Dear Families,

We live in a time that requires the ability to solve problems, the capacity to think critically and the courage to apply ideas and knowledge to meet new challenges and circumstances. Our children must be nurtured to understand the structures necessary to learn. Once they understand the forms for learning the whole world can open up to them because no matter the subject, they understand how to begin to attain the knowledge.

Here at The Q StudioLab, students are given the opportunity to enjoy investigations and work with inquisitive minds and hearts as they discover why something happens, what the elements are of an exploration or how to talk about what they have encountered. Whether a child is part of our preschool program or whether a child is in our elementary classrooms we are imbuing children with the spirit of possibility and the support necessary to take responsibility for his/her actions at his/her level. We want to prepare children to take their next step and encourage continuing on the journey.

We believe that students are capable of being part of a larger community right now. Students are learning both inside the classroom and out in the community through daily work with community members and professional artists as well as creative teachers. As students grow through our program we give them the tools to understand they are world citizens with the rights and responsibilities of being active, and compassionate members of a community.

We believe that how children interact with others, through collaboration and through social forms, is just as important as how well they write or read. Social structures and forms must be learned so that children know how to express their own ideas effectively and listen to the ideas of others. When children learn standards of behavior and why different ways of communicating is required in different circumstances, they are empowered to struggle to understand and to share their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

So how do we do all of this at The Q? We do this through small class sizes, individualized attention and most of all by honoring each child as a person with individual ways of thinking, feeling, and moving. We do this by helping each child learn about what he/she needs to be successful and by creating strong supports and standards that children can work and learn within. When children know that they are capable and that asking for help is useful, not shameful, it creates a learning community that is led by children’s strengths and tempered by the perseverance to reach a next step. We do this by growing children’s fortitude to face the complicated world we are living in so that we will have children who grow to be adults who can withstand and thrive during challenging times and provide inspiration to people, to communities, and to the world.

We hope you will join our community as we grow our special place in Queens where we can show the world what compassion, courage and creativity look like!

Sincerely,

Lauren Travers

Founder and Director, The Q StudioLab

“Each child’s education must be extraordinary, she must be encouraged to dream, to think, to feel and to move each day.”