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 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.

To make the most of the new curriculum, the calendar will switch to a seven-term model, with each term different, and fewer (four) but longer daily class periods. The combination of curriculum and schedule will let students choose from more courses and experiences, and more ways to put them together.

It will be easier to sample different areas and to dive deeply into one. Connecting studies across disciplines and to the real world will make learning more enduring, while enabling students to tailor their education to their needs and interests will make it more meaningful. The end result will be greater flexibility, opportunities, possibilities to accelerate, equity, and student well-being.

“We know we will be able to offer a wider variety of courses,” describes Director of Studies Laura Kinnel. “We also know that no matter how much choice we offer within the curriculum, our creative and curious students will always find things they want to study that we don’t offer.” One exciting prospect of the new program is the ability “to ask students, ‘If you could design your own course, what would you be interested in studying?’ and then providing a structure for them to do just that.” After completion of the curriculum revision, George School’s academic program will certainly change. What it means to be a George School graduate will not. Graduation requirements will continue to ensure that alumni develop the skills, knowledge, and experience for long-term success, and that they are as well-rounded as they are well-educated, with learning durable and mastery-based.

According to history teacher Sara Shreve-Price, the new academic program and calendar will indeed “increase our ability to customize our education,” moving closer to providing “all things for all people, but not in a bad way. If you’re all about advanced math and science, you can do it. If you love music and want to immerse yourself in it, you can do that, while we help you explore other things that you may come to love, too. We’ve intentionally tried to put ‘What do we want for our students and how do we build that?’ at the center of all decisions. I’m blown away by the school’s willingness to do that. This is a really exciting time to be at George School.”