Our Core Difference
Curriculum designed around thought and industry
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Our curriculum combines a deep reverence for knowledge with an emphasis on individual interests, exploration, and instruction. Unlike traditional, classical approaches that emphasize rote memorization or standardized testing, Guidepost Academy believes that knowledge is fundamentally practical. The ability to understand the world, participate in a discussion, solve a problem, or make decisions for your future- these are the reasons it is so crucial to understand history, learn to love literature, apply math in a practical and tangible way. And the curriculum doesn’t stop in the classroom: students take this approach into entrepreneurship, outreach, visual and performing arts, internships, and more. It is this fusion of deep knowledge (thought) applied to real-world problems (industry) that captures our approach. 1:1 Coaching Adolescence is a period of intense physical and emotional growth. Students have the ability to set their own goals, sometimes for the first time, and to explore their own values, and control their own schedules—and these tasks are challenging at any age! While the increasing independence and freedom is both desirable and necessary, it requires support and planning. Every student at Guidepost Academy is paired with a coach, a supportive guide who serves as thought partner and mentor. The coach’s role, over the course of the school years, is to make herself obsolete: as the student gains the social, emotional, and cognitive skills to enable her to serve as her own coach going forward. This is not a tutor or a guidance counselor; the coach is a powerful and unique partner to help each student unlock his or her full potential. Close-knit community Adolescence is a time for social development and the exploration of a student’s place in the larger world. At Guidepost Academy, students and guides work together to co-create the school community in mixed age classrooms. This includes writing school constitutions, planning morning and afternoon meetings, and creating traditions. Each student helps define the school’s culture. But outside each small school is a bigger community, and our students actively engage there, too. Each school is connected to the local community: students in New York volunteer in Central Park; students in Austin have internships with the local Congressman and in the Botanical Gardens. And connecting them all is the Guidepost Academy network: opening up the resources of a global network with the community of a small local school. Students in Florida take digital art taught by a professional animator in Los Angeles; groups of students can collaborate for competitions, entrepreneurship, or interest groups. The Guidepost Academy community combines the benefits of a small school with the resources of a global network.
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