From Matthew P. Smith

WHAT WE DO —AND WHY: The Curriculum

Project BY MATTHEW P. SMITH DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL

I JOINED NORTH COUNTRY SCHOOL IN JUNE 2020, THREE MONTHS INTO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. Even in a year when we masked and distanced ourselves, it didn’t take long to tell that NCS was a really special place—and how deeply middle schoolers respond to our program. Our students are lively, engaged, and curious. They walk around campus with their heads buried in books, not cell phones. As a newcomer, I wanted to understand NCS’ “secret sauce”: What, exactly, do we do that supports this culture of engagement and growth?

Which is how the Curriculum Project started.

Curriculum is more than a list of courses. It encompasses the entirety of the academic program at any school. Certain elements of our curriculum don’t happen in the classroom at all; at a boarding school, where students live, residential life and co-curricular programming deliver lessons as important as in any class. At NCS, we see this in countless ways. Through barn chores, for example, we ask students to wake up early, dress appropriately for the weather, arrive at the barn on time, care for the animals, work in teams, master new roles, change into school clothes, and arrive at breakfast to start the day.

Most of us can express how those chores, or dining room duties, impart our values and teach certain skills. But it’s just as important that we can do the same with the remainder of our curriculum. That’s why we asked each teacher to explain the material they cover, the methods they employ, the skills they emphasize, and the assessments they use. We mapped each subject between grades and across grade levels to understand the arc of instruction.

As a result of the self study, we learned that we already have strong alignment across grade levels and between subjects. Our core courses build upon each other from one grade to the next and are supplemented by arts and electives that uphold the progressive tradition of child-centered, hands-on, real choice for meaningful work and experiential creation.

But the process also inspired change:

✦ This fall, we've restructured the sequence of our science courses, and enhanced our Earth and Environmental

Science programs by hiring a science teacher who will also serve as a campus Sustainability Coordinator. This new position, identified in the Curriculum Project process, will increase the saturation of science into everyday life.

✦ Yunga Webb joined us this fall as our inaugural director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Curriculum Project proved the need for a dedicated administrator in this position. Yunga's guidance will ensure that our implicit and explict curricula are more accessible and inclusive to more students, and we're thrilled to welcome her.

✦ Finally, we are using our curriculum map to develop a faculty induction, mentoring, and evaluation program. Now that we can articulate and illustrate the arc of instruction at NCS, we can teach our teachers about our shared norms, beliefs, and values about what and how we teach. To do this, we’ve enhanced our teacher support system, relying on faculty leaders from the Lower and Upper School. This distributed leadership structure reflects the democratic values and collaborative spirit we wish to model for students. Using our

Curriculum Project as a guide, we’ll debut our comprehensive mentoring program for teaching interns this fall.

When we began the Curriculum Project two years ago, we hoped to build a document that would dovetail with our strategic planning process. We ended up with that—as well as a guidebook for new faculty, a rudder for seasoned teachers, a lookbook for prospective families, and a vision for the future. The process helped us identify new teacher leaders, critical support roles, and leadership structures. And it also helped me, a new community leader, sequence the school’s DNA. I am excited to begin my third year at NCS with an excellent team of teachers, interns, administrators, and staff, armed with deep knowledge of NCS’ curriculum, history, and traditions.