SPECIALS, ATHLETICS, ELECTIVES & MORE
DRAMA
Theater is a part of life at Marymount. From the earliest grades, students are exposed to the dramatic arts on a regular basis, whether through trips to local theaters or through regular school assemblies featuring professional actors, singers, and dancers. Theater games and improvisation are introduced in the primary grades and continue through Middle School. Traditionally, kindergarten and grade one produce their own shows at year’s end. The second and third grades are prominently featured in the school’s annual Christmas pageant. The fourth grade provides elegant narration for the school’s Martin Luther King assembly produced by the students; and the fifth grade is prominently featured in a full-scale play with sets, and props, lighting, and sound. The students from grade 6 star in a full-scale production each year tailored to their particular strengths, talents, and interests. Grades seven and eight combine forces to produce professional-quality junior productions of Broadway shows and musical revivals.
MUSIC
The joy of music is palpable at Marymount and permeates every aspect of our lives. An integral part of the curriculum in grades K-5, music classes inspire an appreciation of poetry, harmony, rhythm, movement, and all genres of vocal music and instruments from the simplest to the most complex. It is through our music program just as much as on the playing field that Marymount instills the value of ensemble work and team spirit in its students. In their music classes, songs of every historical age and style capture the hearts of the children, reinforcing history, social studies and literary lessons from the classroom. Using elements of Orff and Kodaly, adding the delight of alto and soprano recorders and distinctive the sound of “Boomwhackers,” Marymount’s children celebrate every holiday with an array of musical performances. It is music that magnifies the mystical and miraculous at Marymount’s liturgies and prayer services, and music that sustains us in our grief and loss. The 4th and 5th grade choirs have the privilege singing at First Communion, all seasonal liturgies, at the St. Francis Prayer Service for Animals and at the Marymount Graduation. Middle School students can elect to learn more contemporary styles through Marymount Soul, a small performing group, and in the musical productions of the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. At the heavily attended Halloween and Spring Sing concerts and the annual Talent Show, students of all ages seize the opportunity to perform publicly to the rapturous appreciation of their peers and the thunderous applause of their parents. It may truly be said at Marymount, “All things shall perish from under the sky. Music alone shall live, never to die,”
FINE ARTS
All Marymount primary and elementary students take regular studio art classes, exploring various studio media from paint to glass, to charcoal to clay. Art projects are intentionally geared to complement the history, science, or literature curricula at each grade level, allowing children to master and explore concepts using a variety of styles and modes of learning. Art history is a major focus for students of all ages. Middle School students are required to take at least one art offering from a wide list of electives. A yearly art show and weekly “Artist of the Week” awards provide exposure to a broad and appreciative audience for Marymount’s budding artists.
ATHLETIC PROGRAM
The Marymount athletics program is dedicated to the pursuit of individual and team goals, encouraging students to realize their highest potential as athletes and sportsmen-and-women. The program emphasizes skill development, a healthy attitude toward team competition, and good sportsmanship. In order to ensure your child’s proper physical development, Marymount continues the comprehensive physical education program begun in the primary grades. Among the sports offered in class are tennis, basketball, track, flag football, swimming, water polo, lacrosse, volleyball, soccer, hockey, team handball, and softball.
Marymount Athletics also creates opportunities for students to be introduced to a healthy and physical way of life after school. Marymount is also an active participant in the local independent school, interscholastic league. After school sports include tennis, soccer, golf, flag football, volleyball, basketball, track, water polo and surfing. By providing opportunities for students to work in team situations, the program strives to foster an understanding of the dynamics of collaborative effort and fair play.
RELIGIOUS STUDIES & LITERACY
Marymount Statement of Religious Philosophy
As an independent school with a strong religious tradition, Marymount embraces the philosophy that the students entrusted to our care are children of faith and reason as well as unique spiritual entities. This viewpoint commissions the faculty and staff to encourage each student to quest for knowledge and to fit their educational experience into a pattern of faith for daily living. The school’s historical relationship to the Catholic Church imbues the school with a commitment to address the spiritual, moral and ethical dimensions of life along with the physical and intellectual. Marymount’s religion programs and our community worship services encourage students to discover the presence of God in their own lives and to respect all religions as sources of knowledge and truth. Through our religious studies and religious literacy programs our faculty inculcates such qualities of character as courage, integrity, responsible citizenship, and a lifelong passion for learning. Since we are a school that embraces the study of religion regardless of the particular faith, Marymount is committed to serving a diverse, interfaith student body and to warmly welcoming families of all faith traditions.
The Marymount Religious Studies and Religious Literacy Programs
For Catholic families, the religious studies program embraces an inclusive and compelling approach to the Catholic faith in which students seek to understand and live their faith. The time committed to the program is consistent with the standards for religious education for elementary schools in the Diocese of Los Angeles. The Silver Burdett-Ginn textbook series Blest Are We was selected to support the school’s preference for Catholic instruction that focuses primarily on the loving, supportive, and forgiving nature of God and the needs of God’s people. These textbooks, used K-8, often correlate doctrine with the significant work in social justice undertaken by Catholics around the world today. While the text teaches the Commandments and the Sacraments, it does so in an instructional spiral over the years that assumes mastery in the long run, but does not prescribe memorization at particular grade levels; nor does it prescribe the supplemental use of the catechism in teaching Catholic dogma. Students at the primary level learn to pray individually as well as in community, using traditional prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. Grace before meals is encouraged for children of all faiths. In addition, First Friday Mass is available every month in Battistone Hall for those who wish to attend, followed by a light breakfast provided by the school.
