The cornerstone of an Olney education lies in its Humanities program, which combines traditional subjects like English, History, Rhetoric, Geography, Philosophy, Art History, Linguistics, and the Social Sciences into a series of comprehensive courses centered around a central question or theme.

Olney's Humanities program aims to nurture critical thinking skills. We focus on developing writing skills, speaking effectively, listening carefully and critically, and respecting other opinions. We read a variety of books, but we also recognize that "reading" constitutes a skill that extends beyond the printed page, so we learn how to "read" texts of all kinds: films, paintings, buildings, and hairstyles. More than anything, Humanities seeks to nurture critical engagement and get students to pay attention to the world of ideas around them.

Our theme-based curriculum, in which the class is organized around a central question that is a point of departure for intellectual investigation, is designed to allow students a great deal of personal freedom in their studies while providing the needed structure to guide their work. To this end, syllabi in humanities are typically open-ended: we begin the year with a plan but leave room to deviate, explore, and engage with issues students may discover on their own.

Humanities also provides a space for skills instruction. Each grade level receives language and vocabulary instruction. Library instruction, research skills lessons, and presentation and speech practice all happen during the Humanities. Harkness, a student-led form of discussion, teaches students how to argue persuasively, use evidence to support their positions and listen critically. Students write expository, narrative, and creative pieces. Each year, students produce longer research papers, culminating in the senior graduation essay, which is a long research paper written during the students’ last term and presented to the faculty.

Students must take two credits in the humanities each year.

2.0 Credits

Freshmen Humanities covers the entirety of the ancient world, spanning from Mesopotamia to the Yellow River Valley and all the way to Central America. Students will spend their time focusing on all the different aspects that make a culture, such as art, architecture, writing, and mythology. As much ancient history has been seen through a white bias, students will also learn to look past previous assumptions to create and engage in their own ways. Students can also expect class time dedicated to researching antiquities at various online museum exhibitions and creating an overarching timeline of each civilization. Since the humanities cover history and English language arts, students will also learn note-taking skills, how to write an argumentative thesis and different types of academic papers.

2.0 Credits

Sophomore Humanities covers Western Europe's history, art, and literature between 1200 and 1800 CE, focusing on six historical eras contained within the period: the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, the Baroque, and the Enlightenment. Recently, this class has featured units on the epic, exploring the nature of kinship and culture, magic and the rise of science in the Middle Ages, and the problem of representation in Renaissance art and literature.

2.0 Credits

Junior Humanities constitutes a double-block course providing a combined credit equivalent of one English Language Arts class and one U.S. History course. In practice, however, it has always had more ambitious goals, braiding five distinct purposes into a single strand. The first goal focuses on community: sharing, listening, and developing a true sense of dialogue. The approach to history is synecdochical, emphasizing the African American experience, Native American agency, women’s and minority rights, and the environment. Students will invest much time and energy into composition, with essays of all kinds due every week or two, culminating in the fifteen-page Junior Research Essay. Students base both writing and history on a great deal of reading; students will Harkness a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction every week. Finally, inspiration doesn’t come from nowhere: there has to be space for creativity: poetry, art, curiosity, reflection, and fun.

2.0 Credits

Senior Humanities covers the period from roughly 1800 to the present. The overarching theme of Senior Humanities seeks to contextualize and explain the "present," or the complex reality seniors will face after Olney. While the precise content of the course emerges through discussion, recent units in the class have focused on game theory, collaborative narrative construction, and the concept of the "Anthropocene." This last included an attempt to understand the current moment as the result of the interaction of many different systems (economic, political, climatic, linguistic). A second, separate track includes research and drafting of the graduation essay, a year-long research project. Students select a topic they would like to research, make a pitch to the class explaining the topic and why they want to write about it and engage in extended reading and research that culminates in a 20–30-page research paper. Successful completion of the Graddy is a graduation requirement.

