About Us

We’ve learned everything we know about education from children.

City and Country has always looked to children to learn about education. Caroline Pratt, C&C’s visionary founder, observed children long before she tried to teach them. She came to realize that the more children actively participate in their own education, the more they get out of it.

Knowledge takes root when it’s planted in experience.

Children are natural-born learners. They are relentless scientists, performing experiments of trial and error everywhere they go. By the time they attend school, they have already figured out how to walk and talk and communicate their needs to their parents and caregivers. We believe an educator’s greatest challenge isn’t to teach children, but rather to create an environment that keeps their inherent curiosity intact. The C&C classroom serves as an ideal place for children to explore, experiment, fail, learn and grow, both as individuals and as a group.

At the heart of every great teacher is an ardent learner.

C&C teachers are highly skilled educators, experts in community building, and scholars of child development. They work alongside our students, facilitating a journey shaped by the curiosity of the child. Our teachers know it is more important to pose good questions than to offer answers to which a student feels no connection. The right question will spawn hypotheses and experiments, as well as research and conclusions. The right question will set the group on a journey that will lead deep into their subject of study.

We hold ourselves to as high a standard as we hold our children.

Our staff remains true to the original vision of Caroline Pratt: to create a place of learning that constantly re-evaluates both its program and environment in an effort to help children forge a deep connection to their educational experience. We also strive to model what we teach. Our administrators are accessible to everyone in our community and seek to adhere to the same methods of collaborative problem-solving that our children use in their classrooms.

Click to read “C&C Basics” and learn more about us!