Good day, my name is Brian Kearsey. After spending 20 years as educators on both coasts of our country, my wife and I founded Crossroads School as an environment where we could raise and educate our daughter, Christa Grace, in close proximity to our families.

Crossroads. The name reflects the eclectic array of spiritual and educational experiences and influences that have shaped who we are and how we teach. In developing our worldview and approach to education, we have consciously reflected on both the positive as well as the negative aspects of those influences and experiences.

Our spiritual lives were incubated by our parents, who were Catholic and Jewish. During college and early adulthood we explored many eastern and Native American traditions. Eventually we realized that what nurtured our faith the most was attempting to live the simple, though challenging, principles that Christ taught, but without dogma and ritual.

Enjoying the blessings of earning our living in environments that allow us to live and teach these principles daily has nourished the need for fellowship in our lives more than organized religion did. As a result, Crossroads has no religious affiliations, yet, much like the founders of our republic, our commitment to Godly principles is deep-rooted. Because we “live it” rather than “preach it,” families with widely divergent religious views find comfort in our spiritually nourishing environment.

Our educational views were initially formed by negative experiences in both Catholic and government (i.e. "public") schools – we were both sensitive, creative, intelligent kids who fell through the gaping cracks in the traditional system. We both turned to studying educational philosophy during college in an attempt to understand what went wrong in our lives, and then turned to teaching to implement what we were learning. Rather than fall into a firm set of ideas on how to teach, we both consciously fostered an attitude to continually explore and re-evaluate, with both our heads and hearts, what the individual children we were teaching needed and to what each best responded. From Maria Montessori (we’re both certified Montessori teachers) to Krinshnamurti, Steiner, Holt, and Gatto, we realized many educators offered many valuable insights, but that our eye must always be “in the moment” and on the changing needs of the individual child when choosing from the many tools at our disposal.

The result of these influences has been a radical approach to education – we respect each child as an individual human being endowed with the divine breath of life. We respect the fact that individual children have unique, individual needs and talents. We respect the right of individual parents, as opposed to society or the state, to make the ultimate decisions about charting a specific academic course for their children.

To educate literally means "draw out" not stuff in. Children love to learn - it's a basic human instinct. Education should be rooted in fun, spontaneous quenching of natural curiosity. We are humble enough to constantly question our assumptions about how to enhance each unfolding soul, and individually tailor our program to complement the unique talents and meet the changing needs of each child. Based on feedback from parents and input from the child, our teachers customize individual goals for each student and develop individual guidelines for achieving those goals. These guides are designed to maximize individuality and flexibility while maintaining a balance with real-life scheduling constraints. Within their framework we encourage children to pursue their own interests in an environment ripe with choices.

Our incredible ratios (7:1 pre-k, 8:1 elementary, & 6:1 high school) afford the luxury of mixing several ages in class. The challenges and rewards of this more natural setting come hand-in-hand. It softens the developmental differences in children while fostering broader social pallets. Children work at their own pace, soaring years ahead of "grade level," maintaining a traditional pace, or lagging "behind" without the trade-offs involved in skipping ahead or the stigma of getting "left back." (Though students who opt for Regents or Advanced Placement classes and those taking SAT’s and college entrance exams are well prepared for how the real world evaluates academic achievement.)

Interaction between the classes is permitted on an individual basis as appropriate. This aspect of our school reaps a bountiful harvest in the natural, spontaneous relationships that blossom. How sweet to watch a 15 year-old finish algebra and proceed to crawl around on hands and knees, tickling a 4 year-old as the toddler feigns an attempted escape! To see the loving concern of an 8 year-old gently consoling a preschooler whose mom just left for Chicago on a business trip! To observe an older child helping a young friend on his lap as he sounds out his first word!

As we learn to respect and trust children, they learn to be respectful and trustworthy. Rather than externally enforce discipline by strictly controlling a child and demanding blind conformity, we cultivate internal discipline, which is infinitely more valuable. Intelligent cooperation is fostered as children practice speaking intelligently, moving gracefully, and choosing wisely. In this type of environment it is critical to have a sensitive teacher present and "in the moment" to observe and guide the children with patient, firm wisdom. Our children practice wielding the powers of freedom within the parameters common sense dictates. Some individuals thrive with minimal guidance; others require more structure. Actions have consequences - intelligent choices expand freedoms, poor choices limit them.