All mathematics courses at Olney integrate numerical and graphical approaches, and all require students to articulate what math represents verbally and/or in writing. Most students complete five courses in four years, doubling up on Geometry and Algebra 2 during their sophomore year and finishing with BC-level Calculus. Nevertheless, students who prefer to proceed at a more gentle pace receive the support they need. The earlier years develop the grammar of algebra and deductive logic, stressing the algorithmic tools that enable greater freedom in the advanced courses. At a certain point, students move on from computation to creatively producing their own math. They must earn 4 high school math credits to graduate and must complete the program through at least Algebra 2.

1.0 Credits

Students learn basic algebra skills in preparation for higher-level math courses. From real numbers and radicals to proportions and polynomials, the skills students learn in this class will serve them in all future math and many science courses. Furthermore, a solid grasp of Algebra will prove helpful in many calculations students will need to make in everyday life. Specific topics include Properties of Real Numbers, Graphing Linear Equations, Writing Linear Equations, Solving and Graphing Linear Inequalities, Systems of Equations, Exponents, Quadratic Equations, Polynomials and Factoring, and Radicals.

1.0 Credits

Geometry develops the student's deductive reasoning skills through the study of spatial relationships. The course places an emphasis on proof. Topics include introductory terminology, segments and angles, triangle congruency, parallelism, similarity, circles, and area and volume. Occasionally, students will take advantage of Olney's campus for "geometry in real life" activities.

1.0 Credits

The purpose of Algebra 2 is to increase students' level of sophistication in topics covered in Algebra 1. Material covered includes complex fractions, trigonometry, quadratic equations, imaginary numbers, direct and inverse variation, and systems of nonlinear equations. Students will practice word problems throughout the course.

1.0 Credits

The purpose of Precalculus is to prepare students for Calculus. Since Calculus demands familiarity with some pretty involved math, students will work to deepen algebraic skills in every topic covered. Students will spend the first semester exploring how to analyze and manipulate functions as a whole rather than focusing on specific values. The thrust of the second is almost entirely advanced trigonometry and how it is applied, skills that are also crucial for Calculus. Even if the student never plans to go on to higher math, math develops logic and intuition so students can line up their variables on one side of a question and get a well-reasoned response on the other.

1.0 Credits

Statistics represents the most practical math conventionally offered at the high school level. Students directly and immediately use and benefit from math every day, whether reading an ad, buying a lottery ticket, understanding a survey, or just taking a chance. Numbers can be very convincing, and a solid basis in Statistics is necessary to distinguish whether they’re being used for good or for deception. This course will cover data collection, descriptive and summary statistics, probability, distributions of one or more variables, regression, sampling and inference, and various methods of testing for good fit. Readings will include Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver. In the end, students will be 45 to 48% better equipped to meet the world.

1.0 Credits

Students slog through a lot of increasingly arcane math in high school. Calculus BC, typically the apex of the trajectory, is supposed to be the pay-off, where it all finally starts to make sense. In the first semester, students explore limits and instantaneous rates of change (differentiation). In the second, the focus shifts to adding infinite numbers of infinitesimally small quantities and accumulating change (integration). Throughout the year, students will marvel at the mysterious connection between these two unlikely pursuits. The course covers the entire AP Calculus BC curriculum in depth, including differential equations, series convergence, and function approximation. It does not include test preparation, opting to pursue other more advanced topics instead; students wishing to sit for the AP can request additional support outside of class.

1.0 Credits

In the United States, high school math is often presented as a linear progression from basic algebra to advanced Calculus, with a possible brief detour into Statistics. Convention notwithstanding, math is a wide field of study with an arbitrarily large number of possible branches any interested student might choose to pursue. In Post Calculus, students will explore four of these areas: the logic peculiar to computer coding; the empirical math that is Statistics; a seminar on Gödel, Escher, and Bach by Douglas Hofstadter that develops in an investigation of applied formal and symbolic logic; and finally Lobachevsky and other non-Euclidean geometries. The course's ambition is not to extend mathematical knowledge but to broaden and deepen it.

