Constructivist theory says that children are active learners, building meanings from their own experiences, not merely receiving information from authorities, whether teachers or textbooks.

Constructivism is a way of thinking about learning.  Constructivists believe that each child is actively trying to make meaning out of his/her world; therefore, classrooms are set up to encourage exploration and discovery.  Teachers work to understand how the child is thinking in order to best advance his learning.

Ancona teachers encourage dialogue among students and ask open-ended questions to help them extend or revise what they already know, to make new connections and to develop genuine understandings. In traditional classrooms, children are expected to memorize and repeat what they learn from texts and the teacher.  Ancona children are engaged problem-solvers – analyzing and interpreting their experiences, predicting and revising their thinking.  

Dr. Maria Montessori’s pedagogy has certain commonalities with constructivism, and so, it has been natural for Ancona to integrate innovative, research-based, constructivist pedagogies with our Montessori foundation.

We teach children to question and to evaluate the information and arguments that come their way.

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known but to question it.  – Jacob Bronowski, mathematician and author of the PBS series The Ascent of Man
    
Throughout the Ancona curriculum, we ask children to think deeply, to look at questions from multiple perspectives and to question how ideas are interpreted in texts, maps, media and in the popular imagination.  We bring children in on an understanding of how knowledge is created and how it reflects the social context so that they can became both critical consumers of knowledge and knowledge creators themselves.

We believe that in order to be a true representation of our world, curriculum must present the voices and experiences of many people from multiple points of view.

Ancona students learn early that they are citizens of a global community.  In order to fully understand the human condition, we must understand the many and varied experiences that people have had in different times and places.  A multicultural curriculum is more than a nod to the famous people of a particular race or the celebrations of a particular culture.  It is a way of looking at knowledge as a conversation among differing perspectives.  

In a multicultural curriculum, we include the voices of those who were left out of the traditional curriculum:  people of color, women, the poor, the disenfranchised.  Ancona’s multicultural curriculum is one of depth more than breadth, because it takes time to look at objects and events from many points of view.  We want to create a forum to which children can comfortably bring the knowledge of their own personal and cultural backgrounds.  We want them to learn that factors such as culture, race, class, ethnicity and gender shape and color one’s reality, and, at the same time, to know that no one person can be defined merely by those factors.  In our multicultural classrooms, we want children both to be proud of their own identities and to realize that no one is defined merely by his identity. Because they are exposed to many perspectives, we hope they will be able to interact freely across cultural and ethnic boundaries.

In 1993 Ancona adopted 12 Multicultural Curriculum Strands to provide a framework for curriculum development. We invite you to download this document.

Because we cannot know what the future will hold, we believe it is more important to give children the skills and strategies for knowing how to learn than to impart any particular content.

At Ancona, we focus on imparting a love of learning and competence in the processes of learning so that children can use their educations to adapt to their own changing needs.

In all areas of the curriculum, children become active participants, using the methods and processes of expert practitioners and accumulating a repertoire of techniques for approaching work in different domains.  In reading and writing workshops, for example, students examine the decisions authors make and analyze how those decisions impact readers.  They use the strategies they identify, along with those the teacher models, to create their own new texts.

As readers, writers, musicians, linguists, artists, athletes, historians, scientists and mathematicians, students develop an awareness of how they are learning and that intentions matter.

We develop in-depth curricular units that integrate knowledge from the various disciplines to give children a holistic learning experience.

Curriculum in the humanities and sciences is organized around integrated themes or units.  In an integrated study, children apply the processes and knowledge of many disciplines to develop an inclusive understanding of a subject.  Topics from anthropology, history, geography, literature, mathematics, the sciences, sociology and the arts may all be included. Children learn how the different disciplines are connected and how a subject may be approached from many interrelated points of view.  Teachers bring topics to life through hands-on resources, interesting activities and individual projects. 

Each unit will have its own specific content objectives, but all units share certain fundamental characteristics.  They are designed to teach the processes of learning -- posing questions, designing investigations, researching primary and secondary sources, testing and revising conclusions and presenting to an audience.

The teacher gathers resources and plans the content, skills and attitudes to be covered, but each unit takes on a direction of its own as the children interact with the materials, and the teacher responds to the children’s questions and interests.  Resources may include readings, photographs, guest speakers, films, artifacts, field trips, interviews, relevant software and the like.  Experiments, cooking, arts, construction, building models, simulations, slide shows, dramatizations, reports, memory books, reflective journals and role-plays are examples of activities and projects that might be included.

Unit work often culminates with in-depth student projects and celebrations that share our learning with family and friends.

All children of a given age are not the same.  In the multi-age classroom, children can learn at levels that are appropriate to the child’s development.

Integral to the Montessori philosophy is the conviction that a multiage classroom offers many significant opportunities that are unavailable when children are more narrowly grouped.  During the two or three years the child remains in the same classroom, teacher, child and parent get to know each other well. Maturation is not always smooth; there can be peaks and plateaus.  The multi-age classroom allows time for the natural course of a child's development to unfold. 

Equally important is our belief that children learn from and enjoy helping one another.  Children benefit from the experience of relating to those older and younger than themselves as they do in a family. The older, more experienced children serve as models and mentors to the younger ones.  New children entering the class learn about the classroom system from those who are returning, and older children experience the satisfaction of helping and the sense of competence, independence and leadership that comes from knowing the ways of the classroom.

We design the learning climate to promote the qualities and values that, taken together, constitute what we believe to be excellence in learning.