Academic Clubs
Proficient readers naturally develop huge storehouses of knowledge, big vocabularies, language fluency and critical thinking skills. Most students with moderate to severe learning disabilities are poor readers or non-readers. The Academic Club is a proven method to deliver the sophisticated content knowledge they are missing because of their reading and language deficiencies.
An Academic Club enables a child to feel like an intimate part of a time and a place and to become a vital part of any topic being studied. It demands total involvement and gives each child a voice. A classical education is presented in original ways with visual, concrete activities. Students with learning disabilities tend to be passive learners. Instead of lectures and textbooks, this format enables a child to become an active part of whatever topic is being studied. It is highly academic at its core. History, geography, civics, archaeology, literature, and economics are taught through a panoply of art forms. Passwords, routines, and rituals are developed to help students pay attention and focus, to dare to try new skills and to foster a tightly knit group dynamic. History, geography, and civics are taught in the Renaissance Club, while Museum Club, Cave Club, Industrialists Club have different specific objectives.
Where did the Academic Club method come from?
The Academic Club Method grew out of a fierce desire on the part of a Washington, DC parent, Sally L. Smith, to educate her son, who had severe learning disabilities and ADHD. She saw how involved he became in the preparation of elaborate, themed birthday parties she created for him and his brothers. Although education professionals had told her that he was not able to be educated in an existing school system, she realized how able he was to gain knowledge in other ways. She especially noticed how the dramatic framework of the themed parties (Greek Gods, pirates, cowboys, gladiators) served an educational purpose. Her son was involved in every phase of the party development, from research to “set design” and costumes, to appropriate foods to serve. He had ownership of these parties, and astounded guests with his command of sophisticated facts and concepts. Knowledge gleaned from these parties became a part of his being.
Eventually, acquaintances with children who were failing in traditional schools sought out Sally Smith, asking her to teach their frustrated, intelligent children. In 1966, Sally developed an integrated arts method and, in 1967, founded the Lab School of Washington to properly educate these children. She used the arts to help them learn to organize themselves, their belongings, and their ideas - organization being one of the greatest challenges for students with learning disabilities and ADHD. Using the sense of ownership that empowered her son, Sally chose the word “club” as a way to establish membership in this new community of learners. She gave these Academic Clubs all the traditions and rituals that would enhance the highly academic content they would impart. The students would make, do, act, chant, build and live the material that they could not learn by reading. Sally Smith has developed the Academic Club Teaching Service (ACTS) to disseminate this arts-based methodology to schools around the country.
Read more about the history of the Academic Club Methodology
The efficacy of The Lab School approach
How can I bring the Academic Club methodology to my own school?
