High School

English 1: This class introduces students to the writing and research expectations of high school. They are given a variety of opportunities to conduct research, to plan and write essays and reports, and to make presentations to the class. A theme of the year is unprejudiced, accurate observation. The content is modern history and literature with the aim of giving students an understanding of issues of the present day. Units often include the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, the modern short story, Animal Farm by Orwell and related events of Russian history, the Cold War, and Things Fall Apart by Achebe and related events of African history, and The Grapes of Wrath. 

The class explores three eras in Western theater: Ancient Greece, Elizabethan England, and twentieth century America. Students study plays from each period, examine the questions with which people wrestled, and consider how theater served as a platform for the exploration of these questions. The class introduces students to thesis-driven essays and literary analysis. For the final project, students may choose to build one of the three stages (the Greek theater, the Globe theater, or a proscenium stage), design costumes and character boards for a play, or memorize, rehearse, and perform a short scene from a play.

Physics 1: Thermal physics addresses concepts of heat and cold. Through historical investigation, experimentation, and observation, students experience, characterize, and conceptualize the following: the expansion and contraction of solids, liquids, and gases; the three methods of heat energy transfer; the ideal gas law; Lord Kelvin’s hypothesis of an absolute coldest temperature; phase diagrams; and the special thermal properties of water. Students learn the story of the development of precise thermometry and calibrate their own thermometers. Finally, students learn about technologies that use the laws of thermodynamics, including the thermostat, the four-stroke combustion engine, the steam engine, and the Stirling engine.

Chemistry 1: This class considers chemical aspects of major life processes that occur in plants, animals, and human beings. The goal of the class is to discover something about the chemistry of life. What chemical transformations can we attribute to life? The class focuses on developing skills and background in chemistry and provides opportunities to explore experimental methods. Subsequently, students observe or execute experiments that demonstrate aspects of important life-related processes. The class examines the nature of gases, our dependence on fossil fuels, photosynthesis and respiration, and fermentation and distillation.

Environmental Science 1: This class studies all aspects of agricultural practice “from farm to table”. Students compare and contrast ancient agricultural practices with modern ones and large-scale industrial food systems with local systems. They also explore the practical implications of a more sustainable food system. Moreover, students gain skills to make informed choices about their own eating habits and how they can support the food systems they believe to be best for their health and the health of the Earth.

Fine Art 1: This course introduces fundamental aspects of visual contrast and balance through an exploration of the
interaction between lightness and darkness in two-dimensional art and design. Coursework emphasis is on strengthening students’ observational capacities through the practice of basic drawing skills while employing a variety of techniques in black and white media. Through various exercises and projects, the students will develop an understanding of the relationship between light and darkness as the basis of all visual design.

Eurythmy 1: Eurythmy is a performing art that engages aspects of dance, music, poetry, speech, and kinesthetic expression. A feature unique to Waldorf education, the beautiful, spiritual, and emotional art of eurythmy introduces students to the frameworks underlying speech and music through movement. The study of Eurythmy develops concentration, spatial orientation and dexterity, and engages students in the study of enhanced rhythms of speech and music as experienced and interpreted through the whole body.

Athletics 1: In Athletics 1, students review the basic vocabulary, rules, and techniques of traditional sports including basketball, football, and volleyball. Students are expected to come to class every day with proper attire and are encouraged to participate fully in every activity. Students examine their own areas of strength, weakness, and progress; they help to organize teams and structure games. At the end of each class, students participate in fast-paced games and mini-tournaments.

The Students also have the opportunity to try non-traditional sports such as parkour, rock climbing, yoga, waterpolo and ultimate frisbee. Experts in the sports are brought in to instruct these classes.

English 2: This class introduces students to the writing and research expectations of high school. They are given a variety of opportunities to conduct research, to plan and write essays and reports, and to make presentations to the class. A theme of the year is unprejudiced, accurate observation. The content is modern history and literature with the aim of giving students an understanding of issues of the present day. Units often include the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, the modern short story, Animal Farm by Orwell and related events of Russian history, the Cold War, and Things Fall Apart by Achebe and related events of African history. 

Physics 2: Through observation, experimentation, measurement, and calculation, students study motion in a historical context, making observations and asking questions as they were first asked by the scientists of the Age of Reason. Students repeat some of the classic experiments of Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, Galileo, and Newton. At the end of the course, the students understand the laws governing the motion of planets, stars, galaxies, as well as satellites, baseballs, and leaves.

Chemistry 2: This class explores chemical processes, especially those involving salts, acids, and bases in relation to our senses of taste and touch. By dissolving various salts in water with varying temperatures, the class investigates the properties of solutions. They use microscopes to compare and contrast various forms of substances, including crystals formed out of solution via precipitation and/or evaporation. The class studies the formation of acids and bases either as complementary pairs arising out of heating a salt or out of oxidation of a pure substance. The electrolysis of water and conductivity measurements help introduce concepts involving the structure of chemical compounds and clarify further the meaning of “pH”. Final experiments involve “displacement” reactions, with application to launching a projectile and the study of sodium metal.

