program, with a Latin sequence for all boys in Grades Five and Six, a French option beginning in Grade Six, and the more advanced choice Latin extension for Grades Seven and Eight. After the initial success of the first class, the roll out was accelerated, and by 2011 every class had Spanish instruction. In June 2011, we launched the first Salamanca Study Tour. Each June, rising eighth graders travel to Salamanca, Spain, for two weeks of immersive language study and cultural exploration, including soccer games with their Spanish peers. In navigating daily life in Spanish, the boys return with stronger skills, deeper bonds, and a wider view of the world. Since 2023, they also have the opportunity to earn the Global Seal of Biliteracy in Grade Eight.
We also introduced The Comprehensive Writing Program as a path to both effective communication and to the critical thinking essential to our boys’ futures. From Pre-K through Grade Eight, boys create their own imaginative worlds in their own words. Through essays, other expository writing, and critical analysis of text they also learn to read more closely and to write with precision.
In third grade, our boys study the great wave of immigration that transformed our nation. Through a wide variety of source material, they acquire not only knowledge of this period in our history, but also empathy for children very much like themselves who left their homes for a new world.
It was also through this initiative that we introduced Sophrosyne, a new curricular strand that begins in the Pre-K and runs all the way through eighth grade. With the goal of capturing the classical ideals that form the foundations of our program and informed by the faith tradition of the school, Sophrosyne provides the curricular space for boys to learn about, explore, and expand their emotional vocabulary and moral formation. It promotes the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health and safety of our boys.
In the interdisciplinary 20th Century Kaleidoscope, our sixth graders become enthusiastic explorers of an unrivalled period of invention and change. Through English, history, and music, our boys study the remarkable events and artistic creations that shaped our world. They also create their own original and reflective work. Such interdisciplinary learning maximizes student engagement, connection-making, and deeper level thought. This is a hallmark of the Curriculum Initiative. The coaching model and the gradual release of responsibility now guide our pedagogy, and the use of technology is carefully and purposefully integrated into the program when it maximizes learning.
Each day our boys bring with them a strong innate curiosity. Our school is rooted in that curiosity, making it a lively pursuit. We encourage boys to question, then we teach them how to transform those questions into hypotheses, and to work collaboratively to test these hypotheses by using the tools of science: experiments, mathematics, data analysis, and precise measurement.
In all of this, we are leading them to critical thinking and the very heart of the scientific method. We are transforming them in those hours from curious, enthusiastic boys into curious, enthusiastic boys with critical, disciplined minds. In mathematics, boys master increasingly complex skills. Through direct, hands-on experiences and application of the latest virtual tools, they learn, as well, that mathematics is not an abstract exercise, but an exciting, living discipline that is embedded in almost all human endeavors.
Signature Experiences and Partnerships that began in this initiative have now grown and matured and include:
Agents for the Good interdisciplinary unit. Seventh graders explore what it means to be an agent for the good by researching and writing about a humanitarian of their choice and then crafting and delivering a Chapel talk. Drawing upon readings of Matthew’ s gospel in religion class, they identify characteristics of an agent for good. In English, they research and write a thesis-driven paper about that individual. For the culminating performance, led by the headmaster, they prepare and deliver their Chapel talk on an agent for the good of their choice, utilizing their research, the mission, and personal experience. The result is often a memorable moment of reflection and clarity.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. By the time a boy graduates, its galleries have become a familiar Saint David’ s classroom. Whether studying ancient civilizations, Renaissance portraiture, or the symbols in everyday objects, boys encounter art not as abstraction but as something vivid, material, and deeply human. These visits nurture observation, interpretation, and wonder— habits of mind as essential
12 • Saint David’ s Magazine • 75th Anniversary Edition