How would you design the right school for your child?
Seven decades ago, when a group of teachers and civic leaders
and technologists, entrepreneurs
asked themselves that very question, their answers
took on some rather surprising – and, we think you will agree, some rather exciting – shapes. Hens and robots.
Dinosaur races and opera productions.
Pintsize computer whizzes and nine year-old ceos. Our founders made a fresh start with a vision
for primary education based on real-world experience
and true understanding of young learners.
Come see.
The right school would embrace the way young children actually learn.
In the foundational years of pre-kindergarten through fourth grade, children have an astonishing capacity for learning. However, they don’t learn best in a tidy, regimented, quasi-industrial way. Lamplighter achieves results any school would envy by taking an approach rather different from many adults’ conceptions of “serious education.” We embrace and celebrate the natural curiosity and exuberance with which young children explore their world. Facts and concepts typically taught to older children prove to be well within their grasp.
Sometimes the most effective classroom isn’t a room at all. Teachers use the entire campus — open indoor spaces and the great outdoors alike — to engage students’ imaginations in the learning process.
The right school would help prepare children for the world they will inherit.
With our blend of the rational and the emotional, disciplined thought and high-flying creativity, Lamplighter feels like a quintessentially 21st-century school. Visionary founders just happened to create this school back in the middle decades of the 20th century. Lamplighter students learn to go deeper than mere information, to the questions of “What does it mean? What are the implications? What can we do with it?” Lamplighter children see facts and learn what to make of them. They learn to be interpreters of the world, connectors of dots, and joiners of threads who can synthesize diverse, even radically disparate influences into fresh and valuable ideas.
Serious education can be a thrilling adventure. Preparing for his future while peering deep into the past, a student studies fossils on the banks of the creek on the Lamplighter campus.
The right school would integrate serious education into activities children find captivating.
We call our approach serious education wrapped in the wonder of childhood. As if by magic, an entertaining art project can teach mathematics and history and collaborative skills and even some basic chemistry, all at the same time. A red hen can lay not only eggs, but also a foundation in biology and economics and nutrition. We specialize in early childhood education. We have spent decades shaping a school where, captivated by the world’s wonders, young children cannot help but learn things they will use and benefit from for the rest of their lives.
In the hands of a gifted teacher, an art project can also be a lesson in biology, earth science, chemistry, and more. . .leading students to ask, “Why is an elephant shaped this way? Where does clay come from? Why does it harden when we bake it?”
The right school would help inspire each child toward a lifetime of learning.
Our aim as educators is to ignite young minds and help establish a trajectory for each child’s future, not only for their subsequent schooling, but also far beyond, in career, community, and private life. Generations of Lamplighter alumni have become leaders in every sphere, but they share a common trait: They are what we call Forever Learners. There has never been a time in history when it was more vital, or indeed more pleasurable and rewarding, to carry through one’s life a predisposition to learn, to grow intellectually and emotionally, and to adapt to the world’s relentless and ever-accelerating changes.
Confident, thoughtful, persistent in problem-solving — Lamplighter students grow in character as well as in knowledge. Here children experience a rich blend of collaborative group work and more contemplative individual learning.
The right school would be part of a vibrant community of innovators and achievers.
To the strength of our own eminent faculty, Lamplighter adds the support of an extraordinary community of partners. The Perot Museum of Nature and Science and the Dallas Arboretum are just two of our curriculum partners; they make learning about the natural world vivid and thrilling for students. Distinguished figures from science and technology, business, and the arts visit the campus for sessions that have as much in common with a technology and design conference as with a typical grade school show-and-tell. Collaboration with outside experts goes back to the school’s early days when MIT, Texas Instruments, and Dr. Seymour Papert helped us develop the forerunner of the MicroWorlds software now used by schools worldwide.
Each day at Lamplighter unfolds in marvelous opportunities for inspiration and discovery, whether on campus in facilities such as the Eastin Family Innovation Lab, or with one of our curriculum partners.
The right school would even offer parents the opportunity to learn and grow.
Parents find much inspiration in the day-to-day life of our school. Who could fail to be inspired by watching our seniors, the fourth graders, conduct a board meeting in impeccable parliamentary order, or by seeing their child help write an opera, program a computer, build a robot, or produce a sophisticated visual arts project? As a vibrant community of learners, we offer parents more formal opportunities as well. Our Parent Perks parent education series brings educators, psychologists, and writers to our community to talk about the important trends in education and helps parents with topics that reflect the mission of the School.
Love of learning unites the generations at Lamplighter. Parents experience the incomparable thrill of seeing their children gain the tools and inspiration to become Forever Learners.
Does Lamplighter sound like it may be the right school for your child?
Igniting young minds for a lifetime of learning. Founded in 1953, Lamplighter is an independent, co-educational day school for students in pre-kindergarten through fourth grade. Our 12-acre North Dallas campus, long celebrated as a model for primary-school design, encompasses open classroom spaces, a fine arts wing, a robotics lab, a woodworking studio, a physical education center, and environmental science facilities that include a creek, a greenhouse, gardens, a bird-watching area, a barn, and a teaching farm. By exciting and rewarding their natural curiosity, Lamplighter instills in children a lifelong love of learning.
Come experience our unique learning environment for yourself. Contact the Office of Admission at 214.369.9201 about taking a campus tour or visit our website to learn more at www.thelamplighterschool.org.
11611 Inwood Road | Dallas, Texas 75229 | 214.369.9201 | www.thelamplighterschool.org