Testimonial

Tessellations school understands gifted kids. My kids are thriving there – developing their deep interests, exercising their vast creativity, and being in a community who understands them and celebrates their quirkinesses.

With gifted children and asynchronous learning, each child can be at a wildly different level than her same-age peers. This is especially true for math. So Tessellations has Math Specialists teaching math and each child goes to the math classroom appropriate for his/her level.

Emotional regulation and social emotional learning (SEL) are important for every kid to learn, but I think that gifted children tend to have a hard time here. Tessellations incorporates SEL education into their curriculum, and I see a big difference with my children. They are more resilient, more curious, and more willing to try something and risk failure.

Tessellations understands the importance of Nature and the connection to the outdoors. Nature helps us to regulate our own bodies – improving mood and the immune system and recharging creativity. So the school chose a campus with a lot of outdoor space for next year where children can run and be active and where some lessons/experiments/etc. can be held outdoors. The school will also be incorporating hikes, outdoor learning, and camping trips next year. (We couldn’t do it this year due to the Pandemic.)

Tessellations puts an emphasis on each student following their own interests and developing those interests by setting milestones, making plans, committing to regular practice/study, and presenting progress and milestones to fellow students and the school community. (I am impressed with the presentation skills my children have learned!)

Tessellations’ Teachers understand gifted kids. (And Tessellations School understands the importance of hiring great teachers.) My children adore their teachers. The older one told me that her 5th grade level math teacher is one of the few adults who really understands what it’s like to be a kid. (As a result, my child looks forward to math, views her teacher as a role model, and strives to meet the expectations of her teacher.)

If you are looking for a traditional, hard-core education with a lot of tests, memorization, and competition against students for the best grades, this is not the school for you. (But consider what education could be like if we didn’t conflate achievement with competition. Read this article about the value of cooperation and what that could look like in the classroom: https://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/cl/.
That is Tessellations.)