Our first pillar
Diversity.
National borders and our social identities, digital or otherwise, are becoming more fluid and flexible. Offline, humanity's greatest challenges are transnational (e.g., climate change, mass migration, pandemics, artificial intelligence, wars). We can all relate to people across cultural and national boundaries. To shape the world of the 21st century, students need to develop global awareness by learning from a variety of perspectives, understanding issues in the context of their sociocultural meaning, critically challenging their preconceptions, and developing a deep appreciation for diversity.
X-School recognizes diversity as richness and ensures that it encompasses the fabric of our school via school structure and culture, learning content and methods, staff and learning materials, attitudes and languages, holidays and rituals, spaces and digital systems - at our school, education is designed to be diverse and intersectional critical at all levels.
We liberate education from the Eurocentric perspective.
We create a place where all people belong and learn to navigate ambiguity, resolve conflicts without violence, and relate to each other beyond national, social, and religious identities. Instead of the echo chamber effect of a group of like-minded people, a democratic discussion culture of diversity is cultivated. Out of it, everyone learns to relate to others. Everyone opens up to the story of the others. An opening that is equally one of the head and of the heart. An opening that unites us in our humanity. This is our manifesto of the many. A dream of a collective shift in consciousness towards more understanding, more compassion, and ultimately, more connectedness.
The post-migrant perspective becomes the world perspective, the students become world citizens, the X-School becomes the world space school.
Diversity & Excellence
In the current educational landscape somehow it is diversity OR excellence. Schools that do not value the diversity of their student body as a richness will not evolve or set dynamic goals. Added to this is a longstanding paradigm relating to social status: the further down the socio-economic ladder the children are, the lower the standards established for them. We are redefining what a progressive school looks like, one that combines diversity with excellence, believes in its students, strengthens their self-image, and allows them to rise above themselves.
Our second pillar
Excellence.
The X-School sees itself as a school of excellence for a post-migrant society where the founders and designers of tomorrow's world collaborate and learn. Accordingly, we set our goals high. Excellence entails dealing with challenging content and in-depth research. Excellence means working at the highest level and deliberately setting high and challenging goals and encompasses both a basic cross-disciplinary knowledge framework for further learning, and the critical handling of diverse information.
This is where the designers of tomorrow's world learn.
At the beginning of the school career, we want to get to know each child extensively. What needs, strengths and dreams do they have? We create a genuine relationship with the children and strengthen their self-confidence by taking their interests seriously, valuing their strengths, and conveying a growth-oriented mindset.
Through challenging real-life projects, we use our brains, hands, and hearts to learn complex skills, knowledge, and attitudes important to successful living in the 21st century. Excellence does not mean blindly chasing good grades in all subjects. Our goal is to help students find their own way through a variety of self-directed experiences, professional coaching, and holistic assessment. What are their strengths? What do they enjoy doing? How can they contribute their interests and strengths to society in a meaningful way? We keep these questions in mind from the start. As students progress through school, their learning goals become more individualized. To promote these maximally, the X-School establishes a support program with workshops for interest groups, specially selected mentors, cooperative partnerships, projects by extracurricular experts, international competitions and much more.
Instead of trying to squeeze all children into one mold, we want to systematically discover individual potential. Our students set high goals for themselves, develop their untapped strengths, and achieve mastery in their self-determined learning journey.
Excellence or Well-being?
Many schools successfully focus on academic excellence. However, students are stressed and panicked by a misguided pressure to perform. In many cases, even successful graduates do not know who they are and what they need to be happy, even after graduation. What is the point of success if a person is unhappy? The X-School firmly believes that sustainable education, excellence, and well-being must be taught cooperatively.
Our third pillar
Well-being.
When we asked parents how they would describe a successful life for their child, they wanted their children to grow up to be happy, healthy people. However, this is not the message our students are receiving these days. And certainly not what they feel.
Every fourth child in Germany is unhappy.
The percentage of girls suffering from depression has increased by 66 percent in the last ten years, and for boys, by 44 percent. In fact, today's German children have the highest recorded percentage of depression in this age group. Other mental illnesses, such as anxiety disorders and social insecurity are also on the rise.
How did we get to this point? What is putting our children’s well-being at such risk? To find out, we talked to parents, researchers, teachers, and most importantly, children and adolescents themselves.
Each child is individual, yet key pressures have emerged: Cyber bullying, loneliness, the pressure to succeed, tensions between personal, social, and digital identities, loss of sleep quality and duration, internet addiction, unrealistic role models, loss of connection to nature, aimlessness, sensory overload, lack of self-esteem, and relationship stress. The ability to find health and contentment amid of these challenges must be actively learned, managed, and nurtured. X-School creates a school culture where students feel a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and safety. Here, they learn skills to become holistically aware of themselves, to recognize their wants and needs, and to care for their health and satisfaction even in adverse circumstances.
Diversity, Excellence and Well-Being - These three elements form the pillars of X-School. They serve as our compass - the north star of our school system.