Olney’s location is a study in contrasts. It nestles between developed rolling farmlands and densely wooded Appalachian foothills; the campus is a source for Captina Creek—one of the last remaining clean, wild waterways in Ohio—but it is also surrounded by traditional coal mining and fracking. The Environmental Science course has long taken advantage of this setting to investigate watershed ecosystems and the impact of extractive industries on water quality and biodiversity. In the same way, the lab science program as a whole emphasizes practical lab work and hands-on, place-based learning.

Olney students must take four years of lab science. First Year students typically begin with Biology and progress to Chemistry as Sophomores. In the 2022–2023 school year, Physics will require less advanced math and will be open to all Juniors and Seniors, but either may also opt for advanced Environmental Science. Agricultural Science will be open to all.

1.0 Credits (restricted Freshmen and Sophomores)

The study of life is a study of how millions of different types of living things survive on this planet. In many ways, the strategies are the same for all organisms, so students will study what unifies all life forms—the workings of cells and the mechanics of heredity. But it’s also true that different species have very different approaches to survival, so students will have units on evolution and ecology to study how such diversity of life has arisen and how they interact. The principles students will study in the classroom will be illustrated in the fields, streams, woods, and farmland surrounding Olney.

1.0 Credits (restricted Freshmen and Sophomores)

Chemistry is the branch of science concerned with the substances of which matter is composed, the investigation of their properties and reactions, and the use of such reactions to form new substances. Concepts covered in this class include properties of matter, the periodic table, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, and organic chemistry. This will be a lab-heavy course with a focus on learning concepts through application. Some examples of labs include studying mixtures by growing crystals and studying cross-linking by making slime.

1.0 Credits (restricted to Juniors and Seniors)

Physics is the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy. The subject matter of physics includes mechanics, heat, light and other radiation, sound, electricity, magnetism, and the structure of atoms. This will be a conceptual physics course, and its mathematical concepts will be conveyed through the language of algebra and geometry. Students will focus on applications, doing projects such as building wind turbines to study electromagnetic induction and building a trebuchet to study center of gravity and rotational mechanics.

1.0 Credits (restricted to Juniors and Seniors)

Environmental Science is a culminating science course at Olney. Following Conceptual Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, it draws on and expand the students’ knowledge in these disciplines. Yet, the study of the environment is even more interdisciplinary than that. Students will learn about the interplay between economics, politics, ethics, and the sciences. They learn that solutions to environmental problems are simple and straightforward – until the human element is taken into consideration. This course's chief goal is for the student to gain greater awareness of how fragile the “human niche” in the web of life is and how their daily actions affect the environment. Students will be involved in “citizen science,” helping to establish a baseline for stream quality in our local watershed as gas and oil development becomes more prominent. In early May, selected students will have the opportunity to compete in Ohio’s Envirothon.

1.0 Credits

Agriculture is the science or practice of farming. This class will focus on sustainable agriculture and will use the school farm, greenhouse, and vegetable garden as laboratories. The class will be broken down based on seasonality and will focus on field and garden crops, greenhouse management, aquaculture, animal husbandry, and mycology.

In recent years, Olney has offered closely monitored independent studies in French, Tagalog, and Swahili, as well as classes in Japanese and Chinese. Nevertheless, the emphasis is on Spanish for those students who primarily speak English and English for those students who primarily speak other languages. Olney requires any student who is not already bilingual to take at least three years of language classes, two of which must be in the same language.

1.0 Credit per year

Spanish classes use the Comprehensible Input approach. This means students acquire language through a great deal of listening and reading in Spanish rather than consciously memorizing lists of nouns and verb conjugations. Each week, they are introduced to between three and six new high-frequency linguistic constructions. These structures are made up of the most common words in the Spanish language. Students learn many additional words in class but are only tested on the target structures. Class discussions, creative story-making, readings, videos, and other activities are used to learn and practice the structures themselves. Because of the inclusive nature of this strategy, different levels of Spanish aren’t distinguished in the conventional way: students don’t learn the present tense in the first year and then the past in the second, etc. Nevertheless, each successive year is more advanced than the last. Classes offered range from Spanish 1 to Spanish 5.

