At Delphi, a Different Approach

We emphasize the practical use of an education and focus on getting our students involved in their subjects. Demonstrated competence in subjects studied is spotlighted rather than time spent in class or "facts" accumulated. For this reason, a somber classroom filled with textbooks, lectures, and chalkboards is not something you'll see at Delphi. Delphi's goal is to have students really "own" their education, which means taking a very active and personal role in it.

This approach depends on an important ingredient—we make sure our students learn how to study. They advance to higher classes based on demonstrated competence and not age or grade, and in the process they gradually become independent, life-long learners.

Empowering Students as Students: Study Technology

We start from the basic assumptions that every individual has an innate desire to learn, that learning is inherently a pleasurable experience, and that the only reason a student feels otherwise is because there's something not understood or easily grasped. That something could be a word, it could be a concept or action, or it could just be "How does this apply to me?"

American philosopher and educator L. Ron Hubbard recognized the pitfalls a student can run into and identified basic barriers that prevent a student from understanding. To help overcome these barriers and ensure a student could truly put his or her education to use, Mr. Hubbard developed what he called Study Technology (or simply Study Tech). Study Technology provides simple but powerful tools by which any subject can be understood, and Delphi students get two levels of benefit from that—faculty that really understands how to keep them flying along in their studies, and the students’ own gradual mastery of these study basics as they progress from year to year.

Delphi Forms versus "Grades"

We take the approach that each level of one's education involves acquisition and demonstration of particular abilities and knowledge. We refer to each level as a Form, and the abilities and knowledge the student acquires at each Form are mapped out in explicit graduation requirements.

Students can enroll in a Form at any time during the school year. Forms provide specific goals and an individualized road for each student. Each Delphi student has his own program which guides him through each Form.

This structure makes it possible for a student to move on to a higher Form, regardless of age, once all the graduation requirements for the previous Form have been met. In this way, each student advances as rapidly as he or she is learning and demonstrating competence, rather than having that progress controlled by the calendar or the other students.

Delphi Students have Individualized Programs

Because students don't all start at Delphi on the same footing, each arriving student is given diagnostic testing and interviews. From that information a program is designed based on that student’s interests, strengths and weaknesses.

Some students arrive at the school with one or more "holes" in their existing educations and part of the initial task is to identify and repair these holes before they become any more of a problem. The student can then embark on a full academic program without those past problems holding him or her back.

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