Environmental Science 2: The focus of this class is on the geophysiology of the earth. The sophomores look at many of the complex phenomena that make up the biosphere of our planetrom, including Hadley Cells, the Coriolis Effect and ocean currents, the pressure gradient force, jet streams, and global climate change.

Fine Art 2: In tenth grade art, students are introduced to color theory. We work with watercolor, color pencils and other mediums. In watercolor, students learn color theory, mixing and techniques through small exercises given in each class. In the second part of our class, students were graded on sewing their workbook which included exercises on using watercolor. Students also made and put together a watercolor palette, and also sewed a small sketchbook that they will use until the end of term.

Eurythmy 2: Eurythmy is a performing art that engages aspects of dance, music, poetry, speech, and kinesthetic expression. A feature unique to Waldorf education, the beautiful, spiritual, and emotional art of eurythmy introduces students to the frameworks underlying speech and music through movement. The study of Eurythmy develops concentration, spatial orientation and dexterity, and engages students in the study of enhanced rhythms of speech and music as experienced and interpreted through the whole body.

Athletics 2: In the first semester of Athletics 2, students review the basic vocabulary, rules, and techniques of traditional sports including basketball, football, and volleyball. Students are expected to come to class every day with proper attire and are encouraged to participate fully in every activity. Students examine their own areas of strength, weakness, and progress; they help to organize teams and structure games. At the end of each class, students participate in fast-paced games and mini-tournaments.

The Students also have the opportunity to try non-traditional sports such as parkour, rock climbing, yoga, waterpolo and ultimate frisbee. Experts in the sports are brought in to instruct these classes.

English 3: Parzival is a vast, complex tale of adventure and romance written in the early thirteenth century by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a minnesinger who claimed – perhaps facetiously – to be illiterate. It tells of Parzival’s journey from clownish ignorance, through sorrow and doubt to become a Knight of the Round Table and Lord of the Grail. The grail is not a cup in this story, but a mysterious stone that has power to nourish and to heal. In addition to the challenging reading, students keep a journal addressing themes of the class, to develop artistic responses to the story, and to write a final essay.

Juniors are ready for rigorous reading and thoughtful analysis.  Students complete individual research projects and presentations on the period. Units on Dante’s Divine Comedy and Shakespeare’s Hamlet offer insight into Medieval and Renaissance eras and illuminate basic human questions. A unit on the Romantic Movement further illustrates the ideas of the Enlightenment. Students choose their senior project topics and write a five-page paper following MLA guidelines.

Physics 3: Today, life without electromagnetic technologies is almost inconceivable. For this reason, it is vitally important to understand the basic phenomenological observations which first led scientists to discover the conditions that give rise to electrical and magnetic effects. This class studies those effects, and carefully observes the conditions which create them. Both electricity and magnetism may be understood as forces that seek balance and students learn to understand such concepts as charge, field, voltage, current, resistance, and power within this framework. They go on to study technologies which harness the electromagnetic effect, such as series and parallel circuits (Ohm’s law), electric motors, generators, solenoids, and transformers. Finally, they consider how power is generated for the multiplicity of electric devices we use today, and the implications of these methods.

Chemistry 3: This class covers the chemistry of elements: what is an element, what elements are commonly found in the human body, the important non-metals, the alkali and alkaline earth metals, the halogens, and some other metals and semi-metals. Students look at various properties of the elements: elemental masses, the valences of the elements in making compounds, and constant and multiple proportions in reactions. They study the structure of the periodic table and how its structure relates to chemical and physical properties. Experiments familiarize students with basic chemical reactions including combustion and metal replacement.

Environmental Science 3: The course traditionally starts with a two week trip to Costa Rica. Upon our return we will digest the material and fill in any “gaps.” Students will investigate current trends in environmental science with a focus on global impacts.  Students will be expected to seek solutions and to support their classmates during the strategy sessions and assignments. 

Our main deliverable is an oral presentation supported by a poster or PowerPoint.

Fine Art 3: This course is designed to explore fundamental aspects of expressive drawing. Students will investigate various materials and techniques for capturing emotions or moods in drawing through the use of color, mark, and value. The course will begin by improving skill and confidence in drawing through developing eye-hand coordination and the ability to draw from observation, translating three-dimensional space onto a two-
dimensional surface. Additionally, techniques for studying color relationships, color mixing, and composition will be demonstrated and practiced. As the course progresses, students will be challenged to capture qualities
in their drawings beyond what they see and to draw with quicker and looser expressiveness.

Eurythmy 3: Eurythmy is a performing art that engages aspects of dance, music, poetry, speech, and kinesthetic expression. A feature unique to Waldorf education, the beautiful, spiritual, and emotional art of eurythmy introduces students to the frameworks underlying speech and music through movement. The study of Eurythmy develops concentration, spatial orientation and dexterity, and engages students in the study of enhanced rhythms of speech and music as experienced and interpreted through the whole body.

