Electives
Art (required)
The art program is designed as a complement to the primary curricular mission of the Woolman Semester. It is based on the assumption that artistic perception and expression are distinctly different from the forms of consciousness that are assumed in the usual core of academic curricula, which rely heavily upon verbal, logical and synthetic forms of consciousness. The school year of 2012-2013 had art classes delving into shadow puppetry, natural dyed prayer flags, wildflower seed paper, mixed media collage, and more! A variety of media are used to encourage artistic expression.
NVC (required)
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a communication practice developed by Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. It is taught around the world to address global conflicts and personal issues. NVC guides us to connect the feelings and thoughts that arise in a given situation with what actually matters to us on a deep level. When we are able to connect our actions and the actions of others to our deep values, much of our judgment can be transformed into compassion. When we are in touch with that compassion, we are more likely to act in ways are effective and reflect those values. As a communication tool in which both sides of a conflict can be heard and understood, NVC is applied to intra and interpersonal issues in the community and to many of the global issues that are confronted in Peace Studies, Global Issues and Environmental Science. It is practiced by many community members in their daily lives, classes are offered to staff each semester, and it is taught in the classroom to semester students for two hours per week.
Farm to Table (required)
"Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education." – Alice Waters
The main objective of garden class is to empower students with skills to plant and tend their own garden as well as harvest and cook their own food. The class aims to illuminate the reasons why we as a school hold sharing work in the garden and kitchen as such fundamental components of the Woolman experience. The students will learn not only how to steward the land, but also how to use the food they grow to nourish themselves. Students will explore the power and pleasure in growing plants and cooking food and carry these joyful skills with them throughout their whole lives.
In class we will explore topics scientific, practical, and cultural. These topics range between basic botany, soil science, pollination, seed saving, philosophies of farming, composting, current urban farming and ‘locavore’ movements, creative gardening, food preservation, crafts, nutrition and theories on nutrition and recipe improvisation. Each two-hour class will contain a lesson in the classroom, time in the garden tending the land, and time in the kitchen cooking food we harvested.
Spanish (optional)
The Spanish course has two main goals:
For students to acquire the necessary tools to have simple conversations in Spanish and
- For the students to keep pace with expected curriculum of the sending school's Spanish class.
Each class will have a different theme, ranging from gardening to traveling to immigration politics. During the first part of the class, we will review an area of Spanish grammar and key vocabulary about the theme, and then go right into a discussion. The guiding principle is that the only way to learn how to speak Spanish is to speak Spanish! Because the class includes students of all levels, the second part will be individual work time with tutoring as needed.
Mathamatics (optional)
Students may choose from the following options depending on their sending school's requirements:
Algebra II: In this course students study topics from the following list: linear functions; quadratic functions including the introduction of the Complex number system; exponential and logarithmic functions; polynomial and rational functions; irrational functions; and probability.
Pre-Calculus: In this course students study topics from the following list: right triangle trig; circular functions and the unit circle; the trigonometric functions; graphing trig functions, including graphs with changes in all parameters; learning and proving identities; the inverse trig functions; the Laws of Sines and Cosines and their typical applications; using trig functions to model applications in the real world; polar coordinates and complex numbers in polar form; series and sequences; probability; reviews of exponential and logs functions; behavior of functions.