Creativity is one of our unique human attributes. Art education at Olney helps students identify and develop their individual creativity, build confidence in their ability to express their ideas and develop creative problem-solving skills. Creating art boosts critical thinking, teaching students to be more observant of their surroundings. Art education builds cultural awareness and sensitivity. The connection between art and academic achievement is well established.

Studio Art refers to electives like Drawing (observational to creative expressions in pencil, pen and ink, and marker), Painting (working in oils, acrylics, and watercolors), Photography (darkroom development and experimentation with alternative printing techniques), Mixed media (block printing, bookmaking, or paper mâché), and Ceramics and Sculpture. However, the term ‘Arts’ is applied more broadly at Olney and includes different kinds of filmmaking, theater, music, welding, and woodworking. Students are expected to take at least one or two quarter-credit art courses every year, and because it helps them achieve balance, we encourage them to take many more.

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

This course aims to help students who wish to develop their personal artistic practice through rigorous discipline. At the end of the course, students should be able to look back through their sketchbooks and measure their growth in both artistic expression and skill. Throughout the course, students will refer to their daily assignments for a jumping-off point of larger, more time-consuming projects. Examples of daily assignments are 10-minute portraits in the ballpoint pen of a classmate, architectural drawings in charcoal, and still life compositions, amongst others. Homework is usually a drawing from reference, and longer assignments are up to each student to develop.

0.50 Credits

In Digital Filmmaking, students make movies. Students learn about all aspects of film production, with an emphasis on scripting, storyboarding, visual storytelling, camera operation, film editing, and performance. Students will create a number of short, theme-based films. The final project will be a 10-minute-long narrative film produced, written, directed, edited, and performed by students around a theme connected to a Quaker value.

Questions of Conscience courses explore religion, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, peace, and social justice concerns. The school requires students to take an average of one Questions of Conscience class every year, but only one specific class is required: Quakerism. Faculty interest or student initiative dictates the rest.

0.25 Credits

While the leadership, faculty, and student body of Olney Friends School come from wonderfully diverse backgrounds, many of the school’s unique or unusual traditions and practices have developed over the course of the long history of affiliation with the Ohio Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). This single-quarter course, which satisfies the graduation requirement for Quakerism, explores the connections between Olney today and the historical Faith and Practice of Ohio Friends. Through a variety of readings and class discussions, which depend from time to time on the interests and needs of the class, we grow in our understanding of Olney, Quakerism, and our individual personal journeys.

Examples of other Questions of Conscience courses offered in the past year include:

(Usually offered once a year)

0.25 Credits

Film Studies is an elective devoted to film criticism. Students attend film screenings, participate in Harkness discussions, and produce a final paper (8 - 10 pages). Every year, the class centers around a different theme: recent classes have concentrated on women directors, French New Wave cinema, movie musicals, and the films of Studio Ghibli.

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

What is feminist literature?

Circe, by Madeline Miller, seeks to answer a couple of questions that apparently never occurred to Homer: Why did Circe, a woman and a mother as well as a goddess and a witch, change all those poor sailors into pigs anyway? And doesn’t she deserve a story, where Odysseus might appear as a minor character?

Maxine Hong Kingston explores the expectations of her Chinese immigrant mother in The Woman Warrior, and if she cannot give her long-lost aunt her name back, she can at least give her immortality.

And in The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Celie, with a little support from Shug Avery, reclaims everything in her life, including her oppressors themselves, making something out of less than nothing. This elective will be about reading books, discussing them, and drawing what inspiration we can from their example.

