STEM Or Humanities: How Balanced Is The Athenian Curriculum?

In looking at the Athenian school based on surface factors–the course catalog, a driven set of STEM-interested students on campus, and a successful robotics team–Athenian may seem like a STEM-focused school. However, most of those on campus do not accept a binary view of the curriculum, rather suggesting that the school is a combination of both. 

Based solely on the course catalog, there are significant differences in the course offerings for STEM courses and their humanities counterparts. However, the basic circumstances for STEM and humanities classes are similar: both have required classes for underclassmen, both have very few AP classes, and honors classes are largely available to upperclassmen in both focuses. 

Many science courses (not honors) are required for students, and students are not able to skip any math or science courses through their years at Athenian. There are a few AP math courses offered, such as AP Calculus AB and BC, but none in science. And there are honors science courses offered to upperclassmen. However, since students cannot skip courses, they are not allowed to take all the honors science classes before they graduate. 

In humanities, there are not many AP courses available, with foreign languages as the exception, but there are various honors seminars available to upperclassmen. Ninth and tenth graders are required to take World and US Literature, along with World and US History. There are three world languages available at Athenian, all with AP courses offered.

However, at Athenian, a STEM course is never simply STEM-based and a humanities class isn’t always just literature, history, language, or the arts. Math may consist of writing, reading, and often, analysis that we learn from our own literature classes, and an arts class could very well incorporate scientific principles. 

Recently, students have been bringing up that the new math grading system for Precalculus and Precalculus honors has encouraged students to show their thinking clearly and completely in order to fulfill the “leaps of logic” criteria that evaluate a student's logical explanation on problems. This has shown students that in order to complete that requirement, students must write complete sentences explaining their thought flow. Chemistry and Biology labs are also weighted heavily and are composed of almost all writing. 

STEM ideas have also been incorporated into humanities classes, with scientific principles being applied to the Psychology seminar (a humanities course), the Current Events class (finding statistics through various news sources), and even the economics seminars analyzing numbers. This ideal continues throughout the curriculum, and does not leave one class as simply STEM or humanities, but rather, incorporates both, providing a plethora of thought diversity in the Athenian curriculum.

Gabe Del Real, current Academic Dean for 20 years and Humanities teacher, labels Athenian students as having access to a different type of education than other schools in the Bay Area. Previously, Del Real was The Dean of Curriculum and Academic Coordinator.

“Usually people see schools as the preparation for college and employment-like training,” he says “but [Athenian does not see their] students as functionary, but as a whole human being in process,” Del Real said.

He reveals that many people, including him, often see discipline–when referring to a field of academic study–as important to a student’s ability to function, but have largely different definitions of what it means to achieve this discipline, and further, what this discipline is. 

Gabe says, “People tend to consider academic disciplines as discrete and unrelated, whereas Athenian believes that these disciplines are all related.” 

Del Real suggested that providing a well-rounded education to students helps them build their character and their thought processes, while also shedding light on their futures and passions.

“Athenian’s fundamental vision of a human being makes Athenian different,” Del Real said. “Athenian has its own unique education goals.” 

By refusing to label itself as either a humanities-focused or a STEM-focused school, Athenian reinforces experiential and hands-on learning and demonstrates that learning here is different from learning at other schools. Athenian offers opportunities for students to follow through with their own goals, while providing a rigorous curriculum for each student to experience a well-rounded education.