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ACADEMICS
A group of teachers got together at the founding of The Island School and asked themselves: "What's worth knowing? What should students understand deeply, and what should they remember from the Island School academic courses 10 or 20 years from now?" Out of that process came a curriculum that is academically challenging and now students leave The Island School with a set of knowledge and skills that sending schools recognize as valuable academic coursework. At the same time that academic experience strikes at the heart of what it means to live in a place and know it first hand. Since then we have had many teachers from sending schools come during the summer for our teacher conference to evaluate and refine the courses, the grading system, the research projects, the lesson plans, down to the tests, homeworks, quizzes, and oral exams that students take at The Island School. While students walk away with traditional grades, written teacher evaluations, and skill based grades on their Island School transcript for the courses below, students begin to realize that understanding where organisms live in Ecology class applies to their study of where humans originally settled in History class. The stories about the way things used to be on the island that students hear during their local homestay are echoed in the classic English course text Omeros. The skills of providing evidence for arguments and solving problems are practiced in science, humanities, and mathematics, and in these types of ways the courses overlap in emphasis. By digging into coursework that is relevant and connected to what they go through each day, students find the motivation to work harder and to learn for more than just a grade.
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Copyright 2006
The Island School