The power of an inclusive community to accelerate learning and growth for bright and gifted kids
Social-emotional growth is a central focal point of our program, and flows from the premise that the purpose of social-emotional learning within an educational environment is to help each student develop the skills, awareness and priorities they need to become a positive member of their social communities—in friendships, within the school and as a local and global citizen.
Our academic program is designed around and fosters this premise. All students, regardless of age, diagnostic profile or service level, work, interact and collaborate together as part of one cohesive community. This is fostered through our social-emotional curriculum, proprietary Human 101 course on the neurophysiology of human interactions and project-based learning curriculum —all of which develop essential 21st century skills in how to build and foster relationships and empathy towards others whose talents and needs differ from our own.
Here are some of the ways our program is structured that fosters and elevates the experience of community:
A mixed age cohort by design
Cajal Academy is an inclusive and nurturing, mixed age community of children in grades K-12. Our program is mixed age by design, because twice exceptional kids tend to feel more comfortable with kids who are older or younger than themselves than they do with kids around the same age. And, many 2e kids may be 2 years ahead in one academic subject while they falter behind in another. Thus, this approach provides natural learning and social partnerships. Each student participates in ability-based classes, and collaborate together through our school-wide project-based learning classes.
Fostering empathy through our exclusive neuroscience curriculum
Neuroscientific findings show us that hidden elements of our neurophysiology can have profound impacts on how we learn, socialize and grow — leading to the great diversity we see in student abilities, communication and social-emotional needs. Our exclusive, “Human 101” curriculum incorporates elements of neurology, psychology, sociology and immunology, leveraging our students’ high analytical abilities to demystify the great diversity of being human. Curriculum is tailored to the need of each cohort, building a bridge between each student’s unique challenges and communication patterns and those of their peers. This helps them to develop better compassion towards themselves for their areas of challenge, empathy towards peers who have their own unique challenges and a growth mindset as they come to understand how the human brain can change.
Collaborative, community-wide project-based learning
Our students collaborate with one another to solve real world problems, while developing the scaffolded social collaboration skills that are essential to 21st century success. This process forms the backbone of our academic curriculum, bringing all students together to contribute to one community-wide project. This process starts by creating bespoke, project-based learning units that integrate Next Generation Science and Connecticut-approved curriculum standards into real world, “driving questions” the students must work together to solve. Students attend a traditional schedule of ability-based academic classes, in which students are grouped with same-age peers and instruction is differentiated using the data in their neuropsychological and physio profiles. There, curriculum is sequenced and aligned to the community-wide project-based learning units, so that even those students who require 1:1 academic instruction share a common curriculum and purpose across the broader community of peers.
Programming levels that dial up and down as your child’s needs do
We feel so strongly about the benefits of diverse and inclusive communities that we did something unheard of among special education schools: we introduced new programming levels ranging from a mainstream private school tuition to bespoke therapeutic programming, to foster a diverse and inclusive community. Each child’s programming level is tailored to their needs, and adjusted each year as challenges are addressed or new ones arise—so no one has to lose their curriculum or community as they develop. Meanwhile, intellectually-gifted kids with no special education needs benefit from the small class sizes, project-based learning and neuroscience-driven pedagogy at the core of our school.
Building community starts in our admissions process
Through this unique approach, we have been able to develop a community in which students are able to find common ground despite a wide range of learning, social-emotional and neurophysiological differences. This allows them to extend empathy towards one another, forgiveness for atypical patterns of communication and investment in their own growth processes. It is, we have come to realize, our most valuable therapeutic asset, as students are motivated to to gain self-direction over their actions by the pull and encouragement of the group.
And, it won’t be effective for all students.
In order for our unique approach to be effective, students don’t have to know how to build connections to or foster a sense of community, but they do have to be motivated to try. They don’t need to understand social interactions or how to interpret others’ behaviors, but they must be able to feel the empathy that is required to convert that information into compassion and kindness towards others as we work to develop those understandings.
Thus, ours is not an appropriate program for students who do not feel a desire for social connection, or who lack the ability to experience empathy for others, are physically assaultive towards staff or peers, have a history of bullying, are intentionally emotionally hurtful or show sadistic tendencies, as these tendencies are destructive to the emotionally safe environment that is essential for a trauma-informed program, and to the community itself. Students who repeatedly engage in bullying behavior towards staff or students may be asked to leave.
Cajal Academy is an avowedly inclusive community, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical disability or any other protected class.