Ninth Grade Program (NGP)

Purpose

The NGP is the first of many opportunities at Lawrence Academy for our students to see themselves as capable of thinking for themselves, and, ultimately, responsible for their own learning while being invested in the success of others.

Central to the NGP are the intellectual skills that are essential for academic success and lifelong learning: reading, writing, reasoning/creativity, speaking/listening, and study/organization. The importance of mastering the NGP skills is clear from what informs ongoing curriculum development inside the NGP, including recent findings in brain research and the recommendations of Harvard University's Project Zero.

Just as important as the NGP's rigorous development of the intellect is the program's emphasis on teaching students how open themselves to the perspectives of others and to develop a healthy capacity for working cooperatively. In the NGP, students are supported in becoming more conscious of who they are as learners.
Like all faculty at Lawrence Academy, the NGP teachers coach students to learn from others how to think for themselves, to remain open to possibilities, to take constructive risks, to explore options, and to make discoveries.

Structure: Classes

Students are taught by a team of three teachers—one from the arts, one from science, and one from English/history. Classes focus on teaching the skills using content material from the various disciplines in an interdisciplinary approach, thus encouraging students to make connections and to draw on shared experiences. The NGP offers a new approach to interdisciplinary learning by proposing that skills, not facts, unite the disciplines. Students learn that the best scientists are as creative as artists; the best artists are as analytic as historians; and the best historians are as articulate as writers.

Courses