Philosophy - Whether you are considering enrolling your child in our Hacienda or Emerson School, at HeadsUp! Early Learning Institute, the fundamental tenet of our Montessori schools is that students will learn to direct and manage their own learning. Child development is a process of stimulation and enrichment with cognitive and manipulative materials as well as hands-on activities. At Emerson School, our private elementary school offers classes where students individually and in small groups, plan and assess their goals in learning.
Our mission is to provide an enriched learning environment in which students develop optimally and fulfill their full potential as human beings in all their roles and relationships. We intend that they develop the intellectual and social skills, as well as character, to enable them to succeed in high school and college settings. We expect that they will not only take their proper places in society, they will come to influence and change society for the better.
Pedagogy - The goal of our teachers is to create an environment that encourages the pursuit of excellence in all facets of a child’s work, to stimulate a sense of curiosity, and to encourage the development of independence and individual responsibility as well as a social conscience. As much as possible, our teachers avoid the role of “sage on stage” who imparts content to students that they can just as easily obtain from books or other sources. Instead, our teachers for the most part act like tutors who float from student to student, checking on progress, ensuring that skill development is continuing, and remediating any problems during the learning process rather than doubling back after a test failure to understand where things went wrong.
The cornerstone of the Montessori school approach is a respect for the student as an individual striving for independence. The role of the Montessori school teacher is to observe each student carefully and to facilitate learning through the student's own experiences. The teacher provides order to a student's learning, not to dictate what should be learned, but to help structure the process by which everything and anything can be learned. Even today, more than 90 years after the creation of Maria Montessori's centers, her program remains the only organized, sequential, and individualized preschool curriculum that has been tested and proven to work.
Unlike most traditional public and private elementary schools, our students interact with several different teachers. This allows our students to benefit from understanding the differences among teaching styles and learning how to meet the varying expectations of individual teachers.
As students mature, more time is spent outside the classroom. The upper elementary and middle school students participate actively in "Socratic dialogue,” which involves close textual analysis of original texts and group discussion.
Curriculum - Located in Palo Alto, CA, Emerson School incorporates an individual curriculum that continues and expands upon the Montessori school curriculum employed in the preschool program. The specific components include:
Language support may be available. Offers courses in Spanish, Chinese, and other languages.
Financial aid is available for some classes. Contact for more information.