T

he architecture of the curriculum is structured to empower students by offering a breadth of intellectual pursuit and depth of study. The programs of study introduce students to a variety of focuses that engage personal interests and fosters competencies and gifts that otherwise may lie dormant.

The different programs encourage students to engage themselves in varied disciplines. A classical language, Latin or Greek, is required. We consider this study to open potential for students to explore and synthesize a new avenue for awareness and development of thought.

The curriculum is planned to foster the improvement of critical thinking, analysis, creativity, problem solving, and reasoning, coupled with understanding the societal and political background of civilization.

We encourage children to explore and discover the disciplines through classical, modern language and cultural study. Our academic programs are evolutionary and flexibly engineered to enable students to focus on the challenges they will meet with understanding and, importantly, with compassion.

An emphasis is placed upon thinking as a substantive part of life. Challenges, problems and dilemmas are presented without concrete resolution, as are many of life's problems. We strive to empower young scholars to make deep, reflective thought processes deliberate, frequent and, most important, habitual. When attitudes toward thinking evolve into habits of questioning and processing (not merely possessing) information in a clearly purposeful manner, we establish a lifetime perspective that will derive incalculable benefits.

We endeavor to develop the characteristics considered attributes of the gifted, talented and creative. Benefits derive from exposure to a multiplicity of opportunities designed to cultivate and expand the skills associated with these characteristics. Curricular modifications are derived from research on the characteristics of precocious children. They are comprehensive in design and qualitatively differentiated.

C

ore scholastic subjects are accelerated and compacted. Students move through subjects at their own pace. This freedom allows most students to progress through subjects at a rate typically much faster than study constrained within a traditional grade allows. Frequent pre-testing qualifies individual children for rapid acceleration though the curriculums.

Mastery of instructional objectives is set at a high level of expectation - attained at ninety (90%) percent or above, not seventy percent as tradition dictates, and is recorded in individual continuous progress profiles, which are given to parents at the end of each academic year. Traditional grades and report cards are not issued. Based on extensive research over the last fifty years, they have been identified as being harmful to the learning process.

Students of Anderson are typrically co-enrolled at college or university at age sixteen, earning college and high school credit while receiving the help and support of the faculty at Anderson. This support plays a crucial role in the academic success of each student. When students enter college or university, a traditional transcript is prepared for them. If a student wishes to earn a high school diploma from Anderson School, they may do so by taking particular courses outlined by Anderson, over the course of the semesters in which they are co-enrolled, while they attend a college or university.

The Anderson Private School provides specialized activities and experiences intended to enhance the sophistication of both analytical and divergent reasoning skills. The cultivation of aesthetic sensitivity together with the development of artistic skills is addressed within varied learning contexts.

We strive to prepare each student to become an "autonomous learner" - one who solves problems or develops new ideas through a combination of divergent and convergent thinking and functions with minimum external guidance.

To view our scope and sequence, click here. (PDF)

An integral part of the curriculum at Anderson, is the teaching of critical thinking. Critical thinking is found in nearly every subject taught at Anderson. Critical thinking has been labeled a “buried” discipline, as it is not normally taught from a direct approach. Throughout history, it may have appeared hidden within other subjects, but it has not been actively sought and fortified in the minds of students. We wish to reinvigorate this ancient art.

All students participate in our theater program as part of the school’s annual Shakespeare production. This methodology accentuates the significance of being actively involved in the process of creative endeavor.
Read more here.

Students work toward strengthening their comprehension and expression skills, and importantly their appreciation for other cultures.

The Anderson school believes that philosophy opens doors to thought that cannot be unlocked with any other key. We strive to engage students in ideas and also to question our relation to the world. This will help a child formulate opinions and arrive at conclusions as their understanding emerges.

To truly understand what someone is missing inside these great attractions, a student should travel there many times over the course of their life. Our extensive travel facilitates what another day in a classroom cannot: experience. Our travel helps solidify concepts and study presented in class, as well as assisting in the instruction of managing finances, etiquette, and socialization. In addition, it brings joy to learning, which is crucial if the pursuit of knowledge is to continue throughout a student's life, as we believe it must.