Many problems can be avoided by an observant teacher who redirects a child in a positive manner before something happens. When things do happen, it’s all too easy to sum up a situation in a glance and proceed to use one’s authority as a teacher, but many great learning opportunities are lost by quick reactions. We take the time to see what’s really going on. Sometimes adults misread a child’s actions. Sometimes a child’s harsh word or deed is the tip of an emotional iceberg that can be gently explored. Sometimes children have completely different perspectives on an incident, all valid. It’s enlightening to try to “see” from another’s perspective, but this often requires a teacher gently guiding a discussion. We speak to children about their feelings and plant seeds of awareness about how our words and actions affect others. Prime opportunities to teach living, spiritual principles like this arise spontaneously, especially when the entire day is not artificially scripted for the children. This can demand time a teacher had planned to spend another way ("The Magna Carta was signed July …") but it yields a fruitful harvest in the human spirit. When an emotional squall blows through, we spend the time to try untangling hurt feelings, and, after digesting the therapeutic fodder such impromptu dialogues offer, dwell again on the lessons gleaned.

Children rarely have any real practice at conflict prevention and resolution in most schools, so they instinctively resort to "skills" learned on the playground to "solve" problems. Conflict prevention and resolution are daily staples at Crossroads. They are the lifeblood of healthy, productive social and business relationships, and poor skills in these areas are the source of many an adult's problems. We monitor social interactions for opportunities to help students learn our guidelines: Respect each other; try to talk things out before they develop into larger problems; try to be patient, kind, and forgiving, yet firm, when resolving the inevitable conflicts of life; ask for help if talking isn’t working, and; if you push someone else too far, accept the fact that they will often fall short of our lofty goals and respond to you with less than saintly patience.

Education begins at home, and home remains by far the most dominant influence on learning. If a child is raised by literate parents who are continually expanding their minds’ pallet, eager to soak up the infinite wonders that abound all around us, then all the school need do is help the child feed and channel the curiosity surely burning inside. That child will usually inhale the basic concepts needed to function in society, then go on to cultivate areas of intense passion to spend a lifetime exploring. In this ideal scenario, our goal is to help guide and organize the learning process taking place spontaneously within each child, ensuring they have the tools they need to discover their passions and keeping their academics balanced. Once they learn how to use them, the resources at their fingertips are virtually unlimited. When parents do not provide this fertile soil, any school faces significant challenges in sparking, kindling, and focusing true learning. At Crossroads, we expect every parent to assume the duties God has charged them with and take an active role in charting, monitoring, and implementing the educational course their child will be on. We encourage parents to challenge and reevaluate their ideas on what education is by exposing themselves to a variety of educational philosophies. If this only serves to solidify views that have long held, they will be all the more confident in holding those views. Above all, we encourage every parent to be willing to reevaluate their views in light of the feedback, both conscious and unconscious, that their child provides.

Academics - Curriculum

Traditional curriculums are good general yardsticks for the average child in a particular subject or grade, and as such they are a good general starting place. We use New York State's curriculum as our default guide, but our low ratios and customized approach allow us to assess individual needs – strengths as well as weaknesses – and adjust the details accordingly. Some children thrive with lots of structure and paperwork; others flourish with a very unorthodox, more tactile approach. Some soar years ahead in several areas but lag “below level” in one; others struggle with most academic areas but are gifted musicians and mathematicians. Most fall within the “normal” range in most areas.

Our flexible structure also allows us to take advantage of countless opportunities to enrich our lives in ways no traditional program could allow. Our weekly field trips (usually three afternoon trips and one all day trip each month) are an integral part of our curriculum. So is our willingness to postpone a scheduled activity in order to take advantage of an impromptu discussion on trading stock futures. (The particular incident I am recalling was sparked by a parent who dropped by and became engrossed in a good gab with the highschoolers.) We encourage balanced, reflective living, and from this state of mind academic growth, including traditional curriculums, flows as a desirable tool needed to explore the universe, the “means” to a rich, fulfilling life rather than the “end” itself.

