The Calhoun School

Calhoun inspires a passion for learning through a progressive approach to education that values intellectual pursuit, creativity, diversity and community involvement. At Calhoun, teaching and learning begin with the strengths, needs, questions and diverse life experiences of the individual student.

Our teachers know their students well. Small class sizes provide faculty with the time and space to craft a personalized approach to the subject material for each student, drawing on each student's strengths to nurture her or his growth. By creating a space in which children feel comfortable, we empower students to cultivate their own unique voices, whether they are journaling, designing elective classes, or asking the hard questions to help them better understand the mathematical problems they are trying to solve.

Calhoun Students are Thinkers, Innovators, Leaders, Calhoun students have the confidence, compassion, and curiosity to engage in exciting and challenging conversations in the classroom and beyond. Our academic and co-curricular programming is designed to provide students with an ever-widening range of opportunities, to encourage them to experiment and take risks, to discover new interests and pursue passions more deeply.

The curriculum is also reflective of a commitment to connect with and deepen our appreciation of local and global cultures and perspectives. All students engage in community service, learning how to become leaders and advocates for social justice. At Calhoun, our teachers and students reflect the rich diversity of New York City. They collaborate as thoughtful citizens and engage in the real work of the school and the world beyond it.

We believe learning is rooted in meaningful relationships. Whether it is the advisory system, the classroom or community time, teachers and students create an environment of shared responsibility in which critical thinking skills are sharpened. In all aspects of the community, we emphasize the value of having many identities co-creating the conversations that form the powerful network of learning that happens at Calhoun.

Students construct an understanding of themselves and the world by engaging in purposeful and meaningful work in each of their classes. Calhoun's progressive pedagogy assures a student's learning by doing. Teachers and students work together to create a dynamic classroom environment that values both the process and the product of research, writing, debate and experiment.

At Calhoun, questions are the heart of learning. Learning by doing means that students don't ask "what questions would a scientist or an historian ask?" but rather, "as a scientist, what questions do I have?" What a student learns becomes the catalyst for more exciting questions. Current research in neurobiology and cognitive science confirms that a rich sensory input and a high level of active engagement result in deep, long-lasting learning. People learn best when they engage in meaningful experiences and have the structured opportunities to reflect on those experiences.

Education at Calhoun is designed to help students develop a sense of empathy, equity and justice and embrace their accountability to the rest of the world. We are activists working to transform society. We work in partnership with many institutions in NYC and beyond. By working side-by-side with people in these partnerships, we create meaningful relationships that expand our understanding of the world.

By engaging in real world issues and making our learning visible to the public, Calhoun students become part of a global conversation, and therefore active, responsible participants in a democratic society. The effect of Calhoun's mission and practice is that our students more fully understand the impact of their actions on the multiple communities in which they live.

Calhoun is a school that values the rich diversity of the human experience. It is a school that strives to build a community representative of this diversity, one that is accepting and inclusive. And it is a school that acknowledges and accepts that the work does not stop there.

As an institution, Calhoun does not view this work as tangential, but as an integral component of program and of the school's self-image. We simultaneously accept the challenges inherent in establishing pathways of understanding, and validate and encourage those challenges instead of shying away from and avoiding them.

Robert L. Beir Lower School Building 2.8 Years - 2nd Grade
Address: 160 West 74th Street
Postal Code: 10023
Phone: +1 212 4976550