Most families of other faiths have intentionally chosen to send their children to Marymount because of our strong religious and ethical heritage, so all non-Catholic students participate in a program of religious literacy known as Kaleidoscope. In Kindergarten and 1st Grade, Kaleidoscope and the Catholic religious studies program are entwined in one vision. All students focus together on the love of God and the beauty of God’s world. Children learn to pray and to respect the sacred space created when the community comes together for prayer or worship. Non-Catholic and Catholic students in grades 2, 3, 4, and 5 are separated most of the time for religious education so non-Catholic students need not participate in a study of Catholic sacraments and dogma. After consulting with the non-Catholic clergy of Santa Barbara and in conjunction with the Religious Studies Department at UCSB, the school developed the innovative Kaleidoscope program that explores the ten great religions of the world over a four-year period of time. In this religious literacy program students learn about the traditions, beliefs, ceremonies and artifacts of various religious traditions. Elements of the literature-based character education program Heartwood are introduced as well. Outside speakers occasionally address the students so they better understand other faiths, including both Christian and non-Christian religious traditions.
In the Middle School, Catholic and non-Catholic students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 reunite for an inter-faith study of scripture and a recently revised and enriched 8th grade comparative religions course. By the end of Grade 6 following a yearlong study of the Old Testament, all children are required to know and understand the Ten Commandments. In the 7th grade students study the New Testament and its teachings. They recognize and discuss the importance of living one’s faith and applying it to a variety of ethical and moral challenges. In our “family life” series they grapple with the moral and ethical as well as the physiological aspects of their emerging sexuality. Students in the Middle School sometimes partner with younger classes to present plays or engage the Lower School in meaningful activities exploring the nature of God, the angels, the saints both ancient and modern, and sacred scripture. Community service projects provide students the opportunity to live out their faith commitments through service to others. Prayer services enrich the religion classes, with students leading prayer services and offering special intentions for their classmates to remember in their prayers. During the Middle School years, students assume individual responsibility for their grace before meals. Both the Silver Burdett-Ginn series and a variety of other non-denominational enrichment materials form the spine of the program, allowing Catholic and non-Catholic students to share in stimulating dialogue regarding their own deeply held beliefs.
Communal prayer and worship are important elements in the life of the school. For Marymount’s Birthday, at Christmas, and for the First Communion of our 2nd graders, Catholic and non-Catholic students gather in community for Mass. On the first Friday of most months, students and their families of all denominations may attend Mass in Battistone Hall before the school day starts. In November, the Inter-Faith Thanksgiving Service unites the children with their parents and grandparents in prayer and reflection led by clergy representing several different faiths. A profoundly moving Baccalaureate ceremony at the Santa Barbara Mission in June salutes our graduates as they pass on their spirit and understanding of Marymount to the rising 8th grade class. Marymount’s Opening and Closing Circles and the weekly Monday Morning Circles provide additional times for the school to join communally in the prayer and celebration.
Marymount stands as a bastion of inter-faith understanding and community. Children leave our school with a clear sense of self, and of their personal bond with their Creator. And most importantly, regardless of their religious heritage, all Marymount graduates will have learned to respect themselves and others and to live the Great Commandment: love one another.
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Marymount students are expected to graduate with keyboard and basic computer skills, reflecting the goals of both state and national curricula in computer technology. Primary and elementary students attend regular classes in the stationary computer lab. There students learn about ethical issues and practices pertinent to technology as well as acquiring basic mastery of such productivity tools as spreadsheets, data bases, and word processors. Three computer labs are mobile, housing networked laptops that can easily migrate from room to room. Additional technology enhances both teaching and learning and includes, document cameras, Smartboard, I-Movies and a variety of interactive video technologies. Fall and spring electives offer opportunity for new Middle School students to learn more advanced techniques.
SPANISH K-8
Immersed in the heart of California’s Spanish heritage, Marymount relishes the opportunity to ensure every child’s fluency in Spanish by graduation. Ultimately, the goal of our lower-school Spanish program is to teach students an appreciation of Spanish culture and language using theme-related units and cultural activities. Students learn vocabulary and absorb the beauty of the language through an engaging variety of activities including hands-on art projects, singing and dancing, role-playing, games, and storytelling. By the elementary years, students begin to develop their writing skills along with strengthening their Spanish speaking and listening skills. A wide variety of techniques and artifacts, including the total physical response method, conversation, dictation, video, books, magazines and menus, enrich the more traditional approaches to language acquisition. In middle school, language study is intensified and rigorous, building on our substantial elementary school foundation. The Middle School Spanish program is distinguished by the introduction of new vocabulary and grammar, advanced verb conjugation, exposure to Spanish literature, and increasingly sophisticated sentence patterns. Students move through a progression of activities that lead them to age-appropriate mastery of the Spanish language and Hispanic culture.
GENERAL ELECTIVES
Marymount Middle School students have the opportunity to enhance their rigorous secondary-prep curriculum with a variety of elective courses. Electives cover a variety of academic, cultural, and practical subjects, and are designed to be both educational and enjoyable. Each Middle School student is encouraged to take at least one term each of elective art, computers, drama, and student leadership classes.
