Elements of the Core Curriculum for the Future

The core curriculum for the future includes a coordinated focus on critical and original thinking; efforts to develop students' capacity to apply knowledge to problems with no clear answers; specific attention to global warming, ethnic conflict and other issues that are the essence of the social and hard sciences and the humanities; activities that dispose students to an ethic of service.
 
We teach pieces of this curriculum in our traditional courses. For the largest number of students to master the core curriculum at a high level, however, we require more coordinated instruction that makes use of new technologies and approaches. These include:
  • Deeper, richer learning experiences: e.g. Advanced Topics and Primary Math
  • A coordinated focus on thinking and inquiry through the Arts and other instruction
  • Interdisciplinary teaching about global issues: e.g. Sustainability
  • Exposure to diverse peoples through world languages and Interdependence activities
  • Technology that transforms and enhances teaching, learning, and professional development
  • Student-initiated research such as the Capstone Project and science research
  • Non sibi service opportunities and activities: e.g. Circle of Friends, Human Rights Day, freshman service "expectation"
  • Instruction aimed at developing key dispositions: e.g. Middle School Empathy Project