Crossroads School
“The Students Get To Make Choices”
Shelley A. will enroll at MIT in the fall of 2009, much to her surprise. “I was headed for Juilliard until I set foot in Chem Honors,” she recalled.
Shelley, ’09, is not the only student who has been captivated by upper-level science at Crossroads School. Since the school replaced the AP curriculum with homegrown courses in 2005, enrollment in advanced science classes has increased more than 25 percent. Shelley admits that she was “really worried” when she learned in ninth grade that the school was dropping AP. But that was before she took the school’ s Crossroads Advanced Study (CAS) courses in Organic Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry, now offered in alternating years to replace AP Chemistry. In CAS Organic Chemistry, students make their own aspirin and delve into the details of, to cite one example, how nuclear magnet resonance spectroscopy interacts with Carbon 13 isotopes to reveal the structure of organic molecules. In Environmental Chemistry, students synthesize their own biofuel, learn in-depth about the world’s various sources of energy, and study the chemistry of the environment and its pollutants. “Our classes really teach us how to think,” said Shelley, “We don’t spend the time memorizing.”
When teacher Joe Paul created the CAS chemistry courses, he had to overcome the conventional wisdom that students must persevere through fact-heavy survey courses before doing such advanced work. “It has been revolutionary to watch it unfold,” said Paul. “Students don’t need the whole AP curriculum to have a deep understanding of upper level chemistry.”
“Teachers at Crossroads let the students as a whole shape the direction of the class as opposed to dictating it themselves.”
There has been similar ferment across the curriculum as Crossroads learns to love life without AP. “Every year, teachers are feeling freer to start new classes,“ said Mitch Kohn, Chair of the English Department. “It’s raised our game across all the disciplines.” In English, the AP has been replaced by ten thematic electives, such as “Physical Illness and Madness in Literature,” “The German Avant-Garde,” and “British & American Modernism: Fragmentation, Consciousness, and the Search for Identity.” Another popular course in the series, “We Real Cool: Songs of Global & Multicultural Youth Identity,” takes its name from a Gwendolyn Brooks poem and includes authors such as Sherman Alexie, Chikewenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, and Sylvia Watanabe.
Kohn recalls the days when English in grade 12 meant AP or “regular,” the latter for all the students who were reasonably smart but not quite up to the standards of AP. The most capable students took AP because they were expected to do so for college admission. They were required to take the AP exam, but many were not motivated to do so because they knew that no college credit would be forthcoming. Without AP, the English department carefully designs its upper-level electives to represent the widest possible range of subject matter and genre. “The spectrum works really well. The students get to make choices, and they’re more invested because they want to be in the room,” said Kohn.
Students also get a larger voice in the direction of classes than is possible with the AP curriculum. According Kyle P., ’09, that input helps maintain student motivation. “If you think your teacher doesn’t care about your opinion, you tend to become lackadaisical in class,” he said. “Teachers at Crossroads let the students as a whole shape the direction of the class as opposed to dictating it themselves.” In CAS Environmental Chemistry, students might be asked whether they want to learn about nuclear power, solar power, or ethanol synthesis. No course can cover every topic in-depth, and thoroughly examining one is better than doing a quick summary of five.
In Advanced Study history classes, students get the opportunity to engage contemporary issues in a way that they never could with the AP curriculum. One such class is “The Other Side of History: How Latin Americans, Africans, and Asians Made the Modern World, 1900-present.” In January, 2009, when Israel’s incursion into Gaza was dominating world headlines, the class debated whether the attack was justified as part of its ongoing study of politics in the Islamic world. “Our teachers have a lot more ability to be spontaneous now,” said David Olds, Upper School Dean of Curriculum. “More real stuff is happening, and the kids are loving it.”
“You can apply your passion to all of your classes,” said Kyle. “And you remember what you did in class. We talk about it beyond school.”
Crossroads is also a much more student-centered school than it was with AP. Instead of preparing for one-size-fits-all exams, students now have the freedom to articulate their knowledge in active ways that interest them. When Kyle P. had an assignment on Jean-Paul Sartre for his Existentialism class, he wrote a script rather than an essay because of his longstanding interest in film-making. “You can apply your passion to all of your classes,” said Kyle. “And you remember what you did in class. We talk about it beyond school.”
To Shelley A., the bottom line is that Crossroads helps students learn about what they love – whether it be drama or chemistry. “Our classes allow you to spread out and learn what you want to learn. Everyone finds their niche and is able to immerse themselves in it.”
More information about Crossroads School.