Our pedagogy is built around skills practice and acquisition, around asking Big Questions, and around coaching students through varied problem-solving methods. Didactic teaching—the simple delivery of information—has its place. But at Stone, it is only a starting point. We move quickly from the “knowledge about” stage to the “know-how” stage, where performance, practice, and refinement drive deeper understanding.

Just as an athletic coach trains athletes by guiding them through repetitions until skill becomes second nature, our faculty coach students toward intellectual proficiency. This process—practice, correction, mastery—cultivates the ability to evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and create. Without coaching, growth stalls; with it, students gain the capacity to think critically and engage authentically with the world.

We are committed to growing well-rounded, engaged citizens who can analyze complex issues and make meaningful contributions to society and various professional fields — and that all starts Mod 1 in Middle School.

For years, our families have asked us when we would extend Stone’s model downward — when their younger children could benefit from the same kind of learning environment their older siblings were experiencing. We moved slowly, mostly because we wanted to be sure we had built something durable at the Middle and Upper School levels first.

We have seen the need more clearly to build downward, because we more clearly understand that if we want to prepare students not just for college but for life, if we want to build critical thinkers and problem-solvers from the very beginning, then we need to start earlier. 

“At Stone, we believe that education is more than a list of credits and a carefully curated college activities list. We believe that it’s just as important for a student to graduate feeling a sense of intellectual identity and selfhood as it is to be prepared for the demands and authentic assessment of the job force and prepared to thrive in a college setting without the safety nets of early adolescence. “

“Whenever I ask people in my life what learning looks like, I notice that I seem to get a certain kind of answer: ‘I know I’ve learned something when I can do it without help.’  ‘I know I’ve learned something when I can do it in front of other people.’  Or: ‘I know I’ve learned something when I can teach it to someone else.’  Or: “‘ know I’ve learned something when I can use that skill to make something new.’”