The American Academy in Tbilisi was founded in 2001 by Guivy Zaldastanishvili, a Georgian businessman who spent much of his life in the United States, and Donald Thomas, an American educator who taught at, and led, both public and private schools in the Boston, Massachusetts area.
Receiving US State Department grants of over two million dollars, the school was founded to be a model for the transformation of Georgian education, as newly independent Georgia made the transition from the Soviet system to a democratic free-market economy.
For education, this meant abandoning the rote methods popular during Soviet times for an interactive classroom that stresses critical analysis, writing, and creative thinking.
The founding teachers at the Academy were sent to the United States where they received training and Master's Degrees in Education from Harvard University, Simmons College, and Phillips Exeter Academy. These teachers form the core of the Academy's staff and are committed not only to using modern methodologies in their classes but also to spreading these methodologies to other Georgian teachers through seminars offered through an NGO established specifically for this purpose.
To date, the American Academy's Educational Development and Research Center has offered six, seven-week seminars over the past three years and presented an intensive, week-long summer program in Telavi in 2005 and a similar program in Kutaisi in 2006. All together these programs have reached over 500 local teachers. Generous U.S. State Department grants underwrote the Telavi and Kutaisi programs. In 2005 the Academy graduated its first class of seniors, and since then each class has built on the success of the previous one.
Academy alums have graduated from or are currently attending colleges and universities throughout the US, the UK, Europe, and in Tbilisi, at institutions such as Harvard, West Point, Middlebury, Williams, WPI, Reed, the American University in Paris, CEU, Bocconi, and St. Andrews University in Scotland. We are justly proud of these students.
While current western pedagogical methods are utilized at AAT, tremendous importance is placed upon fostering and maintaining a viable knowledge of and pride in Georgian cultural heritage. To this end, Georgian history and culture are woven into the three-year history program, the three-year Russian program, and the four-year Georgian language program. In addition to this formal course work, lectures, special speakers and programs are scheduled regularly throughout the year.
The Guivy Zaldastanishvili American Academy in Tbilisi has created a reputation for excellence that our current students are maintaining here in Tbilisi, as are Academy alumni at their colleges and universities in Europe and the US. We will continue to work to maintain our position as the best high school in Georgia.
