In 2007, teachers, parents, students, community members, clergy, professors, administrators, and experts in the field of charter school development committed their passion to ensure one goal: To help students realize their life’s purpose. Realm’s mission is to cultivate resiliency, develop critical thinking skills, and advance knowledge through rigorous studies. Our vision: to build a 21^st century school that demonstrates that the global community is part of the classroom, that standardized measurements are only the beginning of evaluating efficacy, and that students must develop a critical lens when using and developing technology tools of tomorrow.

Participatory Action Research
With the aim of making learning relevant and purposeful for students, Realm offers students the opportunity to change their communities—and the world­—through the use of Participatory Action Research (PAR). Elements of PAR are the cornerstone of Identity,  Community,  and Globalism. Contrary to old-fashioned methods of learning, in which all information is, filtered through the teacher, the PAR approach encourages students to research issues that affect them, their communities or the world. Students then propose an action to effect social change. This cycle of inquiry requires students to define the issue, design the project, collect and analyze data, and implement interventions. Through PAR, students demonstrate mastery of Social Science standards in English, Language Arts, and History by completing research papers, portfolios, exhibits, presentations,  and multimedia projects. Examples of youth-led PAR projects range from building community gardens, creating after-school tutoring centers, redesigning small schools, and writing books for new teachers.

Mindfulness in Education
Mindfulness means paying attention to the here and now with kindness and curiosity. Mindfulness reconnects students to their five senses, helping them become aware of themselves and their surroundings. Practicing mindfulness increases concentration, improves learning, and promotes well-being and social and emotional growth. Self awareness helps catalyze transformative learning by opening the contemplative mind. The capacity for contemplation balances and enriches analytic thought.   In addition to enriching the student’s individual experience, mindfulness practices help create an environment conducive to learning, as all students are better able to focus and pay attention. Realm delivers a mindfulness  curriculum through our advisory classes. Faculty hiring takes into account  the ability of prospective advisors to implement this critical program. Advisors also receive training to develop these skills.

Immersive Technologies
Other schools focus primarily on memorization of facts and information rather than active problem solving. Immersive technologies are particularly apt to counter this trend. Realm builds settings—both real and virtual—in which students experience the context of a problem while mastering the problem-solving skills required to address it. This learning method stresses collaboration, evaluation of information, innovation, and preparation for a rapidly changing 21st century. Immersive technologies are especially useful for experiencing complex  structures. In science, for example, we use technology to visualize processes that are not otherwise observable to the eye. Students can travel virtually through the body or observe the Earth’s energy and the effects of variables such as temperature and outgoing thermal radiation. At Realm, immersive technologies are a learning tool pervasive across the curricula and across all grade-levels.

21st Century Education Problem solving
The student develops and applies multiple strategies to solve routine problems, generate strategies to solve non-routine problems, and applies methods of problem solving to complex problems requiring method-based problem solving.

Creativity and Innovation
The student demonstrates originality and inventiveness in work by developing, implementing and communicating new ideas to others; is open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; and acts on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the domain in which the innovation occurs.

Critical Thinking
The student exercises sound reasoning in understanding, making complex choices and decisions, understanding the interconnections among systems, and identifying and asking significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions.

ICT Literacy (Information, Communications & Technology)
The student uses digital technology, communication tools and/or networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge economy; uses technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and communicate information, and the possession of a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information.

Information Literacy
The student accesses information efficiently and effectively, evaluating information critically and competently and using information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand; possessing a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information.

Media Literacy
The student understands how media messages are constructed, for what purposes and using which tools, characteristics and conventions; examines how individuals interpret messages differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded and how media can influence beliefs and behaviors; possesses a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information.