The Pacific Center for Creative Learning is a small, multi-age, nonprofit, nonsectarian independent school for high-achieving, gifted and highly gifted children through age 13. It was started as a homeschooling co-op in 1999 by parents who believe that all children need and deserve an education that is commensurate with their intellectual abilities and their own unique learning style.
Should you and your young scholar decide to choose PCCL, you will be joining a family whose focus is on the child. At PCCL, we believe that children’s emotional and social development is as important as their academic growth, and that each contributes to the solidity of the other.
Our emotional and intellectual lives are not mutually exclusive. We are born wanting and needing to learn all about the world around us. At PCCL, we nurture that innate curiosity. We encourage our children to explore, to discover, to invent and to create as much, as often and for as long as they choose and/or are capable of doing.
Two of the most important skills with which we can help students prepare for high school and college are research and writing. One of the most important faculties we can help them develop is critical thinking. If they know how to find the information they need, are able to digest and analyze it objectively and can then communicate their findings and thoughts effectively, they will excel. Of course, effective evaluation of issues cannot exist in a vacuum, and that is why we also help our students learn about the world through geography, history, science, math and every subject we cover.
Academic education is only half of the story, however. It takes more than knowledge and assessment skills for a person to be fulfilled. We believe very strongly that all children deserve to feel safe, loved and respected for who they are. Like all children, gifted children deserve to be proud of their abilities. They deserve to feel understood, to be challenged and to feel valued. We honor each child’s individual spirit and personality. Children who grow up feeling honored develop a strong sense of self. They are sure of who they are and what they know. They are confident without being overly confident. They are leaders in the very best sense of the word, for they have much to teach others and nothing to prove.
At the Pacific Center for Creative Learning, we believe that those leadership skills and that confidence reside in every one of our students, even if it is not always readily apparent. We believe that every student wants to learn--in fact, loves and needs to learn--even if, as sometimes happens, that desire and love have been quashed in previous settings. In other words, we trust and believe in our students, and it is our goal to help them become more of who they already are.
While every child is unique, the children who can benefit most from our open style of teaching seem to possess at least some of the following characteristics:
