Tutorials

The Tutorial program allows boys in Class I to pursue for credit (and in lieu of a regular course) academic interests not included in the school’s regular course offerings. If a boy in the senior class has such an interest, he seeks out a teacher who shares it and who is willing to mentor him. The student and his faculty tutor then plan a course of study and propose it to the Director of Studies and the Curriculum Committee. If they approve the proposal, the tutorial becomes the boy’s fifth major course. Since a tutorial requires a student to assume more responsibility for his own learning than does a normal course, and since it is in a field of the student’s special interest, exceptional commitment and rigor are expected. Tutorials approved in recent years include: Classical and Modern Philosophy, Creative Writing, The Iliad, Dante’s Inferno, The Twentieth-Century Novel, Eastern Religious Thought, Molecular Biology, Differential Equations, Basics of Psychology, Melville’s Moby Dick, Masterpieces of Classical Music, and American Foreign Policy. The Tutorial program has also allowed members of Class I to pursue advanced study at nearby colleges and universities.