The world is transforming and so are academics at Trinity-Pawling School. Our year is off to a great start with exciting new academic initiatives being rolled out, which embrace experiential learning practices. The Practicum for Civic Leadership is an initiative launched by Headmaster Bill Taylor as a way of challenging students to engage with the world around them while developing essential 21st century skills.
Trinity-Pawling recognizes that involvement in one’s community – at the local, national, and global level – requires certain leadership skills not traditionally taught in the classroom. The Practicum for Civic Leadership is designed to allow students to learn and practice leadership skills ranging from working collaboratively to conducting independent research to publicly presenting work.
The Practicum is a new graduation requirement that culminates in students’ junior and senior years. Students will consider their interests and passions, and through The Practicum will engage with the world in ways that will promote deeper awareness, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.
Winter Project – Freshman through Senior Year: Every student works on a Winter Project each year. The students select from a broad range of interdisciplinary course offerings and pair with two teachers (one from each discipline) on a project that requires using the tools from both disciplines. Students are also allowed to design their own projects.
Global Collaborative Challenge – Junior Year: In the spring term the entire junior class is placed into random groups of five. Each group is assigned a global issue and then presents a solution to the issue in a twelve-minute collaborative presentation to a group of faculty. The group is graded on its ability to address the enormity of the global topic, the depth of research, the quality of the presentation, the collaborative nature of the presentation, and the group’s defense of its presentation.
Senior Independent Project (SIP) – Senior Year: During the summer before senior year, each senior will work on an independent area of interest, whereby he is linked with an alumnus or friend of the School with the same area of expertise. With his mentor, he will explore a specific topic in great detail. This project consists of an oral presentation as well as a final presentation to the entire school using an alternative medium such as a chapel talk, newspaper article, or Trinity-Pawling Ted Talk.
SIP Mentors are alumni, parents, and friends of Trinity-Pawling School. Students will be matched with Trinity-Pawling community members across the country and around the world who have similar interests in a student’s intended area of research. Mentors may provide advice and relay personal experience from their own career or avocation to help students hone their own unique set of skills. Every student has the opportunity to develop his own set of questions related to his area of research to help drive the conversation and collaboration with his mentor.
Through the The Practicum, Trinity-Pawling graduates gain a better sense of who they are and where they stand in the midst of an ever-changing world. The Practicum allows students to explore their passions, figure out how they relate to others, and create an artifact of their experience. This program encourages our students to be engaged, interested, and aware citizens of the world.