Gravitas: A Global Extension of The Stony Brook School

The Gravitas curriculum is The Stony Brook School curriculum, built for online.

As a Gravitas student, you will take four rigorous courses at a time, allowing you to dive deeply into what you are learning instead of juggling all of the courses for the academic year at once. You can attend live online class at times that fit your schedule and complete coursework when it’s most convenient for you.

You will take math, world language, and some elective courses over the course of the academic year and intensive courses in eleven-week blocks, one at a time. Your intensive courses will take approximately three hours per day, with about 80 minutes devoted to live instruction and discussion with your classmates.

The online Middle School academic program equips students for success as Gravitas high school students by teaching them how to become good learners and critical thinkers. Gravitas teachers work with Middle School students to help them reason, read, listen, write, and speak effectively. The core program includes Ancient and Modern World History, project-based Science classes we call STEM 7 and 8, and English courses that focus on reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary. Middle School students take their math and Spanish classes at their ability level, so some of their classes will count toward the High School transcript. Additionally, Middle School students take online courses in Bible and the Arts to round out their learning experience.

The online High School academic program consists of major intensive courses in Humanities, English, and Science, year-long courses in Math and Spanish, and once-per-week minor courses in Character Formation, Health and Human Flourishing, the Arts, Economics, and Theology. Additionally, students can take courses in the Gravitas Passion Academies, which allow students to go deep in highly marketable and intrinsically interesting areas of study. In each Academy, students can take sequenced clusters of elective courses, mostly project-based, which together equip them to do amazing things in a focused area of passion.

All of the online courses in Gravitas are intentionally designed and integrated with one another so that students will continuously deepen their understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness as they study what we call the wisdom questions: questions about God, the natural world, human nature, virtue and vice, and individual and communal flourishing.

Upon graduation from Gravitas, after working diligently and maximizing your opportunities, you will be ready to take on the intellectual challenges of academics at the top colleges and universities in the world. You will also be stronger in character and have a greater sense of your particular gifts, passions, and purpose.