Guiding Principles for Learning at The Lang School
The Lang School prepares twice-exceptional (2e) students to thrive in school and in life by designing learning that is strengths-based, humanized, academically rigorous, and future-ready. Our graduates are curious thinkers, compassionate leaders, skilled communicators, and confident self-advocates who know how they learn, how to collaborate with others, and how they can make a contribution to the world.
Learning Domains
These six transdisciplinary domains describe the knowledge, skills, mindsets, and habits that Lang students develop from Grade 1–12. They represent what it means to become a world-ready learner.
-
Self-Regulation & Well-Being: Students learn how to understand their emotional world, regulate their bodies and minds, manage workloads, and build healthy, sustainable habits for success. They grow the executive-functioning skills—organization, planning, adaptability—that make learning possible.
-
Purposeful & Self-Driven Learning: Students develop curiosity, intrinsic motivation, and ownership of their learning. They ask questions, set goals, apply strategies, reflect on progress, revise work, and transfer skills across contexts. They learn how to learn.
-
Leadership & Self-Advocacy: Students practice speaking up, asking for help, communicating respectfully, and influencing the world around them. They write, speak, collaborate, and lead with evidence, empathy, and responsibility.
-
Identity, Empathy & Global Citizenship: Students explore who they are, where they come from, and how they connect with others. They study diverse voices, histories, and perspectives; build empathy; navigate conflict; and contribute to inclusive communities.
-
Digital Literacy & Creative Innovation: Students become ethical, creative users of technology. They evaluate information, collaborate online, model data, design media, build digital products, and use tools—including AI—to solve problems and express ideas.
-
Collaboration & Collective Responsibility: Students learn that communities are built, not assumed. They work in teams, share tasks, communicate respectfully, give and receive feedback, repair relationships, and contribute to the well-being of their school and the wider world.
These domains are the “what” of a Lang education. But equally important is how we create the conditions for students to thrive. The way we structure classrooms, build relationships, pace learning, and respond to student needs is intentional. It reflects a set of design principles that guide every aspect of our work. These principles ensure that learning at Lang is not just academically rigorous, but humanized, affirming, and sustainable for twice-exceptional students. They turn our philosophy into daily practice.
Design Principles
These principles guide how Lang designs learning, community, and leadership. They ensure that the school’s systems reflect its values, and that students experience school as a place where they belong and can thrive.
-
Well-Being Before Urgency: We design learning at a human pace that protects dignity, joy, and mental health. Pressure never outranks wellness. Students learn sustainable work habits, resilience, and self-care as part of academic growth.
-
Dignity Through Strengths:
We see students through the lens of their gifts, talents, and potential—not through deficits. Instruction adapts to how each learner grows best, enabling confidence, creativity, and authentic accomplishment. -
Community & Belonging Are Built, Not Assumed: Students help build the community they belong to. Belonging comes from participation, shared work, and relationships—not labels, placement, or compliance.
-
Power With, Not Power Over: Students deserve real agency. We co-design learning with them, elevate their voices, normalize help-seeking, teach self-advocacy, and prepare them to influence change, not merely follow directions.
-
Work That Matters: Learning becomes meaningful when it is connected to real problems and authentic audiences. Students think critically, create, design, research, build, revise, and impact the world beyond the classroom.
The Result: A Portrait of a Lang Learner
A Lang learner is curious, confident, and compassionate. They understand themselves as learners and humans. They can regulate, communicate, collaborate, and lead. They think critically, engage ethically, pursue meaningful work, and contribute to community. They are prepared for the academic, social, and emotional demands of college—and for life.
What we do.
1.
We nurture the purpose, passion, talent, and exceptionality of each student.
2.
We provide structure and support for the exploration of deep questions and the having of wonderful ideas, both of which lead to the development of each student’s unique gifts.
3.
We center student self-awareness to develop self-regulation skills in the social-emotional, behavioral, sensory/physical, and academic learning domains.
4.
We recognize that each learner has their own launch point and journey toward mastery in each subject.
5.
We develop for each learner a tailored toolkit for independence and self-advocacy so that learners are empowered to own their impact
6.
We cultivate partnerships with students and their families that leads to a renewed trust in the possibility of school as a place for authentic learning, success, and inspiration.
How we do it.
1.
Civility, self-reflection, growth-mindset, and community are central to the learning experience. Our teachers lean into challenges, own their impact, speak up and stand up for equity and social justice to model these core practices.
2.
We center each student’s need for enrichment, acceleration and remediation in our robustly differentiated academic and social-emotional learning program so every student encounters a learning experience that fits.
3.
Our integrated curriculum develops in students a critical, speculative lens that provides for multiple points of inquiry, invites varied perspectives and brings values and ethics into focus.
4.
Our rigorous, classroom-based learning builds foundational skills and knowledge and integrates small group and 1:1 support to meet the unique needs of each of our our twice-exceptional learners.
5.
We surface and stoke passions, provide structure and viability for big ideas, instill a sense of purpose and commitment, and, ultimately, develop gifts that grow the inspiration of tomorrow's innovators and thought leaders
6.
Collaboratively created, concrete student goals are monitored through regular self-reflection and teacher feedback that seeks to increase each learner’s awareness of and connection between thoughts and actions.
What this means for our learners.
1.
They are supported academically, socially, emotionally, and kinesthetically and are empowered to take ownership of their learning goals and routines.
2.
Students discover a learning cycle defined by exploration, "falling in love," and commitment connected to extensive hard work.
3.
They develop their critical thinking and questioning skills to explore varied areas of inquiry and to make connections across subject domains.
4.
They develop and refine their executive functioning skills to manage materials, track assignments, manage time, and engage in long-term planning.
5.
They gain skills to identify their emotions and manage their actions, which in turn leads to increased self-regulation, decision making, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills.
6.
They have a voice and a say in how their strengths and challenges are understood and addressed and this models for them constructive approaches to engaging with others.
