The 10X-PLORE Student Experience
10X-PLORE Tenets
Our school has the highest expectation for learning: The Moonshot. Through a scaffolded approach to designing, developing, and building Moonshot solutions to local and global challenges, our students learn to be problem solvers, inquirers, entrepreneurs, and Moonshot thinkers. The foundation of their educational journey is rooted in the 10X-PLORE tenets.
Our Schedule
The schedule at ARES Learning moves students through a developmental process that culminates in their Moonshot Lab projects. Students bring their core curriculum foundations, their Launchpad experiences, and their Synthesis insights to the Moonshot Laboratory... and repurposes them towards solving enormous challenges meaningful to them and their communities.
Blended Learning, Tutoring & Consultation
ARES Learning goes well beyond the scope of traditional school, but we recognize the need for some basics shared with other education systems. To that end, ARES provides students an internationally recognized core curriculum for English, Social studies, Math, Science, and more. Our system offers interactive experiences rich with multi-media, adaptive practice, and simulations. The program is modular and customizable to individual student's needs, and each student has agency in co-creating their own learning path. This approach provides a solid foundation for students' academic future, and for the project-based learning that is the true focus of the ARES Experience.
Edison Lunch
The Edison Collaborative
It was common for the scientists hired by Thomas Edison for his innovation factory in Menlo Park, N.J., to toil into the late evening or early morning hours, their boss alongside them. He often ordered a midnight lunch of meat, bread, cheese and beverages for the entire crew, to fuel their overnight discussions and theorizing. At a midnight lunch, Edison encouraged people from different project teams to share their experiments, trade notebooks, and engage in spirited dialogue. At ARES we embrace this collaborative and innovative approach to what traditional school lunch time should be.
The Launchpad Experience
In addition to their core subjects, all students participate fully in the rich experience of our Launchpad Curriculum, where they are exposed to new ways of thinking - and get to set the Trajectory of their own advanced learning. All students are introduced to advanced domains of learning, like Philosophy, Anthropology, Linguistics, Psychology, and Political Science - as well as forward looking pursuits like Science Fiction as Literature, Fictional Alien Languages, and Data Science for Forecasting. With a grounding in the physical and life sciences they then choose their own Space Science Trajectory with options including Astrophysics, Orbital Mechanics, Spacecraft Systems Design, Terraforming, or Genetic Engineering. This broad supplementary curriculum provides a deeper understanding of the world from which to launch their projects in the Moonshot Lab.
The Explorer's Mindset
In the tradition of great explorers from the Polynesian islanders to American astronauts - and the inspirational explorers of science fiction, ARES Learning is infused with the Explorer Mindset. This is a program for students with a deep love of exploration, discovery, and adventure. The learning experiences here are designed to increase comfort with the unknown and with facing challenge in rapidly changing environments. We encourage students to see potential, opportunity, and abundance when they encounter problems as opposed to seeing threat and scarcity. We operate from the presumption that possibilities always exist.
Synthesis
Ethics, Empathy & Difficult Choices
Inspired by the work of the Ad Astra school at Space X, the ARES Learning program focuses on synthesis throughout. Students aren’t just repeating right answers… they experience the tension of making difficult choices, and of risk taking in their explorations and experiments. We ensure that their challenges include ethical dimensions, in order to allow for more meaningful experiences, and deeper learning. Sufficient time is allowed for analysis, debate, strategy, iteration… and the changing of minds. We have adopted the daily practice of sharing ideas during a “Midnight Lunch” (at noon) inspired by Thomas Edison, and the Japanese tradition of Hansei, or relentless self-reflection, aiming to help students accept faults and failures with the high degree of emotion needed to drive changes in the future.
Hansei
Relentless Self Reflection
Hansei is an important part of Japanese culture – a continuous form of subtle meditation undertaken to look at past mistakes, outline the lessons and pledge to act on those lessons. “Han" means to change, turn over, or turn upside down. "Sei" means to look back upon, review, and examine oneself. At ARES Learning, students engage in Hansei at the end of each day to chart a course forward academically, socially and emotionally.