Academic Goals

1. Bishop Quinn High School is a unique faith-centered community where students learn to integrate their thinking and believing in ways that encourage intellectual growth, nurture faith, and inspire action. To this end, the academic program at Bishop Quinn will:

• Create opportunities for students to reflect on the relationship between faith and reason in all disciplines
• Inspire action to be agents of change and to support the dignity of all
• Consider ethical implications
• Seek truth and facilitate the formation of conscience through critical thinking

2. The academic program at Bishop Quinn will engage students in the authentic work of professionals in each discipline:

• Students will learn from teachers who have attained mastery in pedagogy and in the specific discipline they teach.
• Students will learn key precepts and facts necessary to engage in the work of the discipline.
• Students will engage in thinking and communicating about the key issues and ongoing academic conversations of each discipline.

3. The academic program at Bishop Quinn will teach students to adopt an educated person’s habits of mind, including the vital practices of intellectual curiosity and critical thinking. The curriculum and instruction are designed to foster the following:

• Complex thinking - Students will learn to process information at multiple levels of complexity; they will draw connections among the intricate interrelationships that exist within and among disciplines.
• Emotional investment - Topics of study will be taught in ways that encourage personal investment or emotional involvement from the students.
• Intellectual courage - Students will confront central problems that challenge common concepts, beliefs, and opinions.
• Intellectual Curiosity and Perseverance - Students will learn to ask challenging, incisive questions, and to seek answers through inquiry; they will pursue intellectual insights and truths despite difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations.
• Empathy - Students will develop the habit of considering multiple perspectives fairly and sympathetically, including multicultural points of view.
• Intellectual Humility - Students will learn to recognize the limits of their own perspectives and inquiries, and will reflect on the meaning and relevance of what they can know and what they can’t; that is, they will be aware of the limits of their own knowledge.
• Intellectual Integrity: - Students will recognize the need to be consistent in the intellectual standards one applies, to hold one’s self to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one’s antagonists.

4. The academic program at Bishop Quinn will offer students an unparalleled education in writing and communication, through opportunities to:

• Write within the authentic parameters of each academic discipline
• Write to examine their own thinking, to create, and to communicate ideas to others
• Use writing as a process (e.g., conduct research, plan, revise, edit)
• Reflect upon and evaluate their own communication and that of others
• Publish their written work within the classroom and for broader audiences
• Perform (e.g., debate, essay contests, Science Olympiad, mock trial, speeches)
• Understand and use technology effectively to persuade, express themselves artistically, and to communicate information

5. The academic program at Bishop Quinn will foster the expectation that students will put their intellect and talents to work in the service of others in various contexts:

• In every way they are able, students will be expected to be the teachers of their peers.
• Students will be encouraged to offer their academic gifts to those outside the BQHS community.
• Students will consider and take seriously ways in which their education affects their own future, the future of their communities, and the well being of the world.