Progressive Education
The Baker Difference
You’ll notice the typical Baker classroom looks different from the traditional classroom.
Baker Demonstration School believes that childhood is the most critical and fertile period for the development of attitudes, habits, capabilities, and skills and that the curriculum is the sum total of all that a child experiences in his or her life at school.
Children here are actively learning through purposeful inquiry and play. They are engaged in cross-curricular exploration to the world indoors and out. Teachers are co-learners with students, exploring right alongside them. These explorations often take us out into nature and into the broader community. There is flexibility in curriculum allowing teachers to offer up the most current best practices and learning opportunities to address our ever changing global community.
It’s called Progressive Education, an educational model with profound benefits for all children.
Baker’s Progressive Principles:
Principle 1: We educate the whole child
Principle 2: We see, understand, and respond to each child as an individual
Principle 3: We cultivate each child’s inherent love of learning
Principle 4: We create engaging, hands-on learning experiences
Principle 5: We build higher-order thinking skills
Principle 6: We provide academically vigorous and thematically integrated curricula
Principle 7: We support creative thinking and academic progress through integration of the arts
Principle 8: We create an environment in which students are comfortable taking risks
Principle 9: We actively teach community building skills and concepts that foster
Why Baker
Five Main Components of the Baker Experience
- The acquisition of essential knowledge, skills and techniques in the communication arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts
- The reflection on what was learned, on the learning process, and on the social context
- The development of attitudes and habits that encourage the individual to interact and cooperate with other people, to contribute to and support a larger group
- The encouragement of active participation in the fine arts and physical arts
- The nurturing of the whole child in seeking to balance the physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and ethical development
A (Brief) History of Progessive Education
Our roots are in the Progressive Education movement, which began over a century ago.
It was the late 19th century, and the world was undergoing dramatic changes. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing. It was rapidly creating new technologies and workforce opportunities for which educators needed to prepare their students. But how do you prepare young people for such an unpredictable future?
Progressive Education arose as an answer to that question. Its proponents, such as American psychologist John Dewey, Italian physician Maria Montessori and our first director, Clara Belle Baker, suggested the best way to prepare children was to focus more on teaching them through experience how to learn rather than merely what to learn. That would prepare them to adapt and thrive regardless of what the future brings.
Independent schools like Baker are leading the way, providing a truly progressive educational experience that prepares them for a world that is changing more rapidly than ever before. Here, your child’s natural love of learning will grow into the confidence they need to solve problems, adapt to whatever life brings them, advocate for themselves and ultimately thrive in whatever they choose to do.
Accreditation & Affiliations
What is accreditation and why does it matter?
Accreditation is the process of being evaluated by recognized authorities in academic administration. Baker is proud of the recognition we continue to earn from these accrediting organizations:
Independent Schools Association of Central States (ISACS)
The ISACS accreditation process includes an extensive self-study and external evaluation, and is conducted every seven years. Baker was accredited once again in 2019.
Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)
Non-Public School Recognition, Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)
National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
NAIS is a membership organization representing approximately 1,200 independent schools and associations in the United States and abroad. NAIS-accredited schools must operate with ethical principles, offer an intellectual environment of free and open inquiry, show evidence of sound fiscal practice and have responsible governance and administration.
Lake Michigan Association of Independent Schools (LMAIS)
LMAIS is a non-profit organization established to promote educational excellence by supporting the interests of independent schools in northern Illinois and northwest Indiana, building strong relationships between independent schools, and creating innovative opportunities in professional development for the faculty, staff and administrators in independent schools.
Progressive Education Network (PEN)
Building on the common vision of pedagogy articulated by our forbearers in the Progressive Education Association and the Network of Progressive Educators, PEN is guided by a century-long legacy while enthusiastically embracing a commitment to diversity, equity and justice in member schools like Baker.