problems. We focus on real world dilemmas—especially in our local community—and how we can bring our knowledge to finding a solution. In middle school, the major change is a push for a more formal use of design and engineering principals and the scientific method. We connect the statistics work to help them understand how to test ideas and to know when you are on to something.
Our Civics, Written Argument, Grammar, and Debate all work cohesively each week to master skills relating to a key topic. In middle school, we want children to understand their roles as active members of their community, and begin to understand the complexities of government and public policy. Each week, a Civics topic (ie. Electoral College, sales tax, citizenship) will be investigated, and then the students will write about those topics in Written Argument, address key components of writing in Grammar, and present their ideas formally in Debate. Debate is an extension of presentation skills we focus on in Elementary, and allows students to begin to assess the complexity of an argument and its evidence. Debate also reinforces how to discuss evidence, how to disagree when there is no clear right or wrong, and how to communicate with those of differing opinions.
Middle school continues with History, Philosophy, and World Literature. However, a focus during these years is on writing. The topics lend themselves to personal reflection and modern connections, and in the middle school years they will begin crafting essays and research papers on topics that interest them.
Science becomes a more in-depth block in middle school, specifically bringing in core components of Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Psychology. At Old Town, we have an extensive science lab that will allow students to deeply investigate core topics in the major realms of science. One block each week will be focused on experiment, whether in the lab or outside! Students will also begin to work on scientific lab reports, connecting their writing skills to scientific argument and statistics.
Our middle school curriculum also allows for a quarterly elective. This is where the transitional component of our program shines. The quarterly elective slots can be used for:
Remediation
Orton-Gillingham classes
1:1 support time
Study Hall / Executive Functioning Development
Enrichment, such as:
Art
Parkour
Theatre & Improv
School Activities Committee
GO! (Girls Only! Helping girls build confidence and friendships.)
Robotics
Creative Writing
Coding
Sports (most recently Flag Football)
Chess & Strategy Games
Gardening
Animal Science
Chemistry through Cooking
Mad Science
Introduction to Foreign Language
The variety aligns with our belief in intellectual investigation. We want students to be able to investigate as many topics as they want, and not to be locked into one elective for an entire year. We will follow student interests to decide the monthly offerings, and popular classes can be extended. In this way, we prepare students to arrive in High School with the skills they need and the knowledge of what they are passionate about studying.
Free Pursuit Time remains the same, but at Old Town the students have access to a student lounge that can host air hockey games or club meetings, a full library, and the science and design lab.
We also embrace being an Urban School, and will be planning field trips to local museums or to work on community problems (like traveling to a research station on the Potomac to discuss water issues in the region). Such small classes allows for greater mobility and access to smaller environments than are traditionally available for class trips.