The 5IN Parent Handbook
5IN Parent Handbook
We thank each and every parent for allowing us the opportunity to work with your child to grow and learn. At 5IN, we believe that the real goal of education is to assist young people on their path towards becoming the person they want to be, to accomplishing the goals they set for themselves, and to have a positive impact on the world in some way.
This path will involve understanding the world, identifying personal values and beliefs, and establishing their own identity as individuals in society. It will necessitate understanding and continually practicing effective work skills and habits of mind. It will involve constant input from a variety of sources, communication and feedback with mentors and peers, and much thought and reflection from the students themselves.
Your child’s growth will not be possible without the input and care from you, their parent. As a 5IN parent, we ask that you take an active and constant interest in your child’s life, but also allow them the intellectual freedom to plot their own path, pursue their own interests, and become the people they wish to shape themselves to be.
5IN asks for parents to assist us and your children by understanding and cooperating in the following areas:
All growth is equally important
The emphasis of 5IN education
Involvement in child’s work and learning
Communication regarding child’s performance
Responsibility towards the program
Supporting the educational mission and methods of 5IN
Attending 5IN events and meetings
Supporting your child’s growth
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All Growth is Equally Important
As an experimental education institution, what we emphasize at 5IN may have differences from what is usually seen in public or private schools. 5IN believes that to prepare students for future life, we need to treat each part of normal human life as important. This will involve things as educationally traditional as doing homework to what may be educationally novel such as being an advocate for social issues.
Each activity and goal should be understood as having equal importance. Whether something has the potential to appear on a traditional test is irrelevant towards its importance in the 5IN curriculum or its weighting in our assessment standards. Everything at 5IN is assessed, including activities such as fulfilling personal responsibilities towards cleaning the learning space and politeness in social interaction with others. Performance in all areas will contribute to final academic grades.
We ask parents to help emphasize the message that everything a student is asked to attempt has a reason and value behind it, and that all these activities are preparing them for success in future life. As such, there are no “less important” tasks.
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The Emphasis of 5IN Education
5IN believes that the purpose of education is not to move students on to the next stage of schooling, but to prepare our students with the habits of mind and work processes with which they will need to succeed in the future, whether it be personally, socially, professionally, or academically. Therefore, the emphasis of the 5IN curriculum is on practical and useful skills, abilities, and processes.
Students who actively participate, produce, and learn with this curriculum will have no difficulty eventually gaining acceptance to an above average university program in the area of their interest, and more importantly will have developed the skills and habits needed to succeed in all other parts of life. An 5IN student should be able to gain acceptance to a suitable program of their choice through good performance in daily classes, proven ability to utilize their knowledge and skills for real world value, and the strength of their portfolio of personal accomplishments built up throughout their learning careers at 5IN. Built into the curriculum itself is the documentation and proof of these abilities, accomplishments, and growth which will demonstrate clearly the potential of each student’s potential for further academic and professional development.
Following the 5IN program will also allow students to naturally meet the requirements for a focused range of higher-level assessments. However, the 5IN program should not be mistaken for the majority of other educational institutions where the goal is simply to pass standardized tests or enter so-called “top universities”. Assistance for students who wish to meet certain traditional testing requirements may be arranged on a needs-basis, but this is not the focus of the 5IN program. Students and families who wish to enroll at 5IN must understand this first.
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Involvement in Child’s Work and Learning
As part of a student’s growth and maturity towards becoming the individual they aspire to be, there will be a great need for guidance, thought, feedback, and reflection. Throughout the journey of growth during this time, there will be various experiences both inside and outside of the learning environment that will be novel and confusing to them. It is important for youth to understand the state of society and the outside world, to identify and establish their own values and beliefs.
The program at 5IN is designed to lead students on this path of shaping the self, of establishing each individual’s value system, and learn about how to live and contribute in the world. Along this path, the students will need valuable input from various sources, key among them being from family. Therefore, we ask that each parent of an 5IN student take an active and supporting role in various learning activities. Parents may be asked to discuss with their children thoughts on morals, share experiences from youth, give feedback on student work, talk about their professional life, be interviewed regarding certain topics, and act as clients for design projects. Without input from family, the educational experience will not be complete. Therefore, we ask 5IN parents to be active participants in their child’s growth.
At the same time, we ask that parents adopt a supportive and accepting attitude towards their child’s interests. While a student may have thoughts and goals that do not seem practical or possible in the eyes of adults, the pursuit of these goals will no doubt provide a path for them to utilize and practice a skill or habit that is transferable and useful in future life. We ask our parents to be supportive of their children’s endeavors, and to utilize each as an opportunity to grow in some way.
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Communication Regarding Child’s Performance
5IN will provide parents with constant feedback and reports regarding their child’s activities and performance in class, personally, socially, and academically. Communication from 5IN about class or student happenings may take many formats, from qualitative to quantitative to videos or social media posts.
We ask that 5IN parents stay up-to-date on announcements and information sent through 5IN formal channels. These announcements will cover normal operational and administrative topics. Additionally, as the nature of the 5IN curriculum adapts to the performance and needs of the class and students, changes to plans or activities may also be communicated to parents. Parents will also be given periodical formal or informal feedback regarding their individual child’s performance, so attention to 5IN announcements and messages will be important and insightful.
In addition to messages sent over media, parents will be asked for an in-person meeting with their child’s teaching team at least once each semester. This will allow parents to get a more detailed understanding of how their child is performing with regards to learning and growth. These meetings will also allow teachers to share their observations about the child psychologically and socially, and discuss general life and future development issues. We ask parents to be available for such communication.
