Importance of High School |
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In high school, students begin a more independent exploration of the world. In seeking to know the truths of the world, students rightly question everything and everyone. Increasingly less impressionable as a group, they develop their own interests, strive for their own independent thoughts, and endeavor to know themselves. Developing the capacity for creative and independent thinking is paramount during the high school years. SFWHS helps students find their own answers to the central questions of adolescence by addressing their cognitive, emotional, and social needs in a way that guides them toward responsible adulthood. In each grade, the curriculum is structured to reflect the students’ maturing modes of thinking as well as their emerging socio-emotional capacities. Each year nurtures a different cognitive faculty: in ninth grade it is the power of observation; in tenth the powers of comparison; in eleventh the powers of analysis; and in twelfth synthesis. |
High school students embark on one of life’s most profound journeys, which ultimately leads them from childhood into adulthood. This journey is characterized by a pursuit of truth. Idealism motivates adolescents to know the world and to find their own place in it. On this journey, adolescents ask, "Who am I?" and “How can I make a difference?” An interdisciplinary curriculum is the framework for pursuing this quest for meaning and ideals.
All courses and subjects draw on the students’ capacity for analytical thinking and judgment. The high school supports the healthy growth of individuality, coupled with an awareness of the thinking, feeling, and willing elements that constitute human wholeness. This wholeness, together with mobility of thought, artistic sensitivity, and the courage to act upon their ideals, produces graduates who are prepared not only to meet the future but to shape it.