Mountain Sun
Community School
Mountain Sun Community School
1020 Asheville Hwy
Brevard, NC 28712
ph: 828-577-2328
alt: 828-966-9333
julie
Mission & Vision
Mission & Vision
Climbing is Good for the Soul
The School’s Mission is:
- To provide children with the opportunity to discover and nurture their own passions, unique abilities, and their inner spirit;
- To preserve children’s natural curiosity and cultivate a desire for lifelong learning;
- To empower children to develop into adults who think creatively, live authentically, and lead purpose-filled lives;
- To foster responsibility to self, community, and the natural world;
- And to practice love and respect for self and others.
THE BRILLIANT CHILD
We continue to envision our school as providing a solid academic understanding in the subjects of math, language arts, and science, among others, while honoring each child’s unique blend of intelligences (i.e.: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist and others). Daily opportunities are provided for children to cultivate creative expression and integrate such expression into the learning of traditional academic material. We believe connection to the natural world is a catalyst to learning from within, fosters whole child development, and reinforces care for self. This connection is facilitated by practicing environmental sustainability in all aspects of school life, creating hands-on learning opportunities within the natural world, and providing ample unstructured physical exercise and exploration in the outdoors.
Not the Last Child in the Woods
THE COOPERATIVE COMMUNITY
The school plays a critical role in the development of a child’s communication skills, empathy, conflict resolution, cooperation, and collaboration skills. To help facilitate this, our school models well-structured, consensus decision-making that involve parents, teachers and students. Parents & students work enthusiastically with teachers and administrators on many levels. It takes all of us to advance the school’s mission, model desired student outcomes, and create a climate of cooperation, innovation, and creativity. This includes regular participation of parents in support of the day-to-day curriculum, such as through project-based learning, organized community service and action, facilitating field trips, and creating opportunities for learning in the greater Brevard community.
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH
The vision of our school is to nurture the child’s mind, body, and spirit through incorporating innovative holistic approaches to education. Teachers embrace the concept that each student has an innate desire to learn about the world around them, that they learn in their own way, and that learning is organic and dynamic, and therefore flexibility and creativity are key. Teachers are free to apply principles of teaching and learning that are compatible with the growth and actualization needs of each learner. We believe some of the holistic educational leaders whose techniques and practices support our mission include John Dewey, Rudolph Steiner (Waldorf), Maria Montessori, and Howard Gardner.
Building a Fairy House
THE MULTI-AGE CLASSROOM
We believe children thrive in the intellectual and social diversity of multi-age classrooms, where competition is reduced and collaborative learning is balanced with independent initiative. In this setting, every child can focus on his or her own individual path within a continuum. This in turn fosters responsibility to self and others. We believe that for educators to support the needs of individual learning styles and be familiar with the tools children will need as they grow in an ever-changing world, teachers will need to remain active learners themselves through study, workshops, and teacher exchange opportunities in other holistic schools.
Older Kids Are Drawn to Young Ones and Vice Versa
Mountain Sun Community School
1020 Asheville Hwy
Brevard, NC 28712
ph: 828-577-2328
alt: 828-966-9333
julie
