The School Committees endorse the following, with the priorities indicated, as the broad educational goals of our public schools:
School Committee Priority K-12 Broad Educational Goals:
- Education should develop in each learner the basic skills needed for communication, perception, evaluation, and conceptualization of ideas. Among the most important are reading, writing, speaking, visual and computational skills.
- Education should contribute to the learner’s physical and emotional well being, especially to a sense of personal worth and to a capacity for influencing one’s own destiny.
- Education should provide for each learner access to humanity’s cultural heritage, stimulate intellectual curiosity, and promote intellectual development.
- Education should foster and stimulate in each learner the natural desire for lifelong learning and should develop the skills necessary to fulfill that desire.
- Education should provide each learner with a knowledge and understanding of how our society functions in theory and in practice; education must also foster individual commitment to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and to protect the rights of others.
- Education should provide each learner with knowledge and experience, which can contribute to an understanding of human similarities and differences and which advance mutual respect for humanity and for the dignity of the individual.
- Education should provide the learner with the skills, experience, and attitudes, and the guidance for initial job placement; it is equally important for the learner to develop a capacity to adapt to changing conditions.
- Education should provide each learner with knowledge and understanding of the social, physical, and biological worlds and the balance between humanity and the environment and should develop attitudes and behavior leading to intelligent use of the environment.
- Education should expand and advance the humane dimensions of all learners, especially by helping them to identify and cultivate their own spiritual, moral, and ethical values and attitudes.
- Education should provide each learner with varied opportunities to nurture interests, to discover and to develop natural talents, and to express values and feelings through various media.
Region Voted to Approve: 11/30/83
Amherst Voted to Approve: 1/4/83
Pelham Voted to Approve: 1/11/83