Academics

Education is most transformative when it pairs the mastery of content and skills with a mindset that appreciates complexity, thrives on feedback, generates creativity, and finds opportunity in challenge. Geffen Academy students thus seek to become ever more responsible for their own intellectual, physical, emotional, spiritual, environmental and social development. Knowing that effective learning is itself something that must be learned, Geffen Academy students rigorously explore and adopt the processes that best enable the education that most matters to them.

If deep learning is a difficult pleasure, it is a pleasure nonetheless. The time spent in the patient mastery of a range of disciplines ultimately enables the joys of creativity, expression, and engaged civic participation. While there is no single recipe for a successful and satisfying life, arriving at a considered understanding of oneself and one’s world often features as a key ingredient. Paradoxically, knowledge gained without reference to immediate use can prove to be of profound practical benefit as well, giving those who have it an edge in careers that do not yet exist while also inclining them toward ethical use of such opportunity.

Regardless of the particular pathways students take through the Geffen Academy program, the most significant outcomes arise when the various elements of the school work in concert. The following are the school-wide learning goals that transcend individual disciplines, comprising objectives that become possible only through the coordinated efforts of all at Geffen Academy.

To view graduation requirements and course descriptions, click here.

Upper School is a time of deliberate practice, taking skills learned in Middle School and applying them ever more deeply, expansively, and thoroughly. Geffen Academy’s curriculum reflects this by providing courses that challenge and inspire.

All Geffen Academy students take classes that are considered general education courses; these are Geffen Academy’s required courses for graduation. This general education is accompanied by a student’s specialization in a field or fields of their choosing. Students will accomplish this by taking courses within or across disciplines known as concentration courses.