Educational Philosophy

Hammersmith’s educational philosophy grew from ideas articulated by the British educator, Charlotte Mason (1842-1923). Mason started with the premise that children are created in the image of God and therefore should be treated with compassion. She therefore believed that manipulating kids based on rewards and punishments could not take a central role in education. That means that grades, pizza parties, praise and smiley face stickers cannot be the central motivating factors in education.

To modern ears, that sounds impractical. (It’s not — come visit us to see for yourself.) When you eliminate extrinsic rewards and punishments, what’s left? Three key things: atmosphere, the presentation of living ideas, and the formation of habit.

Atmosphere

Children naturally intuit and calibrate their behavior to the culture in which they are immersed. If a school emphasizes grades and other rewards, the students will be shaped by the competitive environment and aim to either win or get-by (depending on their personality).

At Hammersmith, we steward highly relational culture where the classroom is characterized by the joy and peace of Jesus and where student-teacher and student-student relationships are characterized by mutual love and respect. When students are immersed in this kind of atmosphere, their hearts and minds open up to learning.

This kind of relational atmosphere can be helped or hindered by the decor of the room. Cluttered and cartoon-like decorations undermine a joyful and mature learning environment; while simple, orderly, and tasteful decor serves the larger aim of fostering a joyful relational culture.

Living Ideas

Just as the body thrives on a rich and varied diet, so the mind thrives on rich and varied ideas. At Hammersmith, we believe that education is more than the regurgitation of dry and lifeless facts on fill-in-the-blank worksheets. Rather, a rich education means coming face-to-face with the best minds in history expressed in their literature, art and music.

We want our students to love learning, reading, and exploring the world, so we bring them straight to the best sources of knowledge: first the Bible, then the best of literature, art, and music culled from every age of history.

The Discipline of Habit

Habits are ingrained patterns of thought and behavior. Good habits are one of the best gifts we can give to our children because they give them the ability to behave in a virtuous manner without exerting will power. Of course, developing good habits requires a labor of the will, but once the patterns are ingrained, the will can be conserved.

At Hammersmith, we work on habits both on the classroom level and on an individual level. Some children need more focus on certain habits than others. We evaluate where our students are on an-ongoing basis. Special emphasis is placed on the habits of attention, neatness and order, good temper, truthfulness, careful thought, and self-mastery.