Engagement & Impact
The most important leg of a three-legged stool is the one that’s missing.
Lall’s Fundamental Observation
If you imagine Montgomery’s educational experience as a perfectly balanced three-legged stool, the program looks like this:
- Foundational academic subjects (language arts, creative arts, math, science, and social sciences) feed each student’s ever-growing knowledge base.
- At the same time, through thoughtfully planned activities, sports, and discussions, essential skills like collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication are discovered, practiced, and honed.
- The elements that combine to create a strong educational baseline are amplified and made meaningful with a deep sense of purpose.
Without purpose, a child’s education—no matter how robust—will fall short and fail to elevate ready minds and bodies to their highest potential.
Engagement and Impact are the filters by which all instruction at Montgomery is measured. There is always a way for students to be personally invested in their work and recognize the power of their accomplishments. Teaching at Montgomery means making classroom and co-curricular experiences relevant, while giving students multiple platforms to make a difference. Students learn to discern where their heart, skills, and talents intersect with needs in the world; and they seek out opportunities to make the biggest possible impact. Whether as a soccer player who motivates teammates in practice, an eighth grader illuminating an injustice in a Chapel talk, or a fifth grader thinking about how to improve water quality, Montgomery students understand that what they know and what they do matters.
Design for a Difference
The culminating eighth grade Design for a Difference project gives students the opportunity to contextualize their entire Montgomery experience. During their year-long course of study, eighth graders identify a local or global issue that tugs at their heart and they work toward finding a solution to the problem using the Design Thinking process.
Develop New Concepts
Each classroom provides space and instruction to explore, discover, and put theory into practice. Classroom initiatives inspire students’ creativity while challenging them with meaningful problems. Whether modeling a population impact study or developing code to improve online accessibility, students ask, “how do I make this work?” while also asking, “how will this make a difference?”
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