The Blue School is dedicated to connecting children with their innate ability to create and to express themselves, and to ensuring that they do not lose this connection as they become "socialized" and "educated."

We believe that creative expression is a basic human need, regardless of one's particular skills or proclivities. Our program will help all of our students find avenues of self-expression by breaking down and demystifying the creative process, making it more accessible and enticing. We want to give children opportunities to develop skills that will build confidence in their own creative abilities. Over time, our students will develop their own unique voices, and gain mastery over skills and techniques that will allow their expressions to flow freely.

We believe that children's physical environment has a great impact on their creative development. We have taken great care in creating physical spaces designed to awaken the senses and inspire the imagination. Each classroom is a multi-purpose, multi-sensory environment that at different times will be filled with diverse materials, luminescent colors, gooey tactile elements, resonant sounds, interesting projections, theatrical set pieces, thought-provoking books, engaging technology or clean simplicity. In each case, the purpose is to create a fertile environment for creativity and self-expression.

Our teachers will be highly trained in arts education and gifted at engaging children in creative explorations and activities. They are skilled in documentation techniques that help children think more penetratingly about their own creative processes. Our guest-artist program will draw upon the skills and talents of our parents and from within the Blue Man Group organization to bring additional breadth and depth to our program's creative experiences.

We believe that the principles of creative thinking apply to all subjects, not just the arts. We want to encourage our students to have lots of ideas and to use their imaginations, no matter what subject is being taught. We believe that children who are adept at brainstorming and creative problem solving will bring extra resourcefulness to all of their pursuits.

We are also excited about incorporating ideas put forth by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his seminal work on creativity, "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience." Specifically, we are interested in creating classroom conditions that are conducive to the mental state of "flow," which Csikszentmihalyi describes as characterized by "energized and focused immersion in tasks that are challenging yet within the reach of a person's skill set." We believe that helping children learn how to access this kind of creative mind frame will help them become intrinsically motivated in their quest for knowledge, liberated in their ability to express themselves and fully engaged in life.