In the wired, frenzied, competitive culture of the early twenty-first century, how does a school retain its founder's mission, now a hundred years old, of "personal best'? How do current studies on adolescent brain development or the ways girls grow and prosper, fit in the frame of a college-prep, single-sex boarding/day school?
At The Madeira School, the academic program reflects the school's eternal values, such as building life-long learners, helping girls take risks and find voices, and exposing girls to both experiential and traditional material on their journeys toward becoming ethical and curious young women. The academic program also reflects the latest understanding of how girls learn and how their brains develop.
Every Madeira student can tell you that learning here takes place both in and out of the classroom, under the guidance and direction of committed, experienced teachers. The classrooms are small and cozy, and the relationships with the adults are strong. In such a setting, risk-taking becomes the ordinary. Each day girls fly, whether on the zip-wire or during calculus class. They soar as they read Song of Solomon and as they find a way to drop an egg (without a splat!) in physics class.
An important part of each Madeira teacher's job is advising a small group of girls. Advisors are charged with working with the whole girl, the one who has study hall on Sunday night, who has a role in the winter musical, who is moving toward abstract thought, and who can't stop giggling with her roommate. Adults here know their students and advisees well; they easily spot talents, strengths, and gaps. At Madeira, there is no "best" that all girls aim for but only one can reach. Here, each girl, propelled by caring, exacting adults and a curriculum that blends the eternal with the new, feels the power of her own thoughts. Academics at Madeira inform the trajectory of a girl's growing up.
