Self-directed education, child-led learning, whole-child learning, Montessori, Reggio-Emilia, unschooling, Sudbury schools, free schools, democratic schools… these aren’t all the same thing, but at their heart, all of these approaches fundamentally value children having ownership over their own learning experiences, in a non-coercive environment.

Blazing Star School pulls from these pedagogies to provide a self-directed learning environment in a small group setting. Each student will have a personalized education as they learn about the things that spark their interest, as well as being introduced to the interests of their peers.

When people learn what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, because they are self-motivated to do so, they retain so much more and enjoy the process!

Children are obviously not allowed to hurt or bully each other, and are expected to be able to clean up after themselves (at an age-appropriate level.) Obviously there are laws to follow. Children in child-led environments usually come up with their own strategies and rules for sharing limited resources.

Beyond those limits, depending on the child-led learning environments, children receive more or less guidance from adults about how they spend their time. For example, at the Sudbury Valley School, students decide what to do with all of their time and adults only offer curriculum when a child asks. This model has worked successfully for them since the 1960s. At some other self-directed learning centers, adults offer a range of activities to participate in but children are allowed to decide whether or not to participate, and can decide to do their own things instead.

Blazing Star seeks a balance between communal and individual experiences. And as a small group setting aimed at younger elementary children, we must also balance the community’s safety with children’s autonomy. For now, children will need to be in the same space at the same time, so we will do some activities as a group (such as taking field trips to the library or park, group read alouds with student input for reading material) but children will have many hours a day to develop and pursue their own interests. We will try to balance some individuals’ need for quiet, focused time with others’ need for collaboration and boisterous activity. As we grow in size, and as our student body matures, the options for student autonomy will continue to grow. See our Program page for examples of what this might look like on a daily basis.

Perhaps! And that’s ok. While some kids may choose to read books or complete workbooks or otherwise do things that “look like school” to us, kids are learning all the time through play.

Play-based education has well-documented benefits. In addition to learning things such as math (through scorekeeping) or reading (by reading the rules of a game), games and play teach children a lot about interacting with the world. Children who play amongst themselves, with less adult intervention, get more experience communicating and negotiating with their peers; become more practiced at solving their own problems; develop better fine and gross motor control; develop greater self-confidence; are more self-motivated; have more opportunity to dive deep into their interests; have more opportunity to explore new ideas…

Educators have long known that “play is the work of childhood” (Maria Montessori) and luckily, now science is catching up. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledges that “Play is fundamentally important for learning 21st century skills, such as problem solving, collaboration, and creativity;” and that “Play is not frivolous; it is brain building.”

For more about the benefits of play-based education, check out the following resources:

-Psychology researcher and Boston College professor Peter Gray’s blog or his book Free to Learn

-Pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook Angela Hanscom’s book Balanced and Barefoot

-Play-based early childhood educator Teacher Tom’s blog

-Educator and proponent of unschooling John Holt’s book How Children Learn

This is probably the most frequently asked question about non-coercive schooling. It requires a leap of faith for many parents to believe that their children will ever learn these basic fundamental skills without formal lessons. But think about how your child taught themselves to walk and to talk, because they saw other people doing it and felt an internal motivation to learn, because they are useful skills in life that help children access the things they need and want. The same goes for reading and math.

Thousands of unschoolers, free schoolers, and other self-directed learners have been successfully going to college/starting businesses/succeeding in their adult life for many decades. Usually these students simply learn the literacy and numeracy skills they need by participating in life. Or, as self-motivated young adults, they decide to formally study the areas they need in order to achieve their next goals, whether that’s getting accepted to college or embarking on a career path.

And of course, any child who wants help learning to read or wants to learn about multiplication, they will be enthusiastically supported by our staff, just as they would be supported with any interest.

By spending time in print-rich environments, children develop an internal drive to understand the print around them. While there are many ways for children to access information beyond reading a book, the fact is that children will eventually want to be independent and successful in their hobbies and interests, and at some point that will involve reading and writing.

Similarly, by spending time in a world where they get to use practical, hands-on math on a regular basis, children will also develop an internal motivation to learn it at some point. While kids in conventional classrooms may sit and add with worksheets, children at Blazing Star will learn through play, such as playing store and adding the cost of items and giving change. Or, we’ll take a field trip to a real store and they will want to buy real things, and will learn to add up their money. Perhaps they will help plan a field trip using a budget. Perhaps we will do woodworking, and practice fractions as we measure.

