Welcome to Curious Minds Classroom
We are passionate about learning, and have built the classroom to provide learners with challenging and rewarding courses in Literature, History, Civics, Philosophy, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and more. Whether you’re trying to help a homeschool student prepare for college, looking for more robust content to supplement traditional schooling, or are just interested in learning something new for the sheer pleasure of it, we have something for you.
Our primary focus while we build out the full range of planned courses is on junior high and high school curricula, but we may add courses for younger audiences as time and resources permit.
The Curious Minds Classroom Approach
Learning Should Be Exciting
Learning new things should be a joyful experience as you discover uncharted territory in your knowledge and understanding, draw connections to other interesting things, and develop a deeper understanding of how the world and the people in it work, think, and grow.
At Curious Minds Classroom, we focus on developing an inquisitive mind that loves asking and finding answers to scientific, moral, philosophical, historical, and all other types of questions. Our courses and programs are designed to reinforce this by using projects, simulation, demonstrations, and other techniques to enhance learning.
Have you ever stared up at the night sky and wondered what was up there? The closer you look, the more there is to see and the more incredible it becomes. The same thing happens in almost every field of study.
Thomas Jefferson's flaws seem to be the only thing polular culture wants to credit to him. We disagree.
Old Doesn’t Mean Outdated
There seems to be a modern belief that the current generation sits atop the pinnacle of the moral high-ground, and that the flaws of those who came before invalidate their observations and conclusions. We disagree. Great ideas and terrible actions have been bedfellows since the dawn of time, and will continue to be so due to the inherently imperfect nature of humanity. We believe that great ideas are valid regardless of the political bent or personal failings of those who voiced them.
The greatest ideas are those that have survived the test of time, regardless of their current unpopularity in the novelty-seeking cancel culture. Our liberal arts content draws heavily on the great ideas of western liberal thought from the likes of Aristotle, John Locke, the founding fathers, William Shakespeare, and other thinkers whose writings have stood the test of time or the scrutiny of robust experience.
We Are Not A Traditional “School”
We are not accredited by any organization, and have no intention to become so. Accreditation comes with bureaucratic oversight and requirements that we believe get in the way of a good education and honest exploration of ideas. We won’t be assigning grades, but parents are welcome to do so. Additionally, we do not believe bureaucrats and government experts are more capable of understanding and accommodating the educational needs of you or your children than you are.
The courses and materials we offer are intended to spark interest, initiate deep discussion, and help you as you build your own educational program. What we offer shouldn’t be interpreted as covering everything needed for a well-rounded education, and not everything we provide will be relevant for everyone. We encourage learners to take charge of their own education, and we do what we can to help make that process interesting, challenging, and rewarding.
Sterile classrooms and schools don't provide much to spark the imagination, so we don't try to copy them.
We disagree with almost everything that Karl Marx wrote, but believe it is important to study and discuss ideas like his that have shaped our world.
Uncomfortable Ideas Are Important
The world of social media has made it increasingly easy and comfortable to surround ourselves with like-minded individuals who reinforce our preferred world view rather than challenge it. We believe this is a dangerous behavior. Here at Curious Minds Classroom, we view the world through a liberty-focused, free-market, limited government, Judaeo-Christian perspective; but we will not limit our coursework and materials to those that support our personal stance on any given topic.
While we hope that you will grow to agree with us, we believe it is better to help develop someone with an opposing viewpoint that is well reasoned and has been critically evaluated than to create a number of mindless clones spouting whatever it is that we poured into them. To that purpose, we will use history and literature to drive discussion about socialism in many of its forms, fascism, monarchy, federalism, democracy, laissez-faire economics, and a range of other social, political, economic, and moral approaches.
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) is amazing
We believe that when you actually understand what math is and what it’s good for it can open a whole new world of understanding and possibility. The traditional approach of pushing arbitrary math “skills” down kids throats through mindless repetition and recipe following may teach you the “how,” but it fails all too often at even that. Without waiting for learners to be ready to grasp the power of abstract thinking, the traditional approach leaves far too many people thinking that math is boring, doesn’t matter, is useless, or that they can’t “do” math. Without the math skills they need, science and engineering are a bridge too far. In the Curiosity Lab, we focus on helping learners understand the “why” and the “how” through hands on learning and application to interesting real-world problems.
A lot of math and science goes into creating the technology required to display our logo on an OLED display. We'll use projects like this to help show how STEM works and what it is useful for.