What is Argonaut?
Adolescents thrive on belonging, challenge, and adventure.
We all need a group of trusted friends. We all need a safe space to speak honestly and listen deeply, where we can process what matters most to us. In adolescence we need this most of all, as our lives can change dramatically almost from day to day.
Argonaut, founded by Chris Balme, creates this safe space, with skilled facilitators leading small groups of students. It’s first about building trust and connection. We learn social-emotional tools each week, connecting them to the relevant experiences in our own lives. Then we get to go on adventures together: personal challenges drawn from the Essential Experiences Project, an ever-growing list of formative experiences that develop young people’s wisdom, kindness, and real-world skills.
What does an Argonaut session look like?
6-10 middle schoolers
Led by a skilled adult facilitator
Meeting on Zoom for two weekly sessions (1 hour each)
Students learn to be present for each other: making a space where they can authentically be themselves, talking about what is most important to them.
In each session we explore a social-emotional topic, drawn from our Diving Boards curriculum, covering areas from Forgiveness to Gratitude, Handling Drama to Understanding Personalities, and much more.
Students have opportunities to work on challenges drawn from the Essential Experiences.
What is Social-Emotional Learning?
Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL, includes the skills to understand and manage our inner lives — handling emotions, exploring our identity, setting goals and more — plus the skills to create and sustain positive relationships with others.
At Argonaut we’ve been building our own social-emotional curriculum, called Diving Boards, based on adolescent psychology and neuroscience. The curriculum covers topics from Body Image to Personality, Self-Compassion to Boundary-Setting, and many more.
Over the past 20 years, research has shown SEL to be of paramount importance to student and adult success, whether measured traditionally in terms of grades and eventual career success or measured in terms of happiness. It’s clear that pure IQ is not enough: we need to be able to manage our inner world and relate well to others in order to make a good life.
We believe that SEL is taught best through groups, tapping into adolescents’ strong drive for peer connection, with facilitators who can both model these skills and teach them through experience.
What are the Essential Experiences?
The Essential Experiences are a set of challenges which help adolescents find and develop their best selves. They fall into five categories: Independence, Connection, Healthy Body & Mind, Waking Up, and Making the World Better. See more here. As they proceed through the program, students will be able to complete multiple experiences, building their confidence, awareness, kindness and capabilities. They might Serve a Good Meal, Teach a Complex Skill or Connect With Your Lineage — these are 3 of the initial set of 50 experiences available to explore.
Enrollment Information
Age Range
Argonaut groups are for students in 6th-8th grade during the 2023-24 school year. We do consider exceptions for more mature 5th graders, or for current Argonaut students continuing into 9th grade who want to remain in a group. Please contact us if you would like to request an exception.
Dates
Argonaut groups begin the week of September 11, 2023, but students can join at any time during the school year if space is available. Our school-year groups will conclude on Friday, June 7, 2024.
Holiday Weeks
Thanksgiving Week (Week of 11/20/2023)
Winter Break (12/22/2023 through 1/5/2024. Sessions resume the week of January 8, 2024)
Sliding-Scale Tuition
Standard tuition is $70 per week. If you would like to request a discounted tuition via our sliding-scale fee, which can reduce the cost to as low as $5 per week, please fill out this quick form and we’ll reply to let you know of sliding-scale availability. We are working to create as many sliding-scale spots as possible.
Subscription
Upon registration, you will be charged for the first week. Once the program has begun, you will be charged once weekly, covering the following week of programming. The subscription can be canceled at any time.
The subscription will be paused on any weeks where sessions do not take place, such as holiday weeks or facilitator unavailability. We will notify families as far in advance as possible of any canceled sessions. (Participants are not charged.)
Cancellation Policy
Argonaut subscriptions may be canceled at any time. Upon cancellation, you will not be charged for any additional payments; any payment already made for the current or following week’s subscription is non-refundable.
Waitlist
If you would like to join the waitlist for a currently full group, or to be notified of future group openings, please click here.