Educational Threads
VSL’s educational threads are the compass for your child’s education at The Village School of Louisville. We aim for all of our students to obtain a level of understanding and competence in each thread during their time at VSL. Deep learning requires joy, the foundation of VSL education. Retained learning requires application in projects relevant to students’ lives and experiences, experiences which are not delineated by subject matter. Hence the educational threads and learning at VSL are through interdisciplinary projects where students are doing, discovering, and making. Assessment happens continuously through observation by and interaction with teachers. Effective education happens in an equitable environment which challenges stereotypes that limit children’s potential.
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+ Self
To foster an awareness and understanding of growth of self along the emotional, intellectual, psychological, social, artistic, physical and other dimensions and the confidence to be one’s authentic and changeful self.
+ Local & Global Community
To value the amazing diversity of humanity, to understand how communities are organized and structured and how those practices create inequities, to demonstrate respect for other cultures through knowledge and curiosity, to understand the interconnections of plant and animal life with environment, and to connect with and appreciate the natural surroundings.
+ Anti-Bias Environment & Education
To create an equitable environment in the classroom and the school; to teach students directly about personal and systematic bias based on race and gender; and to provide students with practical skills for all potential roles of life regardless of gender.
+ Literacy, Communication & Expression
To gain competency in literacy, communication and expression in and across all disciplines; to be competent in multiple languages; and to appreciate the universal aspects of communication and expression.
+ Service & Ethics
To understand the interconnections between peoples, communities, and environments; to conceptualize the difficulties of implementing abstract concepts such as justice in a concrete world; to distinguish between values and diverse cultural practices; and to know the worth of caring for oneself, others, and the environment.
+ Critical Thinking & Analysis Based on Quality Research
To know the responsibility and freedom to think for oneself, to see other perspectives, and to focus on the why and how more than the what and when. To ask the right questions, do competent and reliable research, determine the accuracy of the answers found, forecast problems or difficulties that could arise, and know how to ethically use the information obtained to better the world around oneself. To be competent in integrating information from different disciplines.
+ Technological Competence
Gain competence in the ethical and safe use of daily technology, confidence in learning new technology, an understanding of factors impacting access to and use of technology, and skills to consider the ethical, environmental, and community ramifications of new technology.
The VSL Learning Map
© The Village School of Louisville Inc
Learning at VSL is grounded in joy, surrounding all aspects of the curriculum. These educational threads are the pillars of education at The Village School of Louisville. They weave throughout a student’s experience at VSL and are the goals of education at VSL. Individual subjects are the core of education yet are not individually delineated because they are taught as interconnected and applicable knowledge and skills, just as they are integrated in real-world experience and tasks. The arrows connecting the threads and surrounding individual subjects represent both application and formative assessment. Application happens through interdisciplinary projects, where students use what they have discovered. Assessment happens continuously through teacher observation and with final projects.
One analogy for learning at VSL is pizza. Joy is the crust, the foundation of learning at The Village School of Louisville. Individual subjects are blended and turned into a sauce—you can’t separate the subjects into individual disciplines yet they are integral to the pizza. Toppings—from meat to veggies—represent educational threads; we identify the type of pizza by the toppings just as educational threads are the goals of learning. Cheese represents the application and assessment—it holds the pizza together. This pizza nourishes the whole child, family, and the whole village.