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

In this class, students will discuss the development of sociology and the theories of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Cooley, Mead, and Freud. Students will discuss the concept of culture and the dimensions of human development, as well as the concept of evolutionary psychology. The class will discuss the different types and elements of social interactions. Students will explore the nature of religion and the basic elements of American religion, as well as the different types of societies such as hunting and food gathering, as well as horticultural, industrial, and postindustrial societies.

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

A disturbing, flawed, and perfectly human process, in 1996, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission nevertheless gave voice to the voiceless—both victims and perpetrators—after the terrible and sustained violence of apartheid in South Africa. In some measure, it resulted in a kind of national forgiveness and has become the standard by which Transitional Justice in every part of the world is judged. This course will be a seminar based on Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog. Krog is a poet and radio reporter who covered and lived the process from beginning to end. The book is a mix of straight reporting, philosophical and political reflection, and self-analysis. It is a difficult subject and a very challenging text, but the rewards will be commensurate with effort.

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

BLM is a movement begun in 2012 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who had killed a seventeen-year-old African American named Trayvon Martin. It has since expanded to focus on all violence against African Americans, incarceration, the particular burden of black gay and trans folks, and justice for undocumented people of color. In this course, we will discuss the police killing of Black men, the historical roots of racism and how it manifests itself throughout the United States and in our daily lives today, how the Black Lives Matter movement has responded, and the backlash against it. In a word, we will explore what it means to be Black in America. Classes will be based on student presentations and discussion; texts will include Between the World and Me, by Ta-nehisi Coates.

Community Service and Practical Skills

The farm, the campus, and the surrounding areas serve as natural laboratories where students learn about life and about themselves. Olney offers many courses that change the way we perceive the physical world and our role in it. From discovering the chemistry of ice cream to preparing for the zombie apocalypse, we believe in the importance of so-called real skills. Imparting both outdoor and life skills, our practical skills curriculum offers courses in farm culture, food literacy, and nature studies, all suffused by an approach to life that embodies simplicity. Most Practical Skills courses are elective and range from Typing to Avoiding the Zombie Apocalypse. Two are required for graduation: Health and Sexuality and Financial Literacy. They are both semester courses.

0.50 Credits

In this one-semester course, students learn the principles of physical, emotional, and social health and how those three aspects overlap and interact. They discover how everyday choices affect their health, and they evaluate sources of information that inform and influence their choices.

0.50 Credits

Financial Literacy helps students engage with existing financial institutions and expectations and develop their own individualized ideals and goals when it comes to their future financial selves. This class provides background on real-life finances, such as learning about loans, to encourage students to develop a healthy relationship with their future finances, and provides different ideas and examples of ways students can engage with money, such as creating a monthly budget.

Examples of other Practical Skills courses offered in the past year include:

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

U.S. Food Science focuses on evaluating the U.S. food system from a variety of perspectives. Students will consider the biological, production, health, social, and environmental implications of food consumption. Students will also investigate the supply chains of corn, soybeans, wheat, chicken, pork, and beef in comparison to how Olney’s farm raises these products. The class will read sections from two main texts, A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System and Introduction to the US Food System: Public Health, Environment, and Equity. This class involves multiple projects, such as interviewing someone of another generation to see how food systems have changed over time, as well as a final project in which students compare heritage roosters to the industrial standard meat breed by observing and recording their growth and weight, butchering, and preparing them for a school meal.

(Sample class; may not be offered)

0.25 Credits

This course seeks to facilitate the student’s own creative writing endeavors. The subject matter of the class is driven by what the students seek from it. While this class is tailored towards building a story, that is certainly not the only type of creative writing, and they can pursue the form that fulfills them. This is a heavily student-guided class. Topics covered in this course will include but are not limited to worldbuilding, character development, scene writing, application of literary devices, pacing, and narrative structure.

With the exception of Humanities, completion of a class is worth 0.25 credits per term (Humanities is double).
Graduation requirements include the following minimum credit distribution: