What is Progressive Education at Touchstone?

At Touchstone, progressive education is made real and purposeful. Children are engaged and passionate, pursuing investigations, asking relevant and meaningful questions, and reflecting on their work. Touchstone’s progressive education is made possible with a community and a social fabric where children feel known, at home, and safe to take risks and make mistakes.  The academics, skills, engagement, curriculum development, classroom management, and parental partnership go far beyond morning drop-offs and afternoon faculty meetings, far beyond quizzes and worksheets, and further than benchmarks and goals. We ask students to go beyond the rote answer, the memorized formula, or the acquisition of basic content.   We ask them to go beyond their assumptions.  We ask them to take their talents, their strengths, and their areas for growth and to stretch.  Our students are acquiring the skills to listen, to moderate and test ideas, to see from many perspectives, and to set and achieve goals.

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    Progressive education at TCS:


    It is demanding and challenging on many levels.


    It engages the individual within a community of learners.


    It teaches students to ask meaningful questions and consider multiple perspectives.


    It involves parents in their child’s education.


    It demands teachers constantly and consistently respond to their students’ learning needs.


    It is powerful, meaningful, and sometimes messy.


    John Dewey said, “Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.” At Touchstone, students are never done learning! It’s not easy to be a teacher in a progressive school—there is no pre-scripted curriculum, no pre-packaged set up. TCS teachers, by nature of our classrooms and our philosophy, are life-long learners, creative thinkers, and passionate educators.

    Our educational philosophy attracts and retains teachers who are eager to plan, review, and re-plan curriculum for their classrooms and for each individual student. Our teachers use their experience and professional knowledge to align, design, and reflect on the academic and social progress of each student. It’s not easy because at a progressive school, the work is constantly shifting, the classroom is organic and multifaceted, and a teacher’s role is one of partner, mentor, guide, expert, and friend. Our teachers model the skills we hope to nurture in our children, and they model the value of life-long learning.  They too see each goal as the opportunity to start anew. They are never done learning.


    At Touchstone there are no spelling quizzes with a big 98% on the top coming home to be hung on the fridge, no report cards with end of year GPAs. Instead, there is a profound partnership between teachers and parents, which requires cooperation, respect, and strong communication. Refrigerators in our families’ homes hold poetry, essays, art, and puzzles—real work that students have produced and of which they are justifiably proud. It is important, in a progressive school, that the community of parents is engaged and involved, excited by the school’s work, and in full partnership with their child’s teachers. Parents at progressive schools often talk about “taking a leap of faith” when they enter a school like Touchstone because the usual markers are not how we assess or even talk about our children. We believe our assessments are deeper, more thoughtful, more individualized, and more authentic. The parents of our alumni come back and crow about their children, about the depth of their learning, knowledge, and skills.  They say, “we took a leap and it was worth it!”


    Over one hundred years ago, John Dewey, the preeminent American philosopher, educational reformer, and pioneer of progressive education suggested that learning is a social and interactive process, and that students learn best in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum.  Touchstone Community School was founded in 1982 with exactly those deeply empowering and meaningful ideals of progressive education at our core. Dewey said, “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.” At a progressive school, at Touchstone, education is life. Children learn for life here. 


About Touchstone

Touchstone was founded in 1982 by parents and educators who knew that children learn best when they are respected as individuals and actively engaged in their own learning. Their vision of a school where children are engaged, empowered, and inspired was cutting edge then, and today it is a model for progressive education.


Rapidly changing expectations means children need to learn to be creative and flexible in their thinking; they need to learn how to learn; they need to be able to work in a diverse world; they need to be able to collaborate in problem solving; they need to be passionate and compassionate lifelong learners.




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