THE INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES

 

The Institute of Developmental Studies is temporarily inactive due to lack of a campus. It is impossible to offer this curriculum without a campus where teachers in training can teach a very specialized high school curriculum.  Currently IDS is not operational and is not accepting students, doing teaching, or offering credit of any type.  We are negotiating for a Tennessee campus that might allow us to become operational again. We might also explore possible campuses in states that allow unaccredited schools to offer a degree under state licensure.   This website seeks to inform the user to what we were doing, and to provide a historical reference to our program as it was during the work of former graduates.

 

Any information on this site is historical in nature, and is presented for informational purposes only.

The Institute of Developmental Studies seeks to remain small enough to maintain a unique purpose-an approach to education that is completely uninhibited by traditional expectations of what education should be and of what education can accomplish with ordinary and even learning handicapped people. Course work is generally offered in the field or in conjunction with associated institutions. No classrooms are maintained at the institute office in Tenn.

The people and institutions below are a source of professional guidance or an educational resource where advanced students or graduates might experience practicum in literacy initiatives or enroll for course work in an environment harmonious to the training received at this Institute.

      Dr. Linda Caviness, LaSierra University

      Dr. June Fiorito, Canadian University College

      Dr. Denise Dunzweiler, Southern Adventist University

      Dr. Robert Moon, Andrews University

Ideas And Policies That Guide Us

MISSION OF THE INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES The mission of the Institute of Developmental Studies is to provide students a solid educational foundation, to inspire them with a passion for learning, human service, and creative research, and to make them good citizens of their community, their world, and the God-created universe.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES

The institute believes that much educational instruction lacks permanence. It teaches for mastery at every level and does not teach that which is not intended to be retained. A framework of knowledge is created which is expected to be elaborated throughout a lifetime. The teacher trained by the institute is expected to be able to teach a basic curriculum with or without a textbook and with little preliminary preparation for classes. It is felt that a teacher should know the subject, not a set of notes that might be destroyed in a fire, taking away much of the fruits of the teacher's education. Attention has been given to the Reagan report on Excellence in Education, which emphasized a new set of basics. These basics included basic literacy or the ability to read with comprehension, math literacy, science literacy, literacy in the social sciences, and computer literacy. We add a sixth, spiritual literacy. All instruction is conducted at the graduate level, even in the high school, and special methods of reinforcement are used to assure full mastery of content. This is not a recipe approach to learning, and the fully trained individual is expected to function as an instructional psychologist, adapting instruction to the peculiar mental organization of the individual when called for. Much of the work is done within an interdisciplinary approach. Classes may be merged to meet a specific purpose.

Here are our basic ideas:

1. The graded system wastes time and human potential and discourages independent thought.
2. Students should progress as fast and as far as their capabilities allow them and they shouldn't have to do more work than it takes to master and retain the needed knowledge.
3. Education ought to consist of character, basic skills, permanent mastery-level knowledge of one's culture, livelihood skills, arts, and some specialized knowledge related to individual interests and goals.
4. Students need to understand the nature of learning.  They should be able to consciously analyze the processes necessary for making learning stick in their own minds and in those of others. And they ordinarily profit from some experience in teaching others what they have learned.
5. Learning should build around a good framework of the world's most important knowledge. That framework will automatically fill up with interesting details if a child or adult knows how to read and learns to be excited about learning. That framework has to be mastered.
6. The left and the right brain should have equal attention in the educational process. That is, learning should not all be done through words--vision, taction, kinaesthesis and experience in motor function are needed to form a foundation of reality underlying and giving meaning to verbal instruction.