The Mission Hill School is a Boston Public Pilot School in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts serving approximately 220 children, ages 3-14 (grades K0-8).
Mission Hill School's small learning community emphasizes a project-based, collaborative curriculum, inclusive of all learning abilities. The school was founded in 1997 by educator and author Deborah Meier and is modeled on democratic principles. All major budgetary, staffing, and curricular decisions are made by both the principal and faculty council.
The task of public education is to help parents raise youngsters who will maintain and nurture the best habits of a democratic society be smart, caring, strong, resilient, imaginative and thoughtful. It aims at producing youngsters who can live productive, socially useful and personally satisfying lives, while also respecting the rights of all others. The school, as we see it, will help strengthen our commitment to diversity, equity and mutual respect.
Democracy requires citizens with the capacity to step into the shoes of others, even those we most dislike, to sift and weigh alternatives, to listen respectfully to other viewpoints with the possibility in mind that we each have something to learn from others. It requires us to be prepared to defend intelligently that which we believe to be true, and that which we believe best meets our individual needs and those of our family, community and broader public — to not be easily conned. It requires also the skills and competencies to be well informed and persuasive–to read well, to write and speak effectively and persuasively, and to handle numbers and calculations with competence and confidence.
Democracy requires citizens who are themselves artists and inventors — knowledgeable about the accomplishments, performances, products and inventions of others but also capable of producing, performing and inventing their own art. Without art we are all deprived.
Such habits of mind, and such competence are sustained by our enthusiasms, as well as our love for others and our respect for ourselves, and our willingness to persevere, deal with frustration and develop reliable habits of work. Our mission is to create a community in which our children and their families can best maintain and nurture such democratic habits.
Toward these ends, our community must be prepared to spend time even when it might seem wasteful hearing each other out. We must deal with each other in ways that lead us to feel stronger and more loved, not weaker and less loveable. We must expect the most from everyone, hold all to the highest standards, but also respect our different ways of exhibiting excellence. We must together build a reasonable set of standards for our graduates so that they can demonstrate to us their capacity to meet this mission.