It is worth knowing ahead of time that literacy and numeracy often develop at a different pace for self-directed children, and just as children start to walk and talk on their own timeline, each child at Blazing Star will develop these skills on their own timeline, as well. While most children in a conventional school may be able to decode written words at age 6, a child going at their own pace may not be interested in reading independently until a year or two later, though in the mean time, they will still be practicing many other literacy skills such as comprehension, retelling, and creating their own stories. This timeline is developmentally normal. Many highly educated countries around the world do not even start reading and writing instruction until age 7, let alone expect children to be fluent readers at that age. Studies show that children who are allowed to develop as readers at their own pace do catch up in fluency with early readers by their pre-teen or teen years. In fact, they often become more enthusiastic readers later on, precisely because reading was never made to feel like drudgery.

A few years ago, the University of Cambridge reviewed many longitudinal studies about the age of formal schooling and formal literacy lessons, and found that pushing formal academics too soon had a netural-to-negative outcome:

”Studies have compared groups of children in New Zealand who started formal literacy lessons at ages 5 and 7. Their results show that the early introduction of formal learning approaches to literacy does not improve children’s reading development, and may be damaging. By the age of 11 there was no difference in reading ability level between the two groups, but the children who started at 5 developed less positive attitudes to reading, and showed poorer text comprehension than those children who had started later. In a separate study of reading achievement in 15 year olds across 55 countries, researchers showed that there was no significant association between reading achievement and school entry age.”

Similarly, evidence shows that students who decide to learn higher math skills can often learn in a few weeks to a few months, when they are developmentally ready and interested. On the flip side, many students develop math anxiety and discomfort with math during their primary school years. Check out this TEDx video from a math teacher and homeschooling parent, and this interesting experiment from the 1920s.

Students will have a maximum student to teacher ratio of 1:8 in the younger years.

This allows us to be attentive to each child’s interests, and provide 1:1 support for hands-on learning.

At Blazing Star, children will learn and play in a mixed age environment, with the ability to sort themselves into their own groups (or work independently) throughout the majority of the day. Mixed age and mixed skill classrooms have been shown to benefit both younger and older students. According to research from Standford University:

”First, as older children model more sophisticated approaches to problem-solving for their younger peers, it increases the older children’s level of independence and competence. Second, research … showed that when children perceive that they belong to a social group (e.g., when they are told that they are part of a “Blue Group”), they are more motivated to persist on challenging tasks such as puzzles (Child Development, 2013). And third, older children view younger children as needing their help, whereas younger children perceive that older children can offer instruction and leadership. When these two forces combine in mixed-age classrooms, it creates an environment of cooperation, which is beneficial to all.”

We currently serve students ages 4-11. We are open for enrollment for students ages 4 (and fully potty trained) to 12.

We are located in the Irving Park neighborhood, just a few blocks from the Irving Park blue line stop, the Irving Park Metra, and 90/94.

Depending on enrollment size, we will meet in a private home, or we will rent a shared space.

Blazing Star aims to make quality self-directed education in a communal learning environment affordable to all families, livability to its staff, and sustainability to all community members. We offer a sliding-scale tuition, with the following tuition breakdown as a guide.

For the 2022-2023 school year, our minimum tuition will be $3,000 and our maximum tuition will be $15,000. Please see our tuition page for a breakdown by family income.

Blazing Star aims to accommodate a variety of physical, emotional, and learning needs. As a small, flexible community, we may be able to offer certain accommodations that aren’t possible in a conventional classroom setting and have had students with ASD or ADHD thrive here; at the same time, we have limited resources and may not be able to offer all of the supports that a conventional school has.

For example, our staff have worked with children who are neurodiverse, and a child with ADHD may thrive here where they have the ability to move around and follow their interests more than in a conventional classroom. However, our staff are not trained special educators.

If your child has specific physical, emotional, or learning-specific needs, please contact us at 586.994.9908 or blazingstarschool@gmail.com to talk more, and see if we will be a good fit for your family.

Blazing Star celebrates the diverse range of experiences and heritage that families bring to our community, including characteristics we are born with and/or experiences we have had, including race, religion, family composition and construct, socio-economic level, ethnicity, heritage, gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, language, physical abilities, and learning differences and style.

We want students, families, and staff to be able to bring their whole selves to school with them each day, and to feel supported as they explore different facets of their identity.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural competency are an important part of our classroom every day. Exploring the vibrant, diverse, international city of Chicago will also serve as part of our shared learning experience.

Blazing Star will follow the most up to date COVID guidelines as we get closer to Fall 2022, and will continue to monitor the recommendations for schools and childcare environments.

Staff members have been vaccinated and will continue to get boosters and follow other recommended protocols.

Please contact us with more questions, or to enroll for Fall 2022.