Imagine: one student and one teacher in a science lab, working with a professional research microscope, analyzing and debating images from that microscope that are projected onto an interactive whiteboard. They make notes on the image on the whiteboard, labeling cells and charting interactions, then at the end of the lesson, save the images to continue at the next meeting.
What’s amazing isn’t this level of personalized, hands-on learning. What’s amazing is that all students aren’t taught this way.
Academic life at Andover is designed to promote depth in thinking, a free exchange of ideas and highly individualized, one-on-one, live interaction with faculty.
Working directly with Andover faculty, you will map your own intellectual journey. There is no rigid core curriculum required of all students. That doesn’t mean there are no prerequisites or requirements, but to a remarkable degree you’ll choose what to study based on your own strengths and interests.
And guided by our expert faculty, you’ll have the opportunity to design a course of study, develop projects and conduct research that parallels your interests. In every respect, your journey will be guided by your strengths and interests. School at Andover is not a process; it’s a partnership.
At the end of each course, you’ll receive a narrative evaluation written by the instructor. Unlike letter grades, these evaluations provide detailed feedback on your specific strengths and weaknesses and provide directions for your journey. Of course, you’ll receive a letter grade as well. The detailed feedback is for your own edification; the grade is for everyone else. (Narrative evaluations are only released at your direction.)
Instead of simply measuring you against your peers as traditional grading systems do, our system looks at your work in terms of your own abilities and experience, as well as your teachers’s expectations.
Complementing our narrative evaluations is our academic contract system. These contracts are the written agreement you make each semester with the dean about your academic goals and the work you will do that term. Because these contracts are based on your own academic interests, each one is unique and personal, with your progress certified every step of the way.
But our contracts are more than academic; they focus on the whole student, and your progress as a person is equally as important as your progress in any particular class. Many schools claim that, but only Andover actually makes it an integral of the system.
In all respects, Andover’s primary objective is to move each student beyond classroom learning and into real world application. We’re interested in analysis, not memorization. We push for creative innovation, not robotic implementation. We’re striving to develop the leaders of tomorrow, not the workers of yesterday.
Average is over.With the right tools, every student can move beyond average. Andover systematically employs the most innovative neuro-education concepts. Teachers are trained and required to utilize active listening, and the entire school’s structure is built to complement the concepts of neuroplasticity and multiple intelligences. Such concepts have limited effect when grafted on to a traditional school, but are powerful tools when built into a school from the very beginning.
At Andover, academics is more than the structure of cells and the dates of wars. Fundamentally, academics entails maximizing each student’s potential to understand, innovate, and succeed.
Andover has reinvented schools!