Academics
We ask our students to expect a lot of their coursework, their
teachers, and themselves. Our academic program is organized around
required courses that aim to give every one of our graduates:
- the ability to write clear, forceful English, and wide experience in literature and the art of reading;
- a thorough grounding in mathematics and the natural sciences;
- a historical perspective on human affairs;
- mastery of at least one foreign language; and
- extensive involvement in the making of art.
In pursuing these goals, our students learn skills they will use
all their lives: how to seize upon what is most important in what they
read, how to solve a problem, how to listen to others, how to frame a
persuasive argument, how to organize their time.
Almost all courses at Commonwealth are accelerated; almost every
junior and senior core course prepares students for an Advanced
Placement exam for college credit. At the same time, courses are
primarily the creation of the teachers who give them. Juniors and
seniors, who have a wider range of electives from which to choose, can
follow personal interests to a very high level in advanced half- and
full-credit courses. Constitutional law and linear algebra are among
the electives we regularly offer, and in the last two years alone,
teachers have developed new courses in
environmental biology, organic
chemistry, and
Japanese history partly at the request of students.
All students take at least one art course every year; most take
more. Other requirements for graduation include sports, community
service, two half-credit courses in
ethics and one on the city of
Boston, and an independent
project or internship each spring.
