Education That Honors the Individual
Our mission is to provide an education that recognizes and nurtures individuality while challenging students to grow academically, personally, and socially. We help students become confident, curious, and purposeful young people by designing an education around who they are—and who they are becoming.
From the first days of elementary school through graduation, students develop the confidence to ask questions, the independence to take ownership of their learning, and the self-awareness to discover who they are becoming. By graduation, students leave not only academically prepared, but equipped with the confidence, resilience, and sense of purpose to thrive in college, career, and life.
A Student's Perspective:
"I started at Chrysalis in the spring of my 6th grade year. Over the six years I was there, I came to recognize many things. One of the most important is that learning and school are two separate concepts. Upon my graduation, the two were as close as they had ever been, but I believe it took a realization that they are wholly different for them to really start working together.
Throughout public elementary school, I was told learning happened in schools. I’d go to school, sit at a desk, pay attention as the teacher taught, make sure to follow all the rules and to color within all the lines, and that was all there was to “learning.”
I recall a very simple vocabulary worksheet assigned in second grade. We were to fill in the appropriate word to the appropriate sentence. A very straightforward, do-in-your-sleep kind of assignment. But I noticed that these words could work in the “wrong” sentences, given a bit of willingness to expand on what the sentences were trying to say. So I did just that. I turned it in, proud of myself for my ingenuity. Instead, I got pulled aside and gently reprimanded that I knew what the answer was. That I knew better. See, it wasn’t about ensuring I had a good vocabulary. It was about making sure I could follow the instructions and do the assignment “correctly.”
The real importance, the “why,” of what I was doing, constantly got pushed back as unimportant. It never seemed to matter whether or not I understood what I was supposed to be learning from an assignment, just that I did it the way it was supposed to be done. And slowly, iteration after iteration, I just stopped caring. The knowledge was either useless or it got me in trouble. So what was the point? And that was school to me. That was learning to me. At its worst, right before coming to Chrysalis, going to school meant nothing to me. The assignments were mindless time wasters. The questions asked only for regurgitation of exact wording, which was supposed to indicate learning, but instead simply required listening and memorizing. And even the way the instructions were written had lost their novelty.
In middle school, I faced being sent to juvenile hall for skipping too many classes. I’d started feeling as if I got just as much, if not more, out of staying at home and sleeping, than I did out of going to school. Around this time we found Chrysalis. My father was admittedly a bit worried about enrolling me at Chrysalis. Its model encourages students to be active participants in their own learning. How could that possibly work well with my track record of preferring to sleep over learn?
We found out quickly that my father’s worries were unfounded. I recall being in physics class with Andy one day, being introduced to the concept of inertia for the very first time. Halfway through class, I realized I didn’t understand what I was being taught. I could perfectly repeat the words that constituted the definition of inertia, and that used to be all I needed. In fact, it was all I was ever encouraged to know. But knowing that string of words without being able to connect them to any underlying meaning? I might as well have been randomly repeating sounds from another language. I’d found a difference between going to school and learning. I went back and asked Andy to reteach it to me. He repeated it, in different ways with different examples, then going into exercise problems and hypotheticals. And something magically clicked and the pieces fell into place. I suddenly understood what the words in the definition meant, what the problems were trying to get me to understand, and what all of Andy’s examples were pointing to. I got the why, and that was what made the difference.
In every single one of my classes at Chrysalis, my teachers made sure the information poked at the curiosity center of my brain, prompting me to take the material on and wonder about it. Look at it this way and that, toss it from hand to hand, wrap it around my fingers, and really make it my own. This is what learning means to me now.
Chrysalis allows a flexibility unheard of at most other schools. I was constantly impressed by my classmates for the things they learn about, tinker with, strive toward, and simply enjoy in their extra time. I had classmates who pushed their physical limits in various sports, believed in a cause and delved into it, figured out the best way to be themselves, learned to fly (some, in a very literal sense), and on and on. I liked to joke that, while my classmates were up to any number of amazing things with their time out of school, I used mine to go to more school. For my last two years of high school I participated in the Running Start program, which allows high school students to go to community colleges and take classes for both high school and college credit.
I won’t lie, my standards were changed by Chrysalis. Now, when I go to my college classes and the teachers are only worried about an individual’s ability to follow instructions, I miss the emphasis on learning that I had at Chrysalis. I now recognize that there’s more to learning. Learning is what I can get out of the course material. It’s everything that’s underneath the assignments, and it’s about connecting to that underlying meaning. Following the rules to get the grade? That’s “school.” Understanding what I’m doing and taking joy in fitting that new information into my life? That’s learning. Knowing that difference, and being able to learn in even my most rule-ridden classes, made Running Start possible for me.
I’m thankful to Chrysalis for separating “school and instructions” from “learning and understanding.” For rekindling, and further igniting, my love of knowing. For warmly fielding each of my questions, digging into my curiosity with me, accepting all my quirks, and supporting me in each of my endeavors from academic, professional, to personal. This place is special and makes an indelible mark on students’ lives. As you begin your Chrysalis journey, know you are in good hands."