Students started this school year with sixteen new course offerings. Some of the new classes replace courses that were eliminated, and a few new classes were designed by teachers. Every year Northwood alters the curriculum to accommodate students and teachers, and this year the school has the largest number of new course offerings in recent history.
The school now offers apprenticeships, basically on-campus internship-like courses that give the student academic credit. Apprenticeships happen asynchronously outside the normal academic schedule. In one apprenticeship, dancers have the opportunity to work as dance instructors for young children in the local area. Two other apprenticeships include editor positions for The Mirror, the school’s newspaper, and Epitome, the school’s yearbook.
A relatively new program at Northwood, introduced in 2020, is the English short courses. Juniors and seniors have the option to take short courses, which means every semester they are taking a different type of English that is based on certain themes. Two popular recurring short courses are “Shakespeare” and “Word to Essay.” This year, new short courses include “Voices of Environmental Justice in Literature” and “Gender and Representation in Literature,” which are both created and taught by Ms. Elliotte Lee made to teach and speak to students about real-world situations in literature. Other new short course titles include “Chronicles of Imperial Delusion: A Novel, a War Memoir, and a Hollywood Blockbuster” created and taught by Mr. Howard Runyon.
More recently most independent schools around the country have been decreasing the number of APs in the school’s curriculum. This year Mr. John Spear decided to replace “AP Psychology,” a course he has taught at Northwood for over ten years, with “Psychology of Performance,” which introduces students to psychology through a thorough investigation into the way humans achieve optimal performance.
“AP Environmental Science,” formerly taught by Ms. Kelly Carter, has been replaced by “Adirondack Sciences,” which was created by Ms. Marcy Fagan and Ms. Kelly Carter. The course is a hands-on study of the Adirondacks, exploring topics in geology, environmental science, ecology, biology, and life science.
Three new offerings introduced and taught by Mr. Ben LeBlanc are “Principles of Engineering,” “Applied Physics,” and “Data Science.” The latter is a quantitative course that combines math and science.
Two new elective courses include Introduction to the “Financial Markets,” taught by Mr. Jeff Miller who before Northwood had a distinguished career on Wall Street and brings a vast knowledge of investing. “Game Theory,” taught by Mr. Bob Emery is a new math offering.
Finally, Northwood is also offering a modern languages program in conjunction with UC Scout, operated by the University of California, to offer level 4 and Advanced Placement in French and Spanish.
