Principle-Based Methods

 The Five Pillars are God, Classics, Mentors, Field Experience, and Simulations.  Every project in our school incorporates each of these as foundational to how humans learn and grow.  Compared to how the standard public school runs, this is a refreshing, principle-based approach that honors each person and where they are currently.  This is agency-based education at its finest. 

 Rather than focusing on the subject of each project, the focus in on the growth of the student.  As a diagnostic tool, VMASK can help us understand where the student is headed, what they need, and what their next best step in their education may be.  If they are lacking something, that can feel uncomfortable.  We can look at what may help them move forward.  Perhaps they need someone to cast vision on how the work they are being asked to do may impact their future.  Perhaps they need more focus on what their unique mission may be and how to tailor their education towards their mission.  Abilities, skills, and knowledge are further down the ladder of importance but can help assess what a student needs in order to fulfill their life missions.

The Seven Keys are discussed more in-depth in the book A Thomas Jefferson Education.  Each of these keys honor the student as a whole human being, and honors their God-given agency along with the innate desire to learn and grow.  There are so many ways that the desire to learn and become educated can become squashed easily.  With mentors, classics, structuring time, simplicity, quality, and inspiration, a student is allowed the ability to really tailor their education to what they really need to become what God sent them here to be.