Word: grades
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Ninth Grade...
...Ninth grade students go into more complicated chemical compounds, working on into basic geology and biochemistry, ideas of biological evolution, and of physical and cultural anthropology...
None of this material is presented in the "science is good for us" style of the typical ninth grade general science course, quite possibly the worst offering of American high schools. Instead the Walden students really participate in their education, as they seek to understand how the earth was formed and how life developed...
Astronomy receives the most attention in the eighth grade. Basic scientific concepts of space and time are presented, and the student's idea of time as something on a wristwatch is shaken when the teacher forces him to examine what he actually means by a "year." He begins to think how the ancients measured, with only rough instruments, the recurrence of the solstice, and how they had to repeat this many times to average and fix the duration of the year. By December the students are able to measure the solstice within a few days, and they understand their instruments...
They do not spend all their time on this program, of course. In the eighth grade it takes twelve fifty minute periods per week. Meanwhile the Walden students are taking a general language course which brings them the basic ideas of languages, speech, formation, cognate patterns, etc., a basic American history course including a study of current events, and an English course. Furthermore, within the science course, attention is drawn to the implications of science for society. For example, in the study of the development of the ancient idea of the year, it is shown that a stable society...