
An Episcopal School in Tulsa, Holland Hall offers a challenging and supportive college preparatory experience for 900 students in grades P-12.
“The goal at Holland Hall is to ensure that our curriculum and programs will help students build the right foundation for success in both college and in the workplace,” says Dr. Mark Desjardins, Headmaster at Holland Hall. “Our educational programs are comprehensive and intentionally designed to address the whole child. The All Kinds of Minds philosophy plays an important role in helping us to achieve this goal. Since All Kinds of Minds’ programs are based on brain research and how it relates to learning, we are now able to better understand how and why each student learns in his or her own unique way. This has helped us to strengthen our teaching practices and inform our discussions around student learning and behaviors.”
Holland Hall has worked with All Kinds of Minds since the early 1990s to embed the science of learning into the art of teaching throughout the school. With more than half its teachers trained in All Kinds of Minds programs and four of its staff members serving on All Kinds of Minds’ national faculty, Holland Hall has hosted and facilitated numerous courses for teachers from other private and public schools.
Gina Johnson, a long-time All Kinds of Minds course facilitator and Director of Holland Hall’s Kistler-Gilliland Center for the Advancement of Learning, adds that All Kinds of Minds processes have been integrated throughout school curricula and school life programs. “The teaching resources available through All Kinds of Minds are numerous and varied,” she explains. “For example, use of The Mind That’s Mine curriculum in grades 4-6, Jarvis Clutch-Social Spy’ [a book for middle schoolers on the often traumatic social experiences encountered by young adolescents] in our wellness program for grades 6 and 7, and holding an All Kinds of Minds Fair for Grandparents’ Day each year are among the many All Kinds of Minds tools that have proved invaluable to us.”
Faculty members throughout the school also use All Kinds of Minds’ collaborative Attuning a Student process to better understand each student’s learning profile for teachers, parents, and the students themselves.