The Upper School’s Unique Curriculum
Reimagining Grades 7-12
At Slate School, we are reimagining the Upper Grades, as we are dedicated to transforming education by growing Slate School to a K-12 nonprofit school. Slate Upper School will have 15 students per grade, beginning with Grade 7 in Fall 2024, and growing to a total of 90 students in grades 7-12 in Fall 2029. When we have a full cohort of K-12 students, we will have 160 total students in the school.
Our students explore widely, dive deeply, research, investigate, and collaborate. Their journey is guided by faculty and advisors who are creative thinkers who transcend typical rote approaches to teaching. While attentive to benchmarks and a robust established curriculum, faculty are flexible to allow course direction to be learner-centered and therefore driven by the students’ own work and ideas. All students also put learning into action by engaging daily in their original research project. The project selection is completed in trimester approaches, with the possibility of multiple trimesters to be stringed together into a year-long project, if desired.
“Knowing how to nurture and guide students’ curiosity is the gift of all great teachers. They do that by encouraging students to investigate and inquire for themselves, by posing questions rather than only giving answers, and by challenging them to push their thinking deeper by looking further.”
— Sir Ken Robinson
Empowered Learning
We are inspired by education thought leaders Sir Ken Robinson, Tony Wagner, Ted Dintersmith, and Wendy Ostroff, among others. We envision a world where education focuses on curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, compassion, and citizenship. As opposed to siloed subjects of learning, Slate Lower and Upper Schools integrate the disciplines together, and the spaces in both schools are designed to support these unique educational philosophies. There are no bells, or siloed subjects, or mind-numbing homework or tests.
Courses at the Intersections
At the Upper School, we find connections across disciplines. Our courses include Salt, Ethics and Policy, Theatre of the World, Equality, Food, Thought, among many other innovative and intriguing courses. Each course is interdisciplinary, and students learn all of the disciplines (algebra, chemistry, biology, physics, literature, composition, history, and so on) through the unique and interesting non-siloed course lens.
The exciting process for creating the intricately interdisciplinary curriculum for Slate Upper School is underway. We convene our Upper School Advisory Council — creative and thoughtful visionaries from throughout the world — in collaborative meetings via Zoom to contemplate the course topics of study from a wide variety of perspectives, including Art, Science, Mathematics, Music, Literature, History, Psychology, Theatre, and Anthropology. Our Upper School Advisory Council ranges from a neuroscientist and a professor of biology to a chief curator at a university art museum and the president of a university. These conversations shape the courses of study and bring greater clarity to the opportunities for our students to develop the skills needed to tackle current issues and challenges in the world. Each of our non-siloed courses is designed around benchmarks for in-depth study, with students learning through reading, writing, discussion, collaboration, problem solving, and projects. Course titles include Thought, Food, Reflection, Methods of Study within Scholar Projects, Water, Complexity and Unintended Consequences, Theatre of the World, Equality, Salt, Sugar, Print, Journeys, Design and Engineering, Ethics and Policy, The Body Puzzle, Frontiers and Borders, Light and Sound, among many others.
Through these interdisciplinary courses, Slate School students are enlivened and challenged. They far exceed the typical expectations of high school through the authentic, applicable, and multidisciplinary understandings. Each course culminates with a project that identifies problems and develops ideas for solutions. Our students are “solutionaries;” They apply their learning to create real solutions to real issues.
In addition to their courses, each student designs and pursues independent projects and research studies. Many of these students pursue their projects in the Idea Lab space of the Upper School.
Sample Course Descriptions
Water: Water is the resource that runs the world. There is nothing more essential, and few things more complex. Our work will grow from an explicit understanding of the science of water, the mathematics of its scarcity and abundance, and how it has influenced and been influenced by the development of human civilizations.
Journeys: Experience important stories shared across time to explore their relevance to our lives today. Tales of immigration, conflict, injustice, heroism, and innovation, travel through books, oral history, art, music, and primary sources to help us understand where we come from and where we're going.
Salt: Salt is essential and omnipresent. NaCl’s crystals are translucent, its uses are myriad, and its availability has been critical to civilization. Salt holds an important place in religious rituals worldwide. Explore salt chemistry to understand the commonalities and differences between the widely-known and edible table salt (NaCl) and the myriad of other inorganic salts.
Sugar: Explore sugar from discovery to current day. How has sugar’s reputation through history evolved, and what power dynamics have been involved? Explore sugar production, the chemistry of sugar, and the processing of sugars by the body.
The Body Puzzle: The body is an interconnected and interdependent web of complex systems. The historical and philosophical explorations of the human body offer an understanding for all of the science that we've learned from and about the body, and all that remains unknown and unanswered. How do we critically think about the body's systems, while maintaining humility in not knowing everything about how the body works?
Complexity and Unintended Consequences: The problems of our world are complex and interconnected. How do we respond to these challenges with the greatest foresight? Where does the balance lie between quick and decisive action and steady and contemplative response? Apply models of problem solving from the diversity of thought around the globe to find your personal answers to these questions.
Thought: The brain's storage capacity is considered virtually unlimited, so it should not be surprising that it is the source of great innovation, spectacular failure, immense creativity, and madness. Dig into this most complex topic to consider the ideas of history's greatest minds and the remarkable science of this unique organ.
Food: Join in the contemplation of a topic that brings biology, anthropology, chemistry, economics, evolution, physics, agriculture, politics, and religion to the table.
Moving Beyond APs
The movement for high schools to provide AP courses began in the 1950s. Today, there is a growing trend away from AP courses in schools. Educators and learners alike have recognized that these courses offer much less than they promise. Longstanding institutions such as Choate, Andover, Exeter, Milton Academy, Sidwell Friends, Riverdale, among many others, have abandoned AP offerings. They cite a significant preference to have their faculty lead the direction for each course, as opposed to teaching a boxed curriculum with the sole learning achievement watered down to a score on a multiple choice test. Colleges no longer seek numbers of AP courses taken or AP scores, but rather universities are seeking students with intellectual curiosity and rigor that goes well beyond preparation for a multiple choice test.
All of Slate School’s courses offer opportunities for advanced learning. The typical Slate School class is modeled on the way we access and use knowledge in the real world. All classes are interdisciplinary, allowing students to engage fluently and fluidly in important skills of writing, effective communication, problem solving, collaboration, flexibility, critical thought, and scientific inquiry.
What Others Are Saying
Slate School is a unique innovator. We draw inspiration from other schools and thinkers in the country. Here's what some of them say about this kind of learning:
“We are deeply invested in the entirety of students and believe they are more than just receptacles to be filled with knowledge and skills.”—Embark Education, Denver
“We believe when young people can see relevance in their education, build connections to opportunity through their studies, and genuinely care for one another, they are equipped to be a force for good—for themselves, their community, and the world.”—GCE Lab School, Chicago
“College admissions officers have gone out of their way to tell us how much they value NuVu’s curriculum and learning model. They understand that our students are well ahead of their peers with regard to critical thinking, creative confidence, collaborative skills, technical experience and capacity to grapple with complex, real-world issues.”—NuVu Innovation School
“Ours is not a desk and chalkboard institution but rather a center, a laboratory, where students develop ideas and understanding, pursue passions and dreams."—Bennett Day School, Chicago
"Students engage in work that matters to them, to their teachers, and to the world outside of school. Students connect their studies to the world through fieldwork, community service, internships, and consultation with outside experts. Our facilities are collaborative workplaces with small-group learning and project areas, relevant technology, and common spaces where artwork, prototypes, and other artifacts of student thinking are created and displayed.”—High Tech High, California