Athletics 3: In the first semester of Athletics 3, students review the basic vocabulary, rules, and techniques of volleyball and basketball. Students are expected to come to class every day with proper attire and are expected to participate fully in every activity. Students examine their own areas of strength, weakness, and progress; they help to organize teams and structure games. At the end of each class, students participate in fast-paced games and mini-tournaments.

The Students also have the opportunity to try non-traditional sports such as parkour, rock climbing, yoga, waterpolo and ultimate frisbee. Experts in the sports are brought in to instruct these classes.

English 4: The Russian land encompasses eleven time zones and climates that range from arctic to subtropical. Russian history encompasses tyrants, heroes, artists, saints and rebels. In this block, literature is a gateway to Russian history and culture as well as to archetypal human questions. We begin with fairy tales and icons. Stories of Russia’s acceptance of eastern orthodox Christianity, the Mongol invasions and the biography of Peter the Great give insights into Russia’s simultaneous attraction to and rejection of the West. We read Gogol (“The Overcoat”), Dostoevsky (“The Grand Inquisitor”), Tolstoy (“What Men Live By”), Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard), Akhmatova (“Requiem”) and Yevtushenko (A Precocious Autobiography), as well as many poems. The biography of each writer helps place each work in its historical context.

Biology 4: Practicing a form of comparative morphology, the class discusses and compares fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and several characteristic groups of the mammals. The block ends with a consideration of the unique nature of the human being.

Physics 4: This block challenges students to consider the importance of understanding science and technology as factors of change in the modern world. The class explores optics as a means of demonstrating the evolution of physical theories, taking up experimental work in the field of optics and physical colors, in which we compare the understanding of color phenomena in a wholistic manner with the analysis of experimental results through modern mathematical models. The class also takes up questions that relate historically to the development of physics in the 20th century and their present impact. A background text offering descriptions and a critique of 20th century physics is Physics for the Rest of Us by Roger Jones.

Chemistry 4: The first goal is to further understanding of atomic theory and molecular structure. The initial experiment looks at Brownian motion, which through Einstein’s analysis contributed to the acceptance of atomic and kinetic theories in the twentieth century. Based on the structure of the oleic acid molecule, we learn how to estimate the size of an atom and calculate Avogadro’s number. Discussions on chemical bonding and the special nature of water, including hydrogen bonds, are taken up early in the block and find important applications throughout. The class looks at specific ways of classifying structure, including a discussion of isomers. Experiments explore the effects of chirality (relating to enantiomers, or mirror image molecular structures) on physical properties, such as optical rotation, and on chemoreception.

Environmental Science 4: In this course we will review the foundations of ecology to help us understand the Anthropocene age. We will look at the cycle of natural resources starting with the geological development of our planet and how data is gathered and calculated. For inspiration we will seek guidance from past winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Using our homes, school and region as an area of study, we will look at our water usage, waste production and energy usage with a closer lens. Lastly we will look at how this information may influence personal and local decisions.  Students will be expected to seek solutions and to support their classmates during the strategy sessions and assignments.

Physics 5:  This elective course is for seniors who have expressed an intention to study mathematics, science, or engineering at a four year university.  It is intended as an opportunity to gain ability and sophistication in problem-solving as preparation for college level physics courses.  We will study non-calculus approaches to the following topics in physics (as time allows): scientific mathematics, kinematics, dynamics, circular motion and gravity, momentum, work, energy, power, thermodynamics, electrostatics, current electricity, magnetism, and waves.

Fine Art 4: “Who am I?” Who are we?” This course explores notions of self through visual art. Students consider in what
ways images and artistic expression reflect how humans understand themselves and their experience in the world. The emphasis of the course is on learning portrait painting and exploring identity as a core theme in art. The students will complete a self-portrait in acrylic paint and (if time permits) a self-directed project based on an individual proposal.

Eurythmy 4: This short block begins with looking at pictures of planetary movements: the incredible beauty and geometrical accuracy strikes one deeply. Where else can one find these forms? – in the plants, in crystals, in snow, and in many other places. With this sense of heavenly order we start to learn the gestures and relevant sounds of the eurythmical zodiac. The human being is a microcosm of this grand macrocosmic display of the stars. Parallel to deepening this work of the zodiac, we work with a verse by Rudolf Steiner, “The Stars Once Spoke to Man”, and also a piano piece by F. Schubert, Klavierstück No. 2. Both pieces will be performed in front of the high school student body and faculty, as well as parents.

Athletics 4: In the first semester of Athletics 4, students review the basic vocabulary, rules, and techniques of traditional sports including basketball, football, and volleyball. Students are expected to come to class every day with proper attire and are encouraged to participate fully in every activity. Students examine their own areas of strength, weakness, and progress; they help to organize teams and structure games. At the end of each class, students participate in fast-paced games and mini-tournaments.

The Students also have the opportunity to try non-traditional sports such as parkour, rock climbing, yoga, waterpolo and ultimate frisbee. Experts in the sports are brought in to instruct these classes.