Core Value #1: Every Student Deserves a Responsive Education
When Kareem and I sat down to define what really matters to MCP, we knew it had to start with students. That’s what brought us to education in the first place: preparing learners - no matter their age or background - to lead meaningful lives. But what, exactly, did we want MCP to offer students?
This wasn’t an easy question. Learners need so many things from their education: skills, content knowledge, social-emotional support, relationships with caring adults, safe spaces to grow and make mistakes, etc. The list goes on and on. And to make this even harder, every student’s individual needs are unique. Then it hit us. What every student deserves is a responsive education.
Here’s what we mean by that - and what we think it means for educators like you:
Classrooms should respond to students’ academic needs.
On any given day, one student may walk into class eager to tackle interesting new challenges, while another student may enter needing support with a previous concept. If both students sit through the same one-size-fits-all lesson, one will feel bored while the other feels lost. A responsive education means that, when a student walks into a classroom, that student will have something appropriately challenging to do, with appropriate supports to succeed. The teacher sees what the student needs academically, and responds accordingly.
Classrooms should respond to students’ social and emotional needs.
Education is about more than just content and skills - it should prepare students to relate and interact productively with their peers and within their communities. And developing these abilities helps students to learn academic content, too! So a responsive education means that, when a student walks into a classroom, their teacher has the time and space to treat that student as a human being, with needs that go beyond just acquiring knowledge, and to help that student develop as a person, too. The teacher can see, and help develop, the whole child.
Here’s what a responsive classroom looks like, from a student’s perspective:
Every student is unique; every student can truly learn. Our classrooms must simultaneously empower the student who is ahead, the student who is behind, and the student who is chronically absent. When we respond meaningfully to each student’s academic and social-emotional needs, there is no limit to what any student can achieve.
If you share these values get started on the Free Online Course to begin implementing in your Modern Classroom.
