Personalized Education at High School Thomas Jefferson

High School Thomas Jefferson follows the Thomas Jefferson Institute philosophy of self-steem, respect and academic excellence and has a strategic vision regarding a 21st century private high school. Our avant-garde educational system allows us to form integrated, holistic, and ethical students with a humanist vision. Students are committed to the economic, political, social and cultural development of his/her community as Thomas Jefferson High School has a formative character that allows our students to be happy and successful, leaders of the future, multilingual, bicultural with academic excellence, creative and independent, with strong values and self-esteem, and with a clear vision of the future as they learn in an educational, technological and social way that allows them to understand nature and society and, simultaneously strengthen their life project.
High School faculty and support staff works according to the Institute´s mission and vision. That is why our educational system provides knowledge, values, habits and competencies, therefore, our students are accepted in national and international universities. We are one of the first schools to develop personalized education and learning as we believe in constant change and permanent renewal according to the environment, since our students are constant actors in searching and creating knowledge.
At the High School Thomas Jefferson we are also conscious that in today´s society of knowledge, it is very important that students learn to learn to be critical thinkers and selective from the quantity of generated information.
High School Thomas Jefferson is distinguished for forming students in a harmonic and comprehensive environment allowing them to free express their ideas within universal values. High School Thomas Jefferson favors and encourages research, the knowledge of "the self" and the development of the emotional intelligence. We are conscious of the individuality of each student for which we monitor the personal process according to their achievements. We guide the student positively in their perception of their self in order for them to know their strengths and how they grow.
Therefore we believe in an education understood as service to the personal development in all dimensions: we believe in personalized education as we encourage critical thinking, imagination, and creativity. Education is centered on reflection, human development, diagnosis and solution of social problems. We are a free school devoted to think and protect the dignity of our students encouraging in them autonomy and freedom.
Faculty concentrates in forming young people capable of constructing a world in which the value of the person is over the monetary one. High School teachers understand that they must not educate for today´s present but for the future as they know that the most important and most difficult job is that being a human being. The latter is achieved by obtaining the student´s commitment with his/her personal development, society and historical moment.
High School Thomas Jefferson students know how to research in the scientific and humanistic fields, know how to recreate Art, discuss rationally public questions, coexist democratically, learn to think, develop values and moral abilities and especially, learn to be more human, because they have learned from others. Students learn how to carry out personal research, criticize objectively, pose questions, respect others and they are persons capable of thinking, taking decisions, looking up for excellence and being related to others and to cooperate with them. Students abstract, create, and understand complex problems; they are capable of collaborate, negotiate, undertake collective projects and therefore they are prepared to work in the political and cultural life.
One of the main objectives of Thomas Jefferson High School is the development of leaders who are positive, value oriented and with a vision to the year 2015. In this framework, we created the Jefferson Leadership Mentor Program to help our students to develop leadership competencies. The content of this eLearning program is provided by Harvard Business School Publishing. With the utilization of the case method, our students analyze real business cases, solve problems, make decisions and work as a team. A facilitator guides the students through this learning experience. He/she helps them to relate and apply this knowledge to their daily lives. Topics such as “Managing your time” and “Leading quietly” prepare our students to be successful in their near future, College, and in their professional life. It is important to mention that this Harvard eLearning programs are intended to middle managers. Our students are the first ones in the world outside the USA to use them at such a young age.
Daily activities are planned according to their learning styles and multiple intelligences. At least twice a year, all our high students have video conferences with major international universities as use of state of the art technology is a common tool in their classrooms. Our main goal is to develop happy and successful leaders of the future, with very strong values, creative, multicultural, bilingual, independent, with academic excellence, self-esteem, with a clear vision of the future, and a high sense of nationalism. High School Thomas Jefferson is an Educational Institution dedicated to the formation, accompaniment and guide of the future men and women who will direct Mexico and this world.