Curriculum & Programs
“Waldorf taught me how to think for myself, to be accountable for my actions, to be a good listener, and to be sensitive to the needs of others. It also helped me to focus on the underlying importance of beliefs, and values that are the foundations of good leadership.”
—Kenneth Chenault, Vice Chairman of American Express

CURRICULUM

Ninth Grade

Ninth graders entering high school are leaving childhood behind. Intellectually they are ready to meet a rich arts and sciences curriculum, while emotionally they are buffeted by the turbulence of early adolescence. They think in polarities and long to understand their world. The curriculum meets this developmental phase by offering opportunities to experience extremes. Main lesson blocks cover modern history–especially revolutions in political systems, human rights, and economic life–with a focus on practical means to realize idealism. In the course History Through Art, ninth graders explore changing views of beauty; in Comedy & Tragedy, they experience how the soul expresses itself through the dramatic arts. In the sciences, students study the biology of the senses, the physics of heat and electricity, chemistry, and geology. Math includes algebra, descriptive geometry, permutations, and probability, along with linear equations. In these studies, students observe and measure what is taking place, gaining focus through concrete and tangible avenues of thought.

Tenth Grade

The tenth grade student has settled into a new level of maturity and is ready to look beneath the outer event to examine the deeper processes revealing how things happen. The second year’s curriculum moves through ancient history from India and China to 5th century B.C.E. Greece and the beginning of Western culture. In Poetics, students explore the study of the word; in History of Language, they study the formation of contemporary language. In math, they study logarithms, plane trigonometry, and Euclidean geometry. Science delves into embryology, organic chemistry, physics, and earth science. A surveying class gives practical examples of how humankind imposes its own ideas of order on the natural world.

Eleventh Grade

In eleventh grade, students look even deeper into the life processes to ask why things occur as they do. The study of the Medieval and Renaissance periods of history connect the students to a time when humanity as a whole began to question divine guidance and to seek its own conscious understanding of why life unfolds as it does. Experiencing the literature of Shakespeare and Dante, and the epic quest for the Holy Grail, eleventh graders ponder the most profound levels of human motivation and destiny. Through projective geometry, continuing studies of trigonometry, and the advanced sciences of nuclear physics, electricity, botany, astronomy, and chemistry, they search for first causes and lawful processes in the natural world. Students take on more responsibility for their learning with independent study projects.

Twelfth Grade

The maturing twelfth grader is preparing to enter the spheres of higher education and work and now has a vital, blossoming understanding of who he or she is in the world. By studying the work of 20th century writers, the student confronts the vital questions of Who am I?, of destiny, of good and evil, and the meaning of life. Twelfth graders study the history of architecture to examine the expression of thought in physical form. Zoology invites comparison and contrast between humans and their fellow creatures, while life chemistry explores the defining processes of living organisms. Algebra and geometry are brought together, and differential and integral calculus are introduced. Studies of economics and developing nations are explored as part of consciousness of contemporary world problems. Finally, a review of their educational voyage offers these young adults an opportunity for introspection and synthesis before moving confidently out into the larger world.

2008/09 CURRICULUM

Click here for this year's schedule