Educational Philosophy and Curriculum

Digging the Past bases our learning on Colorado state standards, but our core philosophy is a combination of existentialist and progressive learning philosophies. Generally, ages range from K-4, with some exceptions; if you have questions, please contact us to discuss your child on an individual basis.

Digging the Past encourages creativity in children through the following ways:

• Students work independently, without adults regularly correcting them as they discover and interpret their findings; children take more risks when not worried about failure.

• Competition changes how children progress at their own speed; we work as a team and take group ownership over our learning and projects.

• Constant evaluation is counterproductive to a child’s self-esteem; we allow them to savor their accomplishments one by one, and not worry about the next “test,” if they are going to “pass” or earn their “A.”

• Student choice in learning, without predetermined right or wrong answers, encourages deeper analysis, discovery and ownership in education; students, not teachers, get to figure out the context and function of our artifacts.

• We do not use extrinsic rewards (unless you count finding the artifacts themselves!) The greatest rewards for creative endeavor are intrinsic.

• We practice flexible grouping; students continue to be differentiated to maintain their confidence and creativity, but group settings will vary throughout the day. Students work in pairs digging, play games in small groups, and experience the full heterogeneous classroom while “centering” and debriefing, so ideas and friendships often transcend grade level and contribute to intellectual growth for all.

Differentiation in a Learner-Centered Classroom

Perhaps the most difficult challenge to educators, differentiation in a student-centered classroom is an essential, yet underutilized best practice, and it involves peripheral variables. Many educators differentiate, but do so using a teacher-centered model, often not realizing their biases and suppositions.

For example, a student may be acting out because they are below grade level and feel discouraged. An educator - in a hectic classroom of diverse learners - quickly addresses the behavior issue as the priority, never suspecting an underlying causality, by telling the student to be quiet. The student initially may be quiet, but that one quick decision by their teacher just quieted that student to today’s learning. The student may also may feel as though they lack the appropriate expressive means to communicate.

Differentiation with a student-centered approach, at least in the way we practice it, means the student has a voice in what they learn, and how deeply they go with it. Effective differentiation is proactively planned, and with students actively involved in the decisions.

Standards

As a parent, I like the idea of having my son spend time in summer reinforcing, reviewing and previewing concepts from school. Our camps cover curriculum from the Colorado state social studies standards using experiential, hands-on methods.

For example, we ask the students specific, content-related questions to encourage them to dig deeper (pun :) We distinguish fact from fiction, cover physical geography and spatial understanding; students may experience real-life situations where they and a partner interpret a dig scenario differently.

Please see the following table for examples of standards being applied at camp:

*These are only examples; students engage a variety of cross-discipline standards-based education. Camps vary in age, and older children are encouraged to attend.

Evidence Outcomes (How do we know a student can do it?)

Students will be able to explain and describe in detail a very specific human experience during various time periods; eras include the 1860s, 1980s and 900 BCE, but students will be the determining factor on the “official” time period of their stories.

Students will be able to apply safe and proper archaeological digging and artifact processing techniques. Working in pairs similar in age, students will carefully draw their findings on “dig maps;” later in a whole class setting, they work to interpret the maps, assessing the context of the found artifacts. Students will utilize toothbrushes, small paint brushes and water to clean artifacts.

Students will collaboratively analyze and evaluate human artifacts they find in an archaeological dig, creating narrative history stories based on their interpretation of the evidence.

Students will demonstrate, report their stories through their chosen means of expression, which might include writing, role-play, multi-media. As a whole class, students will be formulate a plan to display and share their stories with parents and friends.

After the week, students will understand complex relationships between humans, and the context in which they were experienced. Students will be aware of a variety of possible human functions for each artifact, as determined with their peers and through collective full-class discussion. Students will understand and implement anthropological, archaeological, historical and museum concepts.