Mantua Elementary School--Mantua Center, located in Fairfax County, Virginia, is home to a diverse student population of 820 general education, deaf, English as a second language, gifted, and learning disabled students. The school encompasses three connected school programs-the Total Communications Center for the Deaf, the Gifted and Talented Center, and the base school.

Mantua A Basic School Powered by Technology integrates a technology-rich, interdisciplinary environment within the framework of the Basic School, the educational philosophy of the late Dr. Ernest Boyer.

At Mantua, technology is viewed not as an end in itself, but rather as a tool that augments the following four pillars of the Basic School:

• the School as Community (bringing into focus how people relate to one another and work cooperatively to solve problems),
• a Curriculum with Coherence (bringing an interdisciplinary approach to the acquisition of knowledge),
• a Climate for Learning (providing the physical and motivational factors necessary for effective teaching and learning), and
• a Commitment to Character (emphasizing how the school experience shapes the ethical and moral lives of children)

Students and staff use technology to make connections across disciplines and to integrate and apply literacy skills in language, mathematics, and the arts. The Basic School accommodates many learning styles and theories and involves parents and other community members in the learning process. Rather than focusing on a specific learning paradigm, our teachers select to integrate coherently the methods that are most appropriate for the objective at hand, while providing an environment that supports an effective education for every child. Technology is one tool that empowers this acquisition of knowledge; students use technology to simplify, facilitate, and enhance the learning process.

The curriculum of the Mantua Basic School includes all of the traditional fields of elementary study. The eight commonalties of the Basic School are unique lenses through which we view the traditional disciplines and create interdisciplinary connections. Teachers are seen as leaders, facilitators, and mentors, well grounded in the art of teaching and well trained in the use of the most current computing equipment and software applications. Children exposed to interdisciplinary units of study arc becoming literate, cooperative, problem solving, self-motivated learners and that is what Mantua is about. What most distinguishes education at Mantua Elementary--Mantua Center is that our students are not passive recipients of knowledge, but rather, active participants in the full educational process.