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How We Learn

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Learning Through Travel

Trips to various places in the United States and beyond increase understanding of different cultures, history, geography and other important learnings. Students plan trips by researching budgets, meals, lodging, maps and using the Internet for learning about destinations and route highlights. Trips include journals, interviews, photography and reflection. Many students report that trips have been among the most important stimulating eye-opening learning experiences of their schooling years.

Learning Through Real Experience

JCS recognizes the large difference between active and passive learning experiences. The brain learns more, deeper, and with longer lasting effects from real life learning experiences. In one-way learning experiences such as listening to a lecture or merely observing, learning can occur but has less impact and fades more quickly as compared to getting involved and participating actively. The school places its students in situations where they have to think, solve problems, interact with others in situations as close to real life as possible. Students must establish goals, create learning plans, establish courses of action and be held accountable for results. This happens most effectively through experience and activities where students hold important roles and exercise responsibility. This is learning by doing. With experiential learning everyone is a learner and everyone is a teacher. JCS teachers see themselves as “facilitators of learning” in helping students be responsible citizens, achieve fulfilling careers, become self-directed, lead healthy lives and become lifelong learners. The various items around this wheel describe key features of the school.

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