Let us explain. Students immediately see that we engage creativity in many parts of our curriculum. Biology students sketch specimens to sharpen observation skills. History students deepen understanding of world events by studying Picasso’s Guernica. Improvisation students develop confidence, pushing outside their comfort zones and learning how to adapt and think on their feet in performance. The benefits of learning both intellectual discipline and individual creativity enable our graduates to become future mathematicians, engineers, lawyers, professors, doctors, and yes, artists, who are more innovative, more collaborative, and more inspired to live confident, engaged lives. If this is what it means to be a school that believes in the importance of the arts...
cool.
“It’s so rare to have an opportunity anywhere, but especially in high school, to be invited to think about how things connect. At Northwest, I saw how art influences the Humanities, how Humanities is constituted by things from culture, how those combine and bloom in sciences and how all things intersect.” —Gigi Craig ’02, Ph.D. candidate, English Literature, University of Washington
Welcome from the Head of School We’re delighted you’re interested in our school. The Northwest School is a thriving and exciting place to learn. Step into our historic main building and our vibrant new facility, and you’ll see energy and enthusiasm emanating from every classroom, lab, and studio at all hours of the day. Our teachers are passionate and knowledgeable; they’re the heart of our school and dedicated to helping students discover their intellectual passions and develop independence. Our community is warm and supportive; we care deeply about the virtues of courtesy and common sense and we embrace our many cultures and perspectives from around the world. Come spend time with us and see firsthand why our students are thrilled to be here. We look forward to meeting you!
Mike McGill, Head of School
“I’m an engineer at Electroimpact. I’ve consistently been given opportunities beyond my peers. I believe that this is due in part to my education at Northwest. I believe their philosophy of incorporating the arts into the curriculum helped me be more creative as an engineer and better able to articulate my ideas in my work.” —David Eckstein ’95
Our approach to academics has always been to push students beyond their comfort zones. We challenge them to be intellectually courageous and to generate new ideas. We offer a college preparatory experience grounded in vigorous study. Our challenging curriculum teaches students to discover the connections between historic, scientific, and artistic fields of knowledge. Our graduates are welcomed by renowned colleges and universities throughout the United States and overseas. Our liberal arts education combines an integrated Humanities program with open-ended scientific study. Our math program allows students to develop through advanced calculus and provides students opportunities to participate in state and regional math competitions. Our wide range of arts classes encourages students to try new modes of expression and creativity. As important as where our graduates go to college is how they engage in the changing world. Our exceptional faculty and program inspire students to grow as thinkers and responsible citizens. Studying current topics of international significance alongside peers from other countries prepares our students to think globally and engage in an interconnected world.
Middle School can be an exciting journey. That’s why we’ve brought together teachers who love the trip.
Our Upper School instills in every student the knowledge, experience, and confidence to excel in both college and life.
Our Middle School faculty is particularly adept at understanding, embracing, and celebrating these critical years. Our small classes allow us to give personalized attention, nurturing and challenging students simultaneously. Each student has an advisor to ensure that families and school work together seamlessly. The academically challenging, cross-disciplinary curriculum stresses the process of learning, enabling all students to become selfdirected learners.
We believe that students who have been truly engaged by a community of scholars, artists, and international peers will graduate with an insatiable love of learning, a respect for diverse opinions and beliefs, the knowledge to navigate critical and complex ideas, and the eagerness and ability to participate as active members in society.
Our morning meetings help build students’ awareness of belonging to the Middle School community. A sense of membership in the entire school comes from attending weekly Community Meetings and working in cross-graded 6-12 Environment teams that clean the school three times a week. Middle schoolers eat lunch with all grades and faculty, participate in all-school celebrations, and join students from every grade on overnight skiing, biking, hiking, and kayaking trips. Our students transition to 9th grade with confidence in their own voices, a sense of obligation to and concern for the world, and with the academic skills they will need to thrive in high school.
The Upper School teachers at Northwest are experts at developing every student’s intellectual and personal independence. In 9th through 12th grade, our students pursue a challenging and inter-disciplinary program of studies, consisting of an integrated Humanities program, handson laboratory science, applied mathematics, language study, visual and performing arts experiences, and athletic competition. By the time students are seniors they lead crossgraded Environment teams that care for the school. They also help guide younger students through the Peer Mentoring program and organize all-school events. The development of personal responsibility and leadership skills is central to the Upper School experience.
“By studying literature and primary sources, our students are learning how to think, how to question, and, most importantly, how to act with integrity.”