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Responsibility Towards the Program
5IN students and parents are asked to treat the program as their first priority with regards to learning responsibility. Students attend the full and complete scheduled curriculum, including normal class time and scheduled special events. This includes any remedial classes that may be needed for learning or discipline issues (to 5:00pm of each day at the latest).
Missing class for any reason other than sickness is not acceptable and may affect grades. This means that students may not arrive late or leave early from classes for any reason, including outside classes or cram school. Missing scheduled class days for taking vacation or travel is also not acceptable. Special 5IN events outside of normal class times are also part of the learning curriculum and require participation from each and every student. Such events will be clearly listed in each semester schedule. Any adjustments to scheduled events will be announced at least one month in advance.
Priority of 5IN activities also extends to student work and responsibilities as well. Outside engagements and activities may not be used as an excuse for why a student has not finished work. An 5IN student can expect to finish daily assignments in two hours after class at the most, and should schedule this into their daily plans.
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Supporting the Educational Mission and Methods of 5IN
The 5IN curriculum aims at developing good life, work, and study habits that will allow your children to become active, effective, and efficient lifelong learners. This means that work on the fundamentals of self-discipline and self-learning are of utmost importance. Some of the most basic building blocks of learning are also the most difficult and tedious to develop at the beginning.
Take for example the accumulation of vocabulary words, an issue that both students and parents profess to be of great concern. Vocabulary is an indivisible part of language as a whole, which is itself intertwined with logic, perception, culture, and social communication, among other things. This means that the proper way to develop the scope and utility of a student’s vocabulary would involve systematic processes in receiving input, mentally engaging with the material, realizing gaps in knowledge desired and knowledge possessed, making and verifying hypotheses regarding new material, systematically documenting the discovery and learning process, and repeated utilization of new material in differing contexts. Practically, this involves exposure to a wide range of language materials in different forms, reading and contemplating through context, utilizing basic linguistic concepts such as identifying parts of speech and tense, identifying areas of missing knowledge, using logic and mental effort in making and checking guesses about new words and phrases, keeping clear notes on new learning, actively using new vocabulary by writing and speaking with it, making comparisons with standard language usage, and receiving feedback from teachers.
Learning processes such as the one described above can be repetitive and tedious, and less attractive than many learners are willing to accept. It often seems that a more attractive option is to memorize “essential vocabulary” lists or to attend cram school classes where teachers will “teach” important vocabulary. When doing homework or writing, it seems much easier to use Google translate. In actuality, there are many organizations that have much to gain by advertising and selling “educational” products that do little to nothing to improve a student’s abilities or knowledge that is applicable to creating real-world value.
While 5IN will not disallow any student from using or attending any additional materials or classes they choose, it is important to remember that students must fully cooperate with and follow through with the tasks and procedures utilized in class. If a student is not willing to adhere to the English only rule in 5IN, any amount of after-school English cramming will do little to help. If a student is not willing to learn and take notes in a proper fashion, any amount of rote memorization will be ineffective. By the same logic, if a student does not internalize and utilize the fundamental learning and work methods presented at 5IN, there is little use in any supplementary quick-fix methods of learning.
If a student or parent is not able or unwilling to fully follow the 5IN curriculum and methods of learning, other educational establishments may be a better choice.
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Attending 5IN Events and Meetings
Throughout the semester, a number of events and meetings will take place. These may be in relation to explaining the learning goals and methods for each semester, community-building, special holiday events, or a mixture of these.
These events serve a number of important functions, and thus parent attendance is strongly requested. Chief among these functions is giving parents a clear picture of the content, targets, methods, and hoped for outcomes of each learning period. Parents will understand how they might support their child’s learning during each semester. These events may also assist parents in understanding or thinking about their children’s growth from different and new angles. 5IN will share ideas on educational philosophy and ask for parent feedback during these events. Events may also be scheduled to display the results of student learning, growth, and production, serving as another opportunity for parents to observe the performance, change, and growth of their child. Lastly, these events serve as team-building events for the parent group of each learning unit as well. Raising and educating a child is surely one of the most challenging experiences that a person may have in life, and support and cooperation amongst parents is not only helpful, but also needed. 5IN events will assist in the formation of support and sharing groups for parents to take part in.
All large-scale events and activities will be planned, scheduled, and communicated to parents before the start of each semester. Adjustments or additions to the semester schedule will also be communicated to parents at least one month in advance. We ask parents to do their best to make availability in their busy schedules to allow for attendance to these activities. Through your participation, you show your child that you care, support, and have expectations for their growth.
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Supporting Your Child’s Growth
As a parent or guardian, you will no doubt have a strong desire to see your child’s learning, growth, and achievement. You may be tempted to ask them if they “understand” what is being presented in class, or if they “scored well”. 5IN asks parents to actively keep up-to-date on your child’s performance, but in a different way.
In order to foster a mentality of possibility and continual improvement, it would be greatly appreciated if your communication strategies work towards encouraging your child to share their experiences, difficulties, and thoughts.
Instead of asking “what did you learn?”, ask them “what did you do?” Instead of asking them “what is the answer?”, ask them to “show me how it’s done.” Encourage your child to tell you about the happenings during the day, and more importantly, their opinions and feelings about them. Discuss with them their thinking process and logic behind their judgments. This will provide excellent opportunities to understand your child better, to communicate with them about their values, and to show that you support their growth in a non-critical way. These communications will also be valuable as a basis for discussions with your child’s teachers during meetings which will further help your child receive the individualized support that would be useful to them.
We sincerely appreciate your time in reading the above educational philosophy and requests. If you agree and are willing to align with 5IN's educational approach, we wholeheartedly welcome you to join the 5IN family and work together to support your child’s learning and growth!
