High Expectations Teaching

Believe that they can, and they will. The salient objective of our learning community rests upon a belief in malleable, effort-based ability. Through Dr. Jon Sophier’s research-based methods, The Barred Academy encompasses the deliberate use of language, community structures, and routines, instructional strategies, as well as policies and procedures for maintaining the principles of our learning community, in order to directly and explicitly communicate to our scholars that: what we’re doing is important, you can do it, and I’m not giving up on you.

Using the groundwork outlined by Dr. Sophier, we have cultivated a program with embedded social-emotional skill development essential to student success. Knowing that our work is to convince our students that they can grow their ability, and show them how to make that growth happen, while also motivating them to want to grow, we have devised systems for explicitly teaching the behaviors of a successful student.