Our quest as parents is more about forming character than celebrating report cards. It’s failure – having the courage to risk being knocked down and getting back up again — that makes the hero, not excellence itself.

Parents tend to crave the kind of learning that feels familiar to them – especially when it comes to “science.” A recent conversation with a parent best describes why at Wonder, our science learning comes in the form of quests with real world problems to solve rather than textbooks and written tests.

Learning is hard and messy and happens at different paces within the same age range. There are plateaus – even pauses – in learning rather than steady progressions, and these times are difficult. So is resisting the temptation to compare your child to other children.

As a parent it is often too easy for us to focus on how many badges our children collect or how many points they earn because those are the tangible things we can see and measure. However, there is an invisible system at Wonder that constantly rearranges itself to help all of our children with love and respect.

Why do we want to teach our children that the best defense against bullies is to absorb them into our lives as a necessary evil? What if schools were small enough so no one could hide; and learning to be kind was built into the governance systems and was a necessary achievement for progress at school?