Curriculum Trips

Curriculum trips are intended to offer students an intense period of exposure and engagement with aspects of the curriculum. These trips are one week long and involve camping or other rustic accommodations where students and faculty and parent chaperones engage in creating a small community while studying a particular topic. Meals are often prepared together and evenings are spent socializing with music, skits or other recreational options.

The 9th grade embarks on an Agricultural Intensive. They spend the week with Harvey Harman at Sustenance Farm in Bear Creek, NC, where students engage in regular farm chores, work on a farm project, and learn the basics of permaculture farming.

The 10th grade trip is a craft intensive, studying the fiber arts through the production of wool and cotton, carding, spinning, and weaving, as well as a visit to a modern factory. 

The 11th grade focuses on forestry and the forest ecosystem by spending a week in the mountains of Virginia near Galax. Here they study the forest ecosystem through scientific exploration and by hiking and exploring the diversity of the forest ecosystems at different elevations.

The 12th grade curriculum trip focuses on Zoology. The seniors spend a week on the barrier islands of Virginia near Chincoteague. They engage in independent, guided exploration of the shoreline environment and work with the Marine Science Consortium on Wallops Island to undertake a more detailed and intensive study of the coastal ecology of the central east coast of the US.

Insights Article: 2006-07 High School Curriculum Trips (Page 6)

Class Plays

 Every year, each student in Grades 10 and 12 will perform in a class play.  One of the distinctive features of a Waldorf High School is that theatrical performances are not extra-curricular activities, reserved for those who successfully audition.  The class plays are integrated into the study of literature, and there is a role for each student both in performing the play, and in designing and building the sets.  The pictures below are of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.  See pictures of the 2010 Senior Play, Noises Off!, here.

Performances

Performance is a large part of life at Emerson Waldorf High School, from the Class Plays, above, to the Senior Projects, below.  In addition, each year there are various performances of material developed in special subjects and clubs which may include musical revues from the Chorus elective,  a ‘circus’, Eurythmy, String Band or Jazz Club, Morris Dancing: offerings vary from year to year.  Watch the Changing Waters Performance Video, a tribute and homage to the passage of souls from Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. (Note: May not be suitable for young children.) 

Senior Projects

In Waldorf Schools across the globe seniors engage in senior projects. Each student chooses an area of study that they pursue independently with mentors from their community. These projects are the culminating experience in the student’s high school education, demonstrating the student’s ability to devise, plan, undertake, complete and publicly present a self-chosen, weighty project. Students set out and meet a significant challenge, one that requires them to make a substantial advance in already-existing capacities or to make a marked breakthrough into a discipline which is entirely new.  EWHS values the senior project as a tool for self-education, individual expression and self-development to the degree that successful completion of a project is a condition for graduation.  Examples of past senior projects include: writing a musical composition for the piano, developing an equestrian riding test set to music, building a banjo, starting a small business, performing a play, researching and creating masks, building a motorcycle, writing and illustrating a comic book and producing a Legomation film. The picture to the right is of Will Reily, class of 2008, building a cabin as his senior project.  See more here.

Junior Internships

Each 11th grade student at EWS completes a one week (40 hours) internship/practicum with a local artist, small business or non-profit agency. The goal is a hands-on experience with specific demands and expectations, mentored by an on-site guide and supervisor that afford the student the opportunity to gain experience and practical skills in a specific area of interest. During the internship week each student will: shadow an individual with expertise in their chosen field of study, engage at their skill level in the work being done on site, undertake a small independent project that supports the intern host and utilizes the intern’s particular constellation of skills and talents.  Some examples of research internships include: shadowing a midwife, doing medical research in an Emergency Room, working  on a bio-dynamic farm, writing news stories and reading them on air at a local radio station and volunteering at a nursery school.

Community Service

The community service component of our curriculum provides an opportunity for students to connect with and contribute to the wider community in a personally and socially meaningful way.  Emerson Waldorf students must satisfy the 40 hours of community service requirement for graduation.  

Clubs

There are various afterschool clubs in the High School, depending on the interests of the students.  The Jazz club, led by Dr. Erich Leith, noted improvisation instructor and member of Saludos Compay Latin Jazz band, plays Jazz standards, Blues and Latin music, and performs throughout the Triangle.