Academic Philosophy

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 future opportunity.

The Middle School is a period of discovery. The curriculum has been designed to give students ample opportunities to explore their strengths, to challenge themselves, and to investigate ideas that inspire them. One important focus of the Middle School’s curriculum is the development of core disciplinary skills, as well as substantive work on the school-wide learning goals of developing students who are persistent inquirers, thinkers and creators, powerful communicators, compassionate partners, and adaptable learners.

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 courses that are considered general education requirements: 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.”