HUMANITIES
—Harumi LaDuke, Humanities Teacher
Our Humanities program is more than an area of study; it’s the fiber that connects our curriculum.
“At Northwest we grappled with how you balance competing interests and views. The law is fraught with complexity and differing opinions on both sides. Being an attorney has an ethical dimension — it involves a principled combat of sorts. I learned how to do that at Northwest.’‘ —David Kauffman ’95, Attorney
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We are a school that fosters a love of and respect for ideas, and a place that teaches its students to think and synthesize. This is most evident in our integrated Humanities program. Using original source materials and works of classical and contemporary literature, this stimulating series of courses connects history, literature, philosophy, political science, and art history.
Through Humanities courses, students develop into thoughtful, engaged, and informed citizens. Every student is required to volunteer for an outside political campaign, and students participate in classes that evoke different perspectives and investigate issues of human rights. Law and Society is a prime example of how we teach Humanities. The culmination of this course is a mock trial conducted in the chambers of a criminal court in downtown Seattle. Students prepare and perform arguments before a judge. They also research and write papers, typically reflecting current events. Recently, these have covered detainee rights, environmental law, immigration, Chinese labor practices, Korean free trade, and the legality of the Iraq War. By the end of the course, students have a broad sense of how the law can be used to protect rights and advance social justice.
Glancing at the titles of the reading covered in 10th Grade Humanities provides an idea of the intellectual arc of one year at Northwest. Events and ideas from the 18th and 19th centuries are brought to life and given relevance in lectures, small-group discussions, and regular writing tutorials with three to four students.
“We teach our students that history is not a set of facts that happened yesterday but an active and alive conversation they can and should join. We ask students to develop interpretations and test those interpretations.” —Daren Salter, Humanities Teacher
At Northwest, science students get their hands dirty.
A National Reputation NWS’s 10th grade Biology class has been nationally commended as a best-practice example of integrated learning. In the book The Mind at Hand: What Drawing Reveals, University of Vermont Chemistry Professor Michael Strauss praises NWS for deepening
memory and understanding through students’ drawing of anatomy. Says Professor Strauss: “This is valuable pedagogy to use in the classroom. It’s clear to me the students at Northwest are learning sophisticated things.”
SCIENCE
Eighth graders build and test bridges, 9th graders design and shoot catapults, 12th graders launch rockets, examine primate bones, and design their own science investigations. We challenge students to both think and pursue possibilities as if they were working scientists. Through open-ended lab work, our students discover multiple ways to explore and test concepts, and, most importantly, learn how to frame relevant and productive questions. “Our science classes at Northwest tied chemistry into the world around us – it was about understanding everything in nature at a fundamental level. A good chemist has to be creative and view the world as an artist does – he or she has to visualize new pathways. I saw and learned this at The Northwest School.” —Patrick Campbell ’01, Chemist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory A foundational piece of the 10th grade science curriculum is the study of Evolution. Tenth grade biology and Humanities students join together to study the work of scientists such as Linnaeus, Darwin, and Wallace, as well as the 17th Century nature artist Maria Sibylla Merian. As part of the course, students draw mammalian skulls in exquisite detail. Questions that arise from students during these drawing labs are the very questions asked by comparative anatomists of Darwin’s day.
“Science here at Northwest is challenging, exciting, and fun. We jump in and experiment with forces and reactions, and there’s a messiness and discovery aspect where you don’t always know what’s going to happen. It’s real science.” —Cecilia Tung, Science Department Chair
“Our students learn that math is everywhere in their lives, from the checkout counter all the way up to the stars and quantum mechanics. It both orders and opens the universe for them.” —Maria Moses, Math Teacher
Math is more than a rigid sequence of classes at Northwest. It’s a language.
MATH
We provide a comprehensive math program with a highly traditional curriculum and strong foundational elements. Students are encouraged to engage in a broad spectrum of mathematics classes, from Algebra to Advanced Calculus and Statistics. We view our students as math language learners and believe they are acquiring a vocabulary as well as particular skills and habits of mind. Students in our classrooms develop a comfort with communicating mathematical thinking. They present their solutions to their classmates, and are expected to explore, tinker, and problem solve in a community of learners. “Brain research has confirmed that success is ultimately determined by how much we exercise our brain, and this is especially important for math students to know. Intelligence can be developed through effort. One’s determination, persistence, and hard work are the qualities that predict success.” —David Matlock, Math Department Co-Chair
“My math and chemistry classes at Northwest covered sophisticated concepts. What I realized when I got to Harvey Mudd College, a top engineering school, was that I got to cruise through my freshman and sophomore years. I’d already learned what I needed to know.” —Tyler Marklyn ’11, math and computer science major, Harvey Mudd College
ARTS
Nurturing the creative instinct is an essential part of what we do.
