How it Works
Adolescents thrive on belonging, challenge, and adventure.
We all need a group of trusted friends. We all need a safe space to speak honestly and listen deeply, where we can process what matters most to us. In adolescence we need this most of all, as our lives can change dramatically almost from day to day.
Argonaut creates this safe space, with skilled facilitators leading small groups of students. It’s first about building trust and connection. We learn social-emotional tools each week, connecting them to the relevant experiences in our own lives. Then we get to go on adventures together: personal challenges drawn from the Essential Experiences Project, an ever-growing list of formative experiences which develop young people’s wisdom, kindness, and real-world skill.
What does an Argonaut group session look like?
6-10 middle schoolers
Led by a skilled adult facilitator
Meeting on Zoom for two weekly sessions (1 hour each)
Students learn to be present for each other: making a space where they can authentically be themselves, talking about what is most important to them.
In each session we explore a social-emotional topic, drawn from our Diving Boards curriculum, covering areas from Forgiveness to Gratitude, Handling Drama to Understanding Personalities, and much more.
Students have opportunities to work on challenges drawn from the Essential Experiences.
What will my child gain from this experience?
New friends
A sense of capability in the world
Insights into their own emotions and inner lives
Tools to manage life’s ups and downs
A school year with adventure, challenge, and belonging
Foundation stones for their sense of identity
Greater skill in connecting with others
Clues about new gifts and passions they might like to explore further
Greater independence
What is Social-Emotional Learning?
Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL, includes the skills to understand and manage our inner lives — handling emotions, exploring our identity, setting goals and more — plus the skills to create and sustain positive relationships with others.
At Argonaut we’ve been building our own social-emotional curriculum, called Diving Boards, based on adolescent psychology and neuroscience. The curriculum covers topics from Body Image to Personality, Self-Compassion to Boundary-Setting, and many more.
Over the past 20 years, research has shown SEL to be of paramount importance to student and adult success, whether measured traditionally in terms of grades and eventual career success, or measured in terms of happiness. It’s clear that pure IQ is not enough: we need to be able to manage our inner world and relate well to others in order to make a good life.
We believe that SEL is taught best through groups, tapping into adolescents’ strong drive for peer connection, with facilitators who can both model these skills and teach them through experience.
What are the Essential Experiences?
The Essential Experiences are a set of challenges which help adolescents find and develop their best selves. They fall into five categories: Independence, Connection, Healthy Body & Mind, Waking Up, and Making the World Better. See more here. As they proceed through the program, students will be able to complete multiple experiences, building their confidence, awareness, kindness and capabilities. They might Serve a Good Meal, Teach a Complex Skill or Connect With Your Lineage — these are 3 of the initial set of 50 experiences available to explore.