We recognize the fact that traditional curriculums have many arbitrary aspects and are generally misused; the rigid schedules, pressure, coercion, and judgment children frequently endure in an effort to meet these otherwise worthy goals inflict immeasurable damage on the vulnerable soul of the developing child. Most schools, for example, present fractions at a certain point in a certain grade. Some students grasped the concept effortlessly. Many others struggle and begin to catch on in a few days, proud of their small victory. A fair number invariably failed to make any connection, and are forced to endure having it pounded in day after day after day, suffering no small amount of frustration along the way.

It is with this latter approach that we are drastically at odds with traditional pedagogy. At Crossroads, an, “It’s too hard – I can’t do it!” attitude is unacceptable. But if a child makes a good effort but grows frustrated, we back off. We try again every few weeks, months, or years until it clicks. We’ve seen a few children take quite a long time, but never one who didn’t eventually readily grasp fractions. It's like waiting until the fruit is ripe on the vine, when it falls easily into your hand, rather than forcing it off prematurely. What difference does it make if it happens in fourth grade or eighth grade? How do you decide when to push a little with firm, patient persistence and when to let it go? We struggle to stay in the moment with each child, humble enough to remember it’s a judgment call every time, one best made with input from the parents. This attitude never fails to earn children’s respect.

Our curriculum also includes manipulative equipment that helps build a solid, concrete foundation for later, more abstract intellectual endeavors in language, math, the sciences, and geography. For example, the children have traced individual "Sandpaper Letters" and learned their sounds long before they put the sounds together to form words to read. When they are old enough to use pencils and paper to work with math, the abstract numerals have tangible, concrete meaning for our children because they have been adding and subtracting with beads in the form of units, ten bars, hundred squares, and thousand cubes for quite some time. They see and feel that the hundred-square has ten “bars” in it, each of which has ten units. When they learn carrying, they don't just "...put down the three and carry the one." They see that with thirteen beads they may exchange ten of them for a ten-bar, and the result is an extra ten with three units left. Ask to view some of our manipulatives (fractions are my favorite!) when you tour our school!

Academics - Daily Schedules

Our schedules are much like the trellises gardener uses - firm when necessary to promote positive growth, yet gentle enough to allow life to flow. This flexible structure is designed to encourage spontaneous curiosity; our teachers are trained to observe and guide, suggest and balance. They help kindle the spark and then focus it as it ignites into a blaze of true learning. The mysteries that surround us provide an inexhaustible source of fuel to keep it burning. Love, joy, and wonder motivate our daily exploration of these mysteries. In this atmosphere children naturally accept the guidance they need. They quickly learn that poor choices limit freedoms, while mature, intelligent decisions expand them. While we always fine-tune our schedules to accommodate individual needs, preschoolers generally thrive with a more organic, flexile schedule; as they mature, the elementary ages gradually need and enjoy more structure; by middle school, academic needs naturally require a lot of scheduling, and by high school the students readily see the need to have a great deal of scheduling to juggle the various disciplines they are engrossed in studying. Our approach has produced a long, consistent track record of academic excellence and, more vitally, happy, successful adults!

For many parents, who don’t have the luxury of seeing their children’s academics progress on a daily basis and who have little to compare what they do see against, standardized tests provide important feedback and reassurance that their child’s academics are on course. For other parents, these tests are yet another aspect of an ever encroaching federal bureaucracy that is ever increasing its control of their child. They also worry that the pressure put on schools to produce high test scores has resulted in a tendency to “teach to the test” at the cost of sacrificing true learning on the alter of worshiping a narrow band of isolated facts.

We are appalled by the audacity of the clearly unconstitutional (not to mention detrimental) federal involvement in education, and we refuse to confine our teaching by the restraints accompanying an over emphasis on test scores. And make no mistake - the demopublicans are just as lustful of total control over the lives of our children as the republicrats are! There is no place for the fedgov in education - none. Unless there is good reason for even state or local government interference, we respect the parental right to abstain from testing. Yet, that said, standardized tests, while potentially limiting, are a valuable tool in plotting an academic course for most children. The vast majority of our students score very well on annual assessments because true intelligence is flourishing rather than because we place an inflated value on them.

Our specific homework recommendations are different for each child and, as with our entire approach to education, are customized according to input from individual students, parents, and teachers. Imagine that! (I won't ask to be pardoned for my sarcasm - I've met far too many families with well earned battle scars over the mindless, "one size fits all" approach to homework that even most private schools impose.) Parents have the primary responsibility for deciding the particulars of how their child spends their time at home, and it should be based on the needs of individual children!

In general, we minimize traditional homework, although it is quite common for a student or parent to request or a teacher to assign additional, “traditional” homework work in any area. Our goals are lofty – Thoreau once said that you don’t often hit what you never aimed for – but often pay off handsomely. We aim to help guide and organize the learning process taking place spontaneously within each child, ensuring they have the tools they need to discover and develop their passions while keeping their academics balanced. Once they learn how to use them, the resources at their fingertips are virtually unlimited. Many students fall easily into an incredible pattern where it is obvious to all that the blaze of true learning has been ignited.

Yet we are pragmatic, and understand that reality often falls far short of our idealistic hopes. Not every student will find this path and settle into a groove at the same time. Many need more time and more traditional, external guidance before they discover a passion. (Especially those with a few years of “traditional” schooling under their belts, who first need to unlearn what they think an “education” is.)

In an attempt to build the trellises that will guide their natural interests, our elementary and high school students are responsible for 2 ongoing homework assignments. The first involves reading. We encourage all to read for pleasure; we monitor their progress and strongly encourage them to broaden their pallets by sampling various types and styles. (Short Stories, Biographies, Adventure, Science Fiction, Historical, Scientific, Current Events, Mystery, Mythology…)

The second homework assignment is to go home and explore - learn something interesting if not fascinating, discover a passion! The choices are open-ended. It can be a curling up on the couch with mom for a show on the History or Discovery Channel, or a special on an actress who just passed away; it can be something they explored on the internet, or a hiking new trail they discovered with dad; it can be an in-depth discussion with a visiting uncle about his experiences in a foreign country, a movie they film with their friends, or a song they composed with their band. In any event, our students are encouraged to reflect on their diverse discoveries and enrich our weekly group discussions, hopefully and sparking each other’s interests. As they grow and mature, we encourage each student to keep a journal with summaries, brief or in depth as appropriate, of their journeys exploring our world. (Colleges love portfolios spiked with such unique treasures!)

The critical foundation for life is formed during childhood; this is the time to consider our ultimate goals. Academic achievement and intellectual prowess, while vital tools, will not suffice. Our children need grace enough to heed the whisperings of the muses if they are to develop enough strength to avoid being swept mindlessly along by social currents. They need courage and imagination to dream, and they need the determination and skills to root those dreams in reality.

The intellect is an invaluable tool God granted us to cultivate. But the intellect is part of our lower nature and must be subservient to the spirit - knowledge pales in comparison to the power of the understanding. To build our foundation on the shifting sands of our intellectual knowledge is ultimately futile; to build our foundation on the rock of spiritual understanding is to ensure a bountiful, eternal harvest. When kept refined to its proper role, intellectual development leads us to humility and turns us to God. The more we learn about our world, and western man has certainly climbed some lofty technological peaks, the more we should realize how awesome are the simple wonders of creation.

As educators, it is our goal to help each children discover and develop and the blueprint God engraved in their souls so as adults they will lead rich, full lives both materially and, more vitally, spiritually. Our graduates have a long track record of both academic and real life success because we recognize intellectual and material development as merely means to enhance our understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of God’s myriad blessings, and the intellect tends to blossom in this atmosphere. Some focus on earning an early diploma in order to pursue areas of passion in college or start their own careers. (Ask to see the Times newspaper story about our 16 year-old who entered UCLA as a junior – skipping two years of high school and two years of college!) Most work towards a Regents diploma and head off to college; some focus on a GED or starting their own business. What path will your precious child take? Let us work with you to ensure it will be one that capitalizes on their unique gifts and talents!