They will shape more than clay
We have always believed that incorporating art into every area of study deepens both learning and joy. This is the way students retain their creative essence as they venture into adult lives. The reason our students become better engineers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, scientists, and citizens, is because they are also dancers, artists, musicians, and actors. Science supports this approach. James Catterall, professor at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, found after following students for more than a decade that there was a persistent link between arts learning and overall academic success and quality of life in adulthood. Northwest is known for hiring practicing artists as teachers. These artists model the benefits of discipline and hard work. Our faculty exhibit in galleries and major art shows, publish poetry and photography books, direct professional theatre productions, and perform music at Tula’s and Benaroya Hall.
“At Northwest our creativity and individual thinking was highly cultivated and that’s critical to being a good citizen—the ability to think creatively and analyze what’s happening. The arts courses gave me a sense of empowerment around what I was learning. I gained imaginative processes for problem solving.” —Lynda Turet ’01, M.A., Human Geography, University of Washington
GLOBAL LEARNING
Northwest is the only international boarding school in the city of Seattle. We bring the world into every class.
Our class trips immerse students in the language and culture of varied countries, including China, Taiwan, France, El Salvador, and Spain. We also offer an exchange program and send small groups of students in the 10th grade to study at one of our Global Partner Schools in France, Spain, China, or Taiwan.
Fourteen percent of our students come from other countries, bringing a wonderful energy and highly valued cultural perspective. They live here on campus, integrate into our classrooms, converse in multiple languages, and enrich our community with insight and global awareness. We offer all of our students the advantage of learning alongside and making friendships with students from other countries.
“To have global perspective you need to accept that people have attitudes different from your own and be able to deal with that, and at the same time you must have a strong sense of self. Both of these ways of thinking I began to develop at The Northwest School.” —Aaron Sterr ’92, Production Services Manager, Trading Screen
The Modern Languages Department at The Northwest School offers beginning through advanced study in Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and English as a Second Language (ESL). Students develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in classes taught in the target language. They learn through theme-based projects, integrated study with international classmates and exchange students, and multiple opportunities to travel abroad.
These partnerships, our dynamic curriculum, and our international student population enrich The Northwest School’s vibrant and culturally diverse community, enabling our college preparatory education to prepare each student not only for college but also for a productive and rewarding future in our interconnected world.
FACULTY
The Northwest School was founded by three teachers who believed that a great school is built only around great teachers. Faculty members at The Northwest School are selected not only for their teaching expertise but for their intellectual and creative passions. Our teachers bring the outside world into the classroom because they pursue interests they love. Currently, our faculty includes published poets and authors, professional theatre directors, Fulbright award-winners, documentary filmmakers, exhibiting visual artists, performing classical musicians, national- and world-level athletes, and National Teaching Association grant-winning scholars.
“At Northwest, teachers thrive on finding out what each student’s spark is and then fanning that spark into a flame.”
“I was a good writer when I came to The Northwest School but I got my first paper back and it was covered in red marks. It blew my mind. The high level of attention I got there was incredible. I’d be absolutely nowhere without it.”
— Kate Turpin, NWS Parent
—Erik Stegman ’00, former majority council for the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Washington D.C.
We love our teachers. And we’re not alone.
In 2010, Humanities teacher Jeff Blair used his Distinguished Fulbright Award in Teaching to do educational research in South Africa.
Every year, faculty members embark on sabbaticals to travel and study in their field, bringing back fresh knowledge and enthusiasm into the classroom. “When you’ve walked down the street in Birmingham and stood on the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, and learned from people who were there, you can’t help but carry that passion for social justice back to the classroom. I have always been an enthusiastic, dedicated, and passionate teacher, but now I have personal experiences and adventures, stories to tell, new monuments and songs and dusty roads and ghost towns to talk about. I can’t wait to get started.” —Humanities teacher Adina Meyer, returning from her historic road trip to 23 states in summer 2014
“The teachers at Northwest have provided our son with rich experiences outside of his comfortable routine. They’ve helped him develop a clear sense of his own potential, an appreciation for the diverse talents of his peers, and insight into other ways of thinking and striving.” —Tom Lombardo, Parent and NWS Board Chair
Our teachers are not only respected by us, they are highly regarded by the educational community. Each year the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching program selects teachers from across the country to research, teach, and observe classrooms throughout the world. Two Northwest School faculty have been awarded this esteemed honor.
Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching: Jeff Blair, Humanities
Thomas Elliott, Math
Lessons in teamwork, discipline, and sportsmanship are at the heart of sports at Northwest. And it’s also okay to win.
SPORTS
To prove it, we have 15 State Championships and dozens of alumni playing on college teams. We provide athletic opportunities for every student. Our students participate on varsity and junior varsity teams in basketball, cross country, soccer, track and field, volleyball, and Ultimate Frisbee. While we enjoy a well-earned reputation for fair play, we are equally proud of our significant achievements in interscholastic competition. Our athletes have won more than 40 tournament, league, state, and national championships. The school also supports highly competitive athletes on extramural city and regional teams in such sports as golf, crew, and kayaking.
“What sets Northwest apart is our belief that sports offer one of the purest ways to express gracious appreciation of others. Big egos miss the point of sports entirely. You don’t do it alone. You need your teammates. Appreciating others is as integral to sports as it is to life.” —Britt Atack, NWS Athletic Director
COMMUNITY
”I loved my Environment team and felt like it was a great chance for me to mentor and get to know younger kids. I especially enjoyed working with the 6th graders on my team.”
“What I really love about The Northwest School is its philosophical heart. The school’s academic standards and opportunities are extremely high, but its core is fundamentally about the growth of students into strong and integrated adulthood. I can’t imagine a better place for my sons to have spent this important time in their lives.”
—NWS Graduating Senior, ‘13
—Kathy Offner, NWS Parent
Creating a community has always been important at Northwest. It starts with caring for the school. We don’t just talk about community at Northwest, we create it. Our Environment Program is one of the natural ways we come together. Three times a week, blended teams of all grades, led by seniors, help clean the school and maintain the grounds. This teaches responsibility, pride, collaboration, and leadership skills. Our weekly Community Meetings gather the entire school to share announcements, celebrations, performances, and talks by visiting scholars, artists, and activists. We also dine together. Our Middle and Upper School students and faculty sit together at lunch every day, enjoying delicious meals made with local and organic ingredients. Creating these opportunities for us to be together is highly intentional. We believe they have a dramatic impact on building good citizenship, teaching social responsibility through our actions, and instilling our principles of courtesy and common sense.
Mesa Schumacher’s accomplishments demonstrate the discipline required in both science and art.
Eric Manley credits Northwest with fostering his ability to bring creativity to his scientific pursuits.
After Northwest School
“I loved Northwest. It starts with the teachers. They create an expectation that students should do their best and every student contributes. I really learned how to collaborate at Northwest. The community gives you the space to find out who you are.” —Mesa Schumacher ‘04, M.A. candidate, Medical and Biological Illustration, Johns Hopkins University
After graduation from Northwest, Mesa attended Stanford University, graduating with a degree in Physical Anthropology. She felt that her art was destined to be a hobby and that a career in the sciences was probably more promising. However, while participating on an archeological dig she discovered that archeological illustration could combine both her passions. After more specialized study, she secured an internship at National Geographic. Now renowned as a scientific illustrator, she has completed a series of bird illustrations that appear in the July 2013 issue of National Geographic, and in the online edition. Last year, Mesa joined the prestigious medical illustration graduate program at Johns Hopkins University. Her website is www.mesaschumacher.com.
Eric is now entering his third year at Northwestern University. He’s pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry, researching the nanoscale morphologies of novel solar energy materials. Although Northwest prepared him to pursue many directions in college, Jeff Blair’s Global Issues class and Renee Fredrickson’s Advanced Chemistry class most inspired Eric to pursue a degree in either Political Science or Chemistry. Chemistry won. Eric attended Carleton College and graduated with a degree in Chemistry. After graduation, he decided to take a year off before entering graduate school. His trip to El Salvador while at NWS initiated his strong relationship with Latin America. After working the fall at the University of Washington doing research in Solar Water Oxidation, he spent three months trekking in South America. “As a graduate chemist on my way to a Ph.D., I cannot overstate the importance of having a creative mind in the sciences. I do not think I could have gotten to where I am today without the creative instincts that were fostered at The Northwest School. The integration between the Humanities, arts, and sciences, coupled with the encouragement of the teachers, provided me with a strong creative foundation that I will always be grateful for.” —Eric Manley ’07, Ph.D. candidate, Chemistry, Northwestern University
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