The current public school paradigm is standards-based. There is a hierarchy of subjects, with literacy and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) at the top, the humanities (language, history, geography, and social studies), and then near the bottom are the practical disciplines (art, drama, music, design, and physical education).
Most other traditional subjects (like home economics and vocational programs such as shop) are rarely taught anymore. Even if they are, this still leaves important areas untouched. The Inspired Learner Model (ILM) gives schools the opportunity to fill these gaps. By making the acquisition of knowledge and skills more efficient, educators have limitless possibilities for students to follow and develop their interests with a far wider range of material.
An important benefit of the ILM program is including subjects that extend beyond the standards-based curriculum. There are seven additional learning areas that are vitally important. These are the development of lifelong habits that lead to happiness, healthy relationships, mental stability, positive community engagement, good physical health, career success, and financial prosperity. These topics are included in the project and activity-based curriculum. Because of the emphasis on doing rather than passively listening, learning is active, engaging, fun, rewarding, and effective.
​1. Self-Care
The self-care component of ILM includes learning the importance of regular exercise, good personal hygiene, getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, constructively dealing with strong emotions, and contributing to a functional home environment. Through project and activity-based learning, students learn how to prepare delicious healthy food, play fun games and sports that provide enough exercise, practice personal hygiene, do age-appropriate first-aid, and constructively deal with feelings and emotions such as stress, anger, frustration, and grief.
​2. Basic Financial Literacy
The development of a child’s understanding of money and economics is developed when they have “personal economic experiences”. This may include activities like putting their own money in their personal savings or investment account, or practicing with pretend money and banks to do the same.  Financial concepts that are appropriate at the elementary school level, and can be taught in the ILM project and activity-based learning paradigm, include counting, side-by-side comparisons, conservation, exchange, value, prices, tipping, income, expenses, savings, investment, earned interest, and the importance of living within one’s means. Such concepts augment and reinforce studies in math. Ideally, financial literacy lessons would begin in elementary school and extend throughout the student's entire public school career.
​3. Conflict Resolution Skills
ILM sees conflict resolution skills as foundational to success in school and in life. Students can learn to recognize the most common ways people deal with conflict, such as accommodating, compromising, collaborating, avoiding and competing, and the pros and cons of each. They can be taught the difference between a message sent and a message received, and that what people are trying to communicate is not always what is heard. They can learn the difference between a "need" and a "want”, and how to truly listen to others. Students receive experience in practicing and applying different methods of conflict resolution.
​​4. Visual and Performing Arts
Art, music, dance, photography, sculpture, etc. have been minimized and often even eliminated in public schools to give more time to core subjects such as literacy, math, and science. ILM understands that the arts are inexorably related to the core subjects. The arts encourage teamwork and self-discipline, promote a deeper understanding of other cultures, bridge cultural gaps between students, reach students who are alienated or discouraged in school, and even help improve students' achievement in other subjects. Children generally love classes in the arts because they engage them by learning in ways that other subjects simply can't. Creating art on canvas, through an instrument, or on a stage demands a student's focused engagement. This motivates them to hone their skills and requires them to analyze problems and work together.
The self-discipline learned through the study of the arts then carries over to other disciplines, motivating a wider range of students in more profound ways. Furthermore, many children learn better when they watch or listen to something expressed creatively, versus absorbing information from lectures and textbooks. In this way, the arts are also ideally suited for the project-based learning environment of ILM.
​5. Educating Children to be Global Citizens
Global Citizen Education (GCE) is a form of learning that involves students becoming actively involved in progress that relates to global social, political, economic, and environmental issues. There are two parts to GCE. One is the moral and ethical aspects of global issues, and the other is developing the skills to constructively address these issues in the real world. The goal of GCE is to have students see themselves as part of not only their community and country, but also as a citizen of the world. A failure to properly prepare students for the globalized world they live in is a huge detriment to their potential future success. With ILM, Global Citizen Education is infused into the learning process and the general curriculum whenever it is appropriate.
6. Learning at Least One Foreign Language
For 94.5% of the world's population, English is not the native language. At best, only 25% have an understanding of English. In the global economy, foreign language acquisition is a vitally important skill, yet less than 1% of adults in the US are proficient in a foreign language they studied in an American school.
Fluency in a foreign language increases cross-cultural understanding and tolerance. It increases listening skills, memory, and brain function. Languages open doors to art, cuisine, philosophy, and literature, and improve the knowledge of one's own language. Learning a foreign language before college also opens more doors for studying abroad.
For these reasons and many others, ILM includes foreign language acquisition as part of the curriculum. Students are encouraged to study foreign languages through online programs and learn conversation skills and cultural understanding as part of their project and activity-based learning.
7. Media and Digital Literacy
ILM is firmly committed to the educational opportunities that computers and the Internet have made possible. At the same time, children consume large amounts of information from a variety of media sources in and out of the classroom. In ILM, students develop media literacy by thinking critically about the media they are consuming, and learn to recognize biases as well as search engine limitations. At appropriate ages, students also learn to recognize and report online harassment, avoid plagiarism, make privacy settings,  understand digital footprints, and employ strong passwords to protect private information.