FALL/WINTER 2021
A New Academic Program for a Changing World The new academic program at George School is founded in educational neuroscience and explores the intersections between traditional academic disciplines. Students will have the remarkable ability to customize their learning options both on and off campus and around the world.
How do you educate students in a way that enables them to let their lives speak? It is a question that’s always on the minds of George School faculty and administrators, driving continual examination of best teaching practices. It has also led to a wholesale review of curriculum and the aspects of campus life that support it. Simply put, the new academic program, coming in fall 2022, will transform the ways students learn. What a 21st-century education should look like has been a nationwide topic of conversation since the millennium began. Most traits and skills identified as vital for today’s graduates—creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, flexibility, resilience, empathy, leadership, and a global outlook, to name a handful—have been taught at George School for some time. Our alumni are prepared to learn and adapt to careers that haven’t been invented and a world that is changing…repeatedly. In the last two years, however, George School has looked further ahead. The recent “Plan for George School” calls for a new curriculum that “is sufficiently flexible to allow for student customization.” The goal is not only to prepare students for brilliant futures, but to prepare each student— with their own background and interests—for
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their individual future, so that each can let their life speak in their own way. Through regular professional development, faculty are using research on teaching, adolescent psychology, and—thanks to the emerging field of educational neuroscience—how the brain learns to reevaluate the curriculum from top to bottom. It will include courses and other experiences in a more flexible structure that maximizes learning for all. Characterized by “informed creativity” and developing the “arts of engaged citizenship” (per the strategic plan), the new research-informed curriculum will include: • A significant interdisciplinary experience for all students. • Enhanced offerings in science, technology, engineering, and math linked to the arts. • Inquiry-based learning as a signature pedagogy. • A significant learning experience that complements the IB Diploma while maintaining a deep commitment to the IB program. • Engagement in the local community and the world, including transformative experiences such as internships, student-faculty research, and enhanced service learning trips.
