Brooklyn Apple Academy
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Our goal is to nurture the spirit of inquiry and play that children naturally bring to everything they do. We provide the space, the tools, and the opportunity for children to use their hands to develop their minds.
Our students learn to read, write, and create in the context of our projects, play, and travels. We learn at our own pace and at the insistence of our curiosity. We encourage the development of self-motivation and self-discipline, and watch our students grow with every game they invent and nail they hammer.
We learn to write while making posters, composing songs, and drafting the invitations to our performances. We learn to count, add, and subtract while selling lemonade and cookies at a stand at the farmers market. We learn to divide so we can see if there are enough snacks for everyone to have seconds (or thirds!) We learn to read in order to decipher important subway signs on our field trips.
SDE Optimizing Conditions
- Responsibility – Each person at the coop is aware that their education is their own responsibility and that the adults in the space are there as resources they may utilize in their own education if they so wish.
- Freedom – Young people have unlimited choice of how to spend their time in the space pursuing their own interests and collaborating with others as they chose to do.
- Access to Tools – We provide a full kitchen; an art room with painting, drawing, & printmaking supplies, a letterpress, button maker, sewing machines, etc.; a maker space for tinkering & wood working; wrestling mats and house/fort building materials, & many games.
- Nonjudgmental Support – Adults provide assistance to young people in the space as it is requested in a non-judgmental, supportive manner.
- Age Mixing – Young people ages 4 - 15 are free to access the space as they please in the same manner as the adults in the space.
- Healthy Community – We work in a mutual aid, cooperative, trusting environment to collectively work and play and live together.
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