Academics & Curriculum Overview (pdf file)

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From 1st Grade through 12th Grade, all of the NHHSA℠ curricula incorporate four principle core subjects and three academic disciplines essential to scholastic achievement:

Independent Study

NHHSA individualizes the vast majority of its study programs into a personalized curriculum format designed to meet the developmental and educational needs of each student, while addressing both all core subjects and academic disciplines and state requirements for formal education.   Although this serves a number of purposes, chief among these is the fact that the program tailors to the student rather than having the student force-fitted to the program.

The formula that accomplishes this is simple:

Individual Student  +  Grade Level   +   Personal & Academic Ability =  Personal Curriculum

Yes, this formula absolutely violates the one-size-fits-all method of public school teaching, but it positively serves the student’s present and future ability to achieve academic success.

Students are provided with their individualized education program via a detailed course outline which we call a checksheet (named for the student’s act of checking off assignments as they are completed and turned in).

Functionally speaking, a checksheet is a comprehensive listing that charts course assignments for each subject given, to be carried out over a month’s period of time.   It is easy to understand and easy to follow, and it organizes a student’s tasks in a way that makes progressive learning attainable.

Creative Academics

NHHSA students also participate in group forums for learning enhancement and creative arts classes that include Art & Architecture, Musical Arts, and Traditional Martial Arts / Character Development.

Group forums encourage students to become actively involved in the exchange of knowledge using either creative presentations or instructional discussion.  Though non-traditional and a direct contradiction of the “only-a-teacher-knows” education model practiced in most public and private institutions, these forums literally Bring Education to Life.  They:

1. Inspire the exercise of skills learned;
2. Allow a student to be an active participant in her/his own education;
3. Advance a student’s confidence in the material being studied;
4. Develop patterns for healthy discourse;
5. Promote responsibility both for what has been learned and for helping others learn;
6. Encourage maturity in the process of learning;
7. Help integrate the material being learned with the function of a student’s life, and
8. Heighten a student’s desire to learn and know more.

Creative arts classes open doors to creative thinking.  Ken Robinson, Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation, and human potential who advises governments, corporations, education systems, and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations, has this to say about creativity:

“Creative thinking involves much more than the sorts of logical, linear thinking that dominate the Western view of intelligence, and especially education….Being creative is about making fresh connections so that we see things in new ways and from different perspectives.  In logical, linear thinking, we move from one idea to another through a series of rules and conventions….[But] creative insights often come in nonlinear ways, through seeing connections and similarities between things that we hadn’t noticed before.”

NHHSA views classes in the creative arts not only as vital to the development of young learners in general, but as a coalescing mediator that successfully bridges the gap between the convention of logical thinking and the